Within the past few weeks I have received two sales calls from vendors.  This in itself isn’t too unusual because when I attend industry conferences I often sign up to get additional information.  I never indicate that I have BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, or Timing) so my requests always go to the bottom of the follow-up list.  Thankfully, I am rarely called by a sales person so I don’t have to explain that I am in product management and will never purchase one of their products.

These last two calls were unusual, not just because someone called me and they usually don’t.  Last week, an IBM representative followed up on a information request I made six months ago. He just wanted to make sure that I received what I requested.  Earlier this week, a Hitachi rep followed up on an information request I made in April, 2008 — eleven months ago.  He just wanted to answer any questions I might have had.

Times must be pretty tough for these vendors to work their way down to leads from me that are 6-11 months old.  I felt like telling them that I purchased $1,000,000 of competitive product just last week and wished they would have called a few weeks sooner.  However, these tough economic times justify a little sympathy.

Add new tag, Virtual Product Management

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 7:21 am and is filed under Industry, Virtual Product Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.