Top Sales Bloopers

Sales folks have a tough job. The cold calls, the wine, whine, and dine, and the ego stroking. However, recently I was on a call when a Sales person put their foot in their mouth. Which prompted me to ask - in my best Seinfeld impersonation: “...and what’s with all these Sales people anyway?” Let me tell you what I have seen and heard:

• Sales person starting the call with, “We are very excited to partner with your company, it is an important initiative to us to be able to work with: Then he mentions your competitor’s name.
• Your EMR vendor’s sales person is very excited about the fact that you saw the latest demo for one of their modules. You invite them to make a presentation to senior leadership. They are in the board room and half way through the presentation they are asked about how exactly it will integrate with your version of their software. “Oh easily, you would have to update to our new application offering and purchase all new servers.”   
• The sales person promises an integrated solution that will seamlessly integrate with all products. Then when you start scoping the project you find out that they cannot “guarantee” any integration since it will partly depend on other vendors.
• The Sales Person at the convention booth is very excited about your visit, and says that they have done installs with an organization your size.  A few weeks later you’re on a call with their implementation team and find out that they have never done a project that size and are just a start up.
• The CEO of a major software vendor (which is part sales person) states that you are important and the largest client in the geography.  He promises that he will be back with you in 24 hours. Two week s later you have to reach out to them.
• You’re interested in their new Practice Management module and ask the sales person to set up a call with their Subject Matter Expert. You dial into the call and hear a long series of beeps as ten people from the software vendor and (surprise!) their 3^rd party provider joins the call. 
• Sales guy invites himself to a table for lunch during a regional user’s group meeting. He starts talking about his product and how it is much better than “XYZ” software product. Finally he takes a breath and asks were everyone is from. Half through the introductions, one of the people at the table says, “Hi, I am from XYZ software.”
• Then there are the proposals you receive and half through reading it you notice that another customer’s name is on it.

Let’s hear your “Hall of Shame” stories.