36 Weeks Before Glue Works, Inc. Purchase Order Case Study

36 Weeks Before Glue Works, Inc. Purchase Order Case Study

This is a week-by-week case study of four salespeople

  • Amy Gatherer,
  • Ben Farmer,
  • Carla Hunter,
  • and Dave Trapper

as they sell to Glue Works, Inc.

Each week, these individual salespeople present the status of their territories to their managers. We will focus on their discussions of selling to Glue Works.

If you have joined this case study in mid-campaign, we encourage you to go back to the opening video where the description of the challenge is laid out. We then encourage you to continue from the beginning.

We hope that you enjoy this case study and you learn some valuable skills. To interpret what each salesperson is doing correctly or incorrectly, we suggest that you read the book Eliminate Your Competition which is available wherever books are sold as paperbacks or ebooks.

Case Study – Glue Works, Inc – 36 weeks before the order

Transcript of the video

Amy Gatherer meets with her manager every Monday morning, and the subject of Glue Works comes up weekly. She details the consulting orders that she is billing, some personnel problems with the various onsite consultants, and a customer event that she recently hosted with some Glue Works executives. The status of Glue Works as a customer continues to be very profitable and the outlook is quite positive. 

The subject of selling the new artificial intelligence (AI) tool to Glue Works doesn’t come up. Her manager is pleased with Glue Works but is a bit distressed that Amy just had a 90% drop in billings at a different customer, ABC Plane Parts. ABC Plane Parts selected Premium Software. Amy explained her plan to her manager. “I think I can increase my billings at Glue Works by taking some new business away from DayDream Consulting to offset the decrease in revenue from ABC Plane Parts.”

Ben Farmer also talks to his manager every Monday, but his conversation occurs in the afternoon, as he has appointments on Monday morning. When the subject turns to Glue Works, Ben tells his manager, “Steve and Alice are loving what we are doing. They are pretty adamant that they don’t want to switch to Everything Consulting, even though there is some pressure from executive management. I think this initial consulting order will be successful, and we will grow that relationship, but we may have to drop our price to keep Everything Consulting out.” 

When asked about selling the artificial intelligence-based product, Ben replies, “Glue Works is a solid, old-fashioned company that values human relationships. I don’t think they are going to go for the new stuff.” 

Finally, Ben’s manager asks if he had heard the rumor about ABC Plane Parts buying artificial intelligence-based software. Ben replies, “That doesn’t surprise me. I am not close to anyone there. I know one guy in the human resources department, but we are not very close. I have tried to invite him to golf and various sports events around town, and he is never really interested. They seem to be much more cutting edge and hard charging. I will look into the rumor.” Ben will look into the rumor, but he will never tell his manager what happened unless asked again. Ben subscribes to the theory that salespeople should only tell management about bad news when it is absolutely necessary.

Carla Hunter’s meeting with her manager was filled with frustration. Carla had spent a lot of time over the last ten to twelve weeks at ABC Plane Parts but had come up short on a decision they recently made. She and her manager complained that the customer obviously made the wrong decision, even when given a massive last-minute discount. By the end of the conversation, they concluded that Focused Software was never given a fair shot at the business and it was wired for Premium Software from the beginning.

Carla and her manager never discussed Glue Works, as she has never made a call there and isn’t aware of any reason to discuss the account. She did mention several RFPs that she was responding to with the help of her inside sales team and her technical team.

Dave Trapper’s meeting with his manager is more of a celebration than an account review. Dave, his extended team, and the management team just closed a very large sale at ABC Plane Parts. Much of the meeting was spent talking about that successful campaign, with appropriate congratulations to all of the team members who contributed to the success. 

The meeting ended with Dave’s manager starting to think ahead. “Great job on the deal! I hate to go straight to business but you are on a bit of a streak right now, and we need to keep building on that momentum. Let’s skip the discussion on Glue Works, Suncar Auto, Spinning Energy, Four Star Homes, and Hot Food Restaurants for this week. We can focus on those next week. My treat for lunch today at Tony’s Steakhouse.”

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