Stylized line drawing of mark playing the flute

How not to make a sale

Several jobs ago, I was working for a company that had to move offices. Since I was managing the servers and frontline support, I had to be involved in discussions with various moving companies to make sure they could handle moving our equipment properly[^1].

Most of the moving companies were fairly reasonable but one really stood out for how badly he bungled the sales pitch.

First of all, he showed up in an incredibly shitty looking suit that was way too big. He was a young guy so I'm assuming he was just inexperienced and wanted to look professional. He would've been better off just going business casual.

But the worst was when he started talking about the movers themselves. It went something like this:

We have great guys. We drug test all of them regularly. When they show up for the day, we make sure everyone is sober and showered before sending them out to a job.

And so on.

Seriously?

You'd better damn well do all of those things. The fact that you have to mention them means that, at least once, those things weren't checked.

That's like a motel that advertises "Clean Rooms" and "Air Conditioning".

So, yeah, we didn't go with that moving company.

[^1]: In the end, I just drove all of the servers to the new office in the back of my van.