Bateman Engineering

Back when I was still in the alarm system business, I happened to hear from a friend that Bateman Engineering, which at the time was based in the Krayot (the suburbs north of Haifa), was about to order a large and very expensive alarm system for its entire building.

From the information I gathered, I learned that Bateman was already talking to Amnut Electronics about it (a tough competitor of mine back then) and had in fact already given them the OK; they just hadn't issued a formal purchase order yet.

I also understood that Amnut had proposed a technical solution based on an active infrared detector, which sends an infrared beam along the big windows they had there, and that Bateman's managers were especially excited by the fact that Amnut was the only company at the time with an alarm monitoring and response center (a center that dispatches a team the moment a break-in alert comes in).

I managed to get myself a meeting by playing on their curiosity, and as soon as I arrived I could tell that Bateman's managers wanted my technical solution and my price only to confirm the agreement in principle they already had with Amnut.

I did a walk-through of the site with them, notepad and pencil in hand. I asked a lot of professional questions... and then announced, "At first glance, what this place calls for is a system based on active infrared along the windows!"... I could see Bateman's managers exchanging satisfied smiles, but after a short pause I added, "Although, on second thought, the question is whether it would actually be effective...

"If you had small windows here, active infrared would definitely be the answer, but these windows are very tall. If we put the beam low, they'll go over it, and if we put it high, they'll go under it..." "Besides," I added, "a business like yours isn't going to attract amateurs looking for cash. You'll get professional burglars who come to steal computers and expensive equipment to order. They don't need to climb a ladder and come in through the windows. They can simply break into the bakery next door at night, knock out one of the blocks in the shared wall with a car jack and walk right in, and active infrared isn't designed to catch that!"

"So what do you suggest?" they asked.

Now I knew I'd managed to pull the rug out from under Amnut's technical solution and to weaken the professional standing of whoever had been there before me and come up with it...

This is where the alternative came in: "The simplest and most professionally sound option is to put a volumetric detector in the middle of the room (back then it was called a microwave detector, today it's passive infrared). It will 'see' the entire hall, and as far as I'm concerned they can come in through the ceiling!" I said. "You also won't need to run long, ugly wiring all around the hall," I added.

Bateman's managers invited me into their office and started firing a barrage of questions at me: "Tell us, do you have a monitoring and response center???"

"Unfortunately not," I replied. "A center like that can be a decent solution if it's located close to the break-in. But our company is in central Haifa (Amnut was also on HaNevi'im Street in Haifa...). It took me over half an hour to get from the office to you, and I have to ask myself whether it makes sense to rely on a team that's so far away to save your business!?"

"So what do we do?" they asked.

"We add an automatic dialer to the system that notifies three employees about the break-in in real time, and they can call the police, who in your case happen to be right across the road!" I said.

"OK, what's the price of your system?" they asked.

I pulled out my calculator and, after some complicated calculations, named a price I knew was higher than Amnut's (it had to be higher, otherwise they wouldn't have believed my technical solution was better).

They conferred briefly and asked for a 5% discount...

"I'm sorry," I said firmly. "Our prices are fixed..." But since I had no intention whatsoever of leaving without an order and handing the stage back to Amnut, after a long pause I added, "Then again, I'm only a sales rep. I'll call the CEO and ask him to step in" (a "third-party close," as the technique is called). I called the CEO right there in front of them, gave him the details of the deal and added, "And the customer has asked for a 5% discount, so I'm passing the decision to you..."

"Give it to them, you idiot!" he screamed into the receiver, and I was sure they'd heard it... but I answered him politely, "Thank you, they'll be happy to hear you approved it!"...

Then and there, they signed an order that I wrote up myself on the spot.

So why, unlike in my other stories, am I naming the client here?

Because about 12 years later I ran two sales courses at Bateman Engineering (which by then had moved to Yokneam), and in both courses I told them this story in exactly as much detail as above...

They took it with a lot of love. There's a statute of limitations!

The moral:

The main thing that decided this deal was choosing a different solution from the competitor's. Most salespeople get dragged along behind the solution the customer dictates, usually the one offered by the competitor who got there first, and focus on trying to come in with a more attractive price...

That's a big risk. Sometimes whoever got there before us has already won the customer's trust, and a small difference in price won't be enough to beat him. If, on the other hand, you present an alternative solution, especially one that does the job better, you no longer need to stick close to the competitor's price. And in the process, the competitor comes across as less professional...