Gary Miller here, fresh off what I thought was going to be my triumphant presentation at MegaCorp Industries. (Spoiler: it wasn’t.)
So there I was, standing in the marble lobby of their downtown headquarters, clutching my laptop bag like it contained the secrets of the universe instead of a slightly outdated PowerPoint deck and a half-eaten protein bar. I’d been working this deal for three months – not my longest sales cycle by any stretch, but long enough that I’d started mentally spending my commission check. You know how it is.
I’m doing my usual pre-meeting ritual – checking my phone for the thousandth time, straightening my tie that never sits quite right, and running through my opening lines in my head – when I hear this familiar voice behind me.
“Well, well, well. Gary Miller.”
I turn around and there’s Brad fucking Henderson from CompetitorCorp, looking like he just stepped out of a sales training video. Perfect suit, perfect smile, perfect everything. Of course.
“Brad,” I say, trying to sound casual while my stomach drops into my shoes. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”
He grins that shit-eating grin of his. “Oh, you know, just a little enterprise sales presentation. Nothing too fancy.” He adjusts his cufflinks. Actual cufflinks. Who wears cufflinks to a Tuesday afternoon meeting?
“Right, right,” I nod, like an idiot. “Same here, actually.”
The silence stretches between us like a bad cold call. I’m standing there trying to figure out if this is some cosmic joke or if my sales process has a leak somewhere. Our CRM had been acting up again last week – maybe something got out? Or maybe their outreach just happened to hit at the same time as mine. These things happen in B2B sales, right? (Right?)
“So,” Brad says, checking his Apple Watch (of course he has an Apple Watch), “what time’s your meeting?”
“Two-thirty,” I say, before I can stop myself. Why did I tell him that? Now he knows exactly when I’m going in.
“Ah, interesting. I’m at three.” He’s still smiling, but there’s something predatory about it now. “Guess we’ll see who they like better.”
I force a laugh. “May the best man win, I suppose.”
“Indeed,” he says, and I immediately regret saying something so cliché. This is why I’m the Average Sales Guy and not the Smooth Sales Guy.
The receptionist – a pleasant woman named Karen who I’d been building rapport with over the past few months – walks over to us. “Mr. Miller? They’re ready for you upstairs.”
“Great, thanks Karen,” I say, trying to project confidence while internally screaming. As I’m walking toward the elevator, I hear Brad behind me.
“Karen, is it? I’m Brad Henderson from CompetitorCorp. I have a three o’clock with the team.”
I want to turn around and say something clever, something that would establish dominance or at least make me look less like a deer in headlights. Instead, I just wave awkwardly and step into the elevator.
The presentation itself? Well, let’s just say knowing your competition is literally waiting downstairs doesn’t exactly help your confidence. Every time I mentioned a feature or benefit, I found myself wondering if Brad had something better. When they asked about pricing, I could practically hear his voice in my head talking about their “competitive advantages.”
Halfway through my demo, the CRM software I was showing them froze. Just completely locked up. I’m sitting there clicking frantically while five executives stare at me, and all I can think about is how Brad probably has some slick, cloud-based solution that never crashes.
“Technical difficulties,” I say with a nervous laugh. “This usually works perfectly.” (It doesn’t.)
After what felt like an eternity, I got it working again and stumbled through the rest of my pitch. The questions were fine, the handshakes were firm, and they said all the right things about “following up soon” and “very impressed with what we’ve seen.” You know, the usual non-committal pleasantries that could mean anything from “you’ve got the deal” to “we’re going with the other guy.”
As I’m leaving, I pass Brad in the lobby again. He’s got that same confident smile, but now he’s also got a coffee from their executive break room – the good stuff they only bring out for important meetings.
“How’d it go?” he asks, like we’re old friends.
“Good, good,” I lie. “Really good reception to our solution.”
“That’s great to hear. Competition keeps us all sharp, right?”
“Absolutely,” I say, wondering if there’s a sales training course on how to not sound like a complete amateur when you run into your competition.
I found out two weeks later that MegaCorp went with CompetitorCorp. The feedback was that while our solution was “solid,” they felt Brad’s company offered “more innovative features and better reliability.” Naturally.
The worst part? I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t known Brad was there, I might have actually nailed that presentation. But that’s the thing about enterprise sales – sometimes the universe just decides to test how well you handle pressure, and sometimes you discover that your answer is “not particularly well.”
Anyway, that’s sales for you. Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug, and sometimes you’re the bug who has to watch the windshield get cleaned right after you splat.
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