As I Recall

Short Devotionals from a Long Career

You’d give up a quarter-million-dollar sale?

(Matthew 5:37)

 In my working career, 36 years long, I was employed by a massive international company and eventually was given sales responsibility for a tiny sliver of products and customers in the public safety sector.  I dealt with emergency communications services for local governments, beginning with the Kansas territory as early as 1984 and eventually expanding to about half the U.S. by the time I retired.

“Public safety” is the correct term, because virtually every change that is implemented, done right or done wrong, will very publicly make the local evening news. There was always the need to balance company goals (obtain revenue growth, avoid bad press) with customer service (is the jurisdiction served well by this sale), and user service (are the citizens who need help served well by it).

The nature of the business required that strict routine maintenance be performed on critical customer-located infrastructure, including servers, routers and other electronic equipment.

Maintenance costs money, of course, and in one case I ran into a county attorney who was negotiating a contract with us for a $250,000 purchase of equipment. When I met with him in his office to obtain the signed contract, he objected to the accompanying maintenance agreement. In the deal, he was purchasing the equipment outright for cash, but the ongoing maintenance was $9,000 per year for five years, included in a separate attachment.

“I’ll buy your system,” he said, “but we will not require the maintenance contract.”

“No maintenance contract?” I asked. “Why would you not want to maintain it? It’s critical service requiring ‘always-on’ 24/7/365 uptime.”

“There is a back-up system in your proposal,” he replied. “It’s built into the price. If “A” fails, “B” takes over. We don’t need maintenance until one of them fails.”

“Right,” I said, frowning. “So, your plan is to call our service center to report the failure of “A,” and let us come to your site to fix it?”

“Correct. Since you have people available around the clock, we will pay only for the service we need, if we in fact ever need it.”

“And you will expect us to do that, even if, say, the first failure occurs two years from now, and we have not surveyed the equipment, cleaned the dust out of the cabinets, or done any diagnostic checks in the meantime?”

“Look,” he said, a little exasperated. “I bought a maintenance contract on this digital telephone system sitting on my desk –“ he gestured to a wireline phone close at hand – “and we have never needed any maintenance on it at all.” He shook his head and frowned furiously. “These maintenance contracts are worthless. The County would much rather pay as we go.”

“With respect, sir,” I said, “your office voice telephone system is hardly considered a critical service in the same way your citizen emergency communications system is. Not to mention, the emergency installation is a highly complex system. That’s why it costs $250,000 rather than the $15,000 you may have spent on your office phones. Furthermore,” I went on, even though he was shaking his head, “our maintenance contract proposes that qualified technicians visit your site once a quarter to ensure levels are correct and there are no error codes. We cannot guarantee good service to your people or to your citizens without those periodic reviews.”

He was frustrated. “Okay, then,” he said. “Let’s dispense with the maintenance contract, and we will call your service center once every three months, ask you to come to perform the review, and we will pay as we go. How’s that?”

“Would that call be made by your local public safety director?”

“Yes, it would,” he declared, “and you know Jimmy. He’s a good man and won’t forget.”

“I do, and I agree he would not forget. But has Jimmy ever had budget constraints in his shop?”

He glared at me. “This is county government! Everybody has budget constraints!” he snapped. “You know that!”

“So what’s the first thing to cut when he’s over budget? You see, sir,” I said, “your plan presumes too much on uncertain funding and unwritten guidelines. What will likely happen, is that the system will work fine for many months, then Jimmy will experience budget shortfalls, and we will end up with a service outage and no maintenance history. That,” I concluded, “puts your citizens at risk, and our company is not too excited about putting them at risk.”

“But when “A” fails, we still have “B” operating,” he said with a note of triumph. “That solves the problem.”

“Yes, assuming “B” is in working order. But if we have not checked it in a couple of years, nobody really knows if it will kick in when required. And besides that, if we must order parts for “A,” that means you are operating without a backup for a period of time.” I closed my folder, which I had earlier opened to offer the contract for signing.

The motion was not lost on him. “But you’ll still make the sale to us for the system, right? Even without the maintenance contract?”

I shook my head doubtfully. “I don’t think it would serve you or your citizens in the manner you have come to expect from us.”

He was incredulous. “You mean you would walk away from a quarter-million-dollar sale over a measly $9,000 maintenance agreement?”

“I think so, yes,” I said. “This is really not about the money or the sale; this is about serving your county and your people.”

He stared and his voice became hard. “Who in your company has the authority to make that decision?” he asked.

I held his eye. “I’m afraid I do, sir,” I said. “It is my responsibility.”

He sat back in the chair, a look of supreme disgust on his face. “Gimme those contracts. I’ll sign them.”

 Theological Contemplations

 Was this a pointless argument? Not from my perspective.

I’m sure he left that meeting feeling like I had built a mountain from a tiny molehill, and he probably suspected that as a sales rep, I would be paid commission only if obtained his signature on the maintenance rider.

That would be ridiculous, of course. The $9,000 figure barely covered our personnel and travel expenses. Besides that, at the time I was on a flat salary anyway, with no commission. I could have told him that, but it was frankly none of his business.

When I represented to him that our company placed a high value on his jurisdiction and his citizens, I meant it. When a citizen issues a call for help to a government-provided emergency service, which is supported by tax dollars, there is a serious expectation of an immediate, competent response. Delays or mistakes are where lawsuits are born.

Jesus says, “Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Don’t weasel your words, and don’t try to make yourself believable by getting all huffy about it.”

Okay, Jesus does not actually say that. What He says is, All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ (Matthew 5:37).

So, we just play it straight up. And if someone draws the wrong conclusion, it is his error, not mine.

But besides all that, I will not deny it felt really good to win an argument with the county attorney.