Forget the lame excuses

Bizarrely I’ve just been reminded of a piece of PR put out by a company selling sales software.  It talks about the excuses sales people use for not getting sales.  Apparent reasons to explain away failure include hangovers, personal crisis, car problems, reports eaten by the dog, cricket, bad dreams and, in one case the wrong type of tie.

Technology breakdown also scored highly, and as one person writing about this wittily and sagaciously observed “…although we’re not told how often it was [the vendor’s conducting the survey]”.

Some examples of pathetic biscuit dunking behaviour that have also come to me since writing my last post include:

• “I can’t cold call now ‘cos it’s nearly lunchtime and nobody’ll wanna talk to me”
• “I couldn’t send off that letter last night because my email was down and I needed some info from someone”
• “Sorry you couldn’t get hold of me today, boss, but my girlfriend took my phone with her this morning by mistake”
• “I didn’t get the order because they’re in the middle of a takeover”

And then there’s one you need to approach delicately:

“My wife told me she wanted a divorce and I had to move out and not see the kids”

Hmmm.