The President of the construction company was an ornery and abusive man. As a salesman with his company in my territory, I really did not like to visit his company. About a year ago, I sucked it up and on a Tuesday mid-morning I walked into the office to meet with him. He complained, bad mouthed, and generally trashed me and my company for about an hour.

After I left, after I had calmed down, I called in my meeting report and in it asked senior management in my company for help. The report got routed to a senior VP in Product Development that I didn’t know. He was in the same Golf Club and Church group as this man. At a social gathering, our VP stepped in as a friend, explained to the man how it didn’t help either company to have such a negative relationship, and sincerely asked the man for his help. The next time I visited, he asked about me, talked about his company’ needs, and outlined a buying/selling strategy for the next year with our company.

If I had just been mad and suffered in silence, nothing good would have come. By reporting my experience, and because our reporting system pushes our meeting reports up in the organization to all senior managers, a solution was found and implemented. We have to talk about our customer encounters, good or bad, and the organization must have a system that pulls our reports up to people who can make a difference. SILENCE IN SALES WORK IS NOT GOLDEN!