A salesman met a beautiful lady and he decided to marry her right away.
She replied, "But we don't know anything about one another."
The salesman answered, "That's all right, we'll learn about each other as we go along."
So the woman consented, and they were married, and went on a honeymoon to a very nice resort.
One morning they were lying by the pool, when the salesman got up off
his towel, climbed up to the 10 meter boards and did a two and a half
tuck dive, this was followed by three rotations in jackknife position,
where he straightened out and cut the water like a knife. After a few
more demonstrations, he came back and laid down on his towel.
His new wife remarked, "That was incredible!"
The salesman said, "I used to be an Olympic diving champion. You
see, I told you we'd learn more about ourselves as we went along."
So his new wife got up, jumped in the pool, and started doing laps.
After about 30 laps she climbed back out and laid down on her towel
hardly out of breath.
"That was incredible! We're you an Olympic swimmer? asked the salesman.
"No," replied his new wife. "I was a lady of the evening in Venice
and I worked both sides of the canal. I agree with you now that we'd
learn more about ourselves as we went along."
Moral of the story. True sales professionals know that before they
invest a lot of time and effort into a prospective business relationship
that it makes business sense to do a thorough background check first.
You can't afford to waste time and resources on tire kickers or
wannabes. Make sure any business partners align with your business
values and approach to the market place. Remember that others in your
industry may judge your firm on who you do business with, and a
reputation, once destroyed, takes a long time to heal.
"A cardinal principle of Total Quality escapes too
many managers: you cannot continuously improve interdependent systems
and processes until you progressively perfect interdependent,
interpersonal relationships." - Stephen Covey
