From the Front Lines

Timing Is Everything

Couldn’t resist retelling this story. I was part of a finals presentation for 401(k) recordkeeping services and investment management to a large consumer products company. Our call center and small-plan operations were housed in Tennessee, with investments and operations for the large-case market housed in other states. We were in the midst of transferring our call center from one location to another when the request for the finals date came in. The prospect was insistent on a specific date in January, which happened to be the move date for the entire operation. Despite our pleas to move the date, we were unsuccessful in making that happen. The prospective client wanted to see “everything”—call center, operations, investments, but all in one location in one day.

On the day of the finals, it snowed (a very rare event in this part of Tennessee), delaying the prospects’ flight and snarling traffic. The presentation started two hours late due to the delays, and our prospective clients were treated to the spectacle of boxes of PCs and phones being loaded onto trucks for the move to the new site. During our tour of the operations area, the online system went down in a move-related debacle. Our tour of the new ops center was highlighted by empty cubicles and flickering lights. As a final touch, our catering staff managed to provide an ample supply of bottled water produced by the prospects’ main competitor.

Needless to say, we were not selected, with one of the reasons cited that presentation was “disorganized.” We shook our heads and learned to laugh about it, but the lesson we took away was to control the time and place for presentation to show our best side, even if it meant shifting the prospect’s plans a bit.