Welcome to Bait And Switch! (Yes, I’m Talking to You)

By Richard Laermer, Guest Author

In many respects nothing changes, like ever. For instance, I’ve been watching service businesses pull some serious crap for years. No matter what happens the practice of Bait & Switch (BAS) still persists.After downturns, price of coffee skyrocketing, the freaking mortgage collapse, terrorism, wars, famine, pestilence (okay not that) and Katrina, still firms sell people to new clients and have them disappear after the so-called Ink is dry.

BAS is when people come to YOUR meeting and sell a service and then run away after the agreement is filed and the work begins.It’s offensive. Facetious charm and canny fanciness is replaced by bargain youth. Not that there’s anything wrong with young people. It’s just not who was being proffered as the doer of deeds. Every now and then I’ll meet an executive who says to me “who actually does the work (at my firm, RLM)?” Then the flashback music plays and I start to consider: Hm. I guess the trend here is that that always seem to be changing. In every firm that offers a service you can’t simply decide who on a daily basis will handle your needed duties. You have to be flexible. Please remember that anyone being paid could jump at any time. These days, people often don’t show up for work because of the sniffles and sometimes leave because their boss didn’t phone at home to say Attaboy! And yet ever single fucking day someone has to do the actual servicing of customers.

That means it kind of has to be the larger-than-life folks who sold the service in the first place! And the folks being sold to simply are for a fact not stupid, so why not make it easier for people and say who will do it. In nearly every “new business” meeting I’ve gone to someone is folding their arms thinking: Who is this guy? Will I ever see this smart alec again? Is anyone here as fabulous as he is (aww)?

And of course the reasons why companies do this—there’s only one: Because it’s cheaper, that’s why. Why should the stars get their hands dirty? Purell smells… It’s so much more fun to pontificate and strategize and make up hyphenated terms….and get out of the office at a reasonable hour. Plus (insert evil laugh) they get to boss folks around. What utter coolness! In an effort to slow the BS that happens every day here are some tough questions to ask slick sales guys:

* What percentage of business do you, oh fancy speaker, do for me?
* How many assignments do you work on for real? Who else would be involved in this? May I meet them?
* How many hours do you spend on non-sales-like-work?
* Who does the research, and can analyze and counsel me and talk to me like I’m The Man?
* Who reports to me on what’s up?
* Who’s my day to day? Give me his home number.
* Do you go to work every gosh darn day?

And the last one:

* Have you always been so flashy? (Ask him where he got the tie, or she got that beaded broach.)

Sure there are people who can do high-level sales and keep their humility in order to be worker bee. There are some folks who are awesome at both, G-d love ’em. But it’s a rarity and BAS is the norm. Most sales are smiling fancy pants types and your daily contacts are usually raw at best. Follow the above and get what you paid for. Oh and if you get handed off to someone named Tiffany, my advice is run. Don’t walk.

I’m Richard Laermer and I run RLM PR (www.RLMpr.com) and write books. Sometimes.