Just like Apple, my firm needs to sell, basically. Knock on doors. Do demos, give presentations, evangelise over drinks, do trade fairs, hang around in hotels, endless autobahns. Really glamorous stuff. Since 1992, when we set up our company, I've had only one question for Apple offices worldwide;
"Could Apple help us in any way approach and sell to new customers who are in the market for hardware?" - That's almost 8 years of asking the same question.
I halt the trusty beamer at a petrol station and fish out some pfennigs.
 
"No", came the simple answer from Apple Germany, after some dreary flute twaddle on the waiting tape.
"You must contact a local dealer and spend this money." Very helpful.
"Does Apple in Germany help companies who aren't dealers sell Apple computers in any way?" I ask sweetly.
"No. You must go to a dealer".
"But where we're trying to sell there aren't any suitable dealers."
"Ah. Then you have problem", concedes the bloke from Apple.
"You must buy MacWelt." he added, and put the phone down.
Super. I gave him a 5 for efficiency, 4 for rudeness, and a big fat zero for waiting tape music in my address database. 45 seconds to tell me to clear off nicely is quite clever. A customer with a fat subsidy to spend and Apple think a local version of MacWorld is the ideal sales channel.
On in the rain to the customer in Leipzig. Me and my G3 and Ry Cooder. Another pitstop to make quick calls to the Apple dealers in the Leipzig area. Neither can supply us with an interesting deal. Only sales channel is full-price new stuff. Their idea of negotiating a price for 20 units is to multiply the single unit price by 20. Hopeless. They don't even have a mouse in stock, yup that's 20 not 1 or 2. No discount. No good second-hand gear either, expensive callout. Useless, in effect. No change there then.
Same results as Apple in Rio de Janeiro. Same as in Amsterdam. Same as in Paris, London and Munich. Anyone wanting sales assistance in any way from Apple can forget it. "Go away", is the message I've received from 5 separate Apple offices. The only chap who was polite was a chap from Apple Holland, the rest were downright rude. I think it's true to say that all the Apple personnel I've spoken to were so inefficient and rude and utterly useless that I'd fire them on the spot if I heard them talking to a customer the way they talk to us. This can't be the fault of individual area managers, as the message worldwide is identical; clear off.
One chemical factory is the same as another. The local environment is ghastly, the horizon ringed at night by belching towers or flame, but everybody I meet is friendly, laughing, and helpful. It's cheap, too. Fertile ground, I begin to suspect. Anything new is good in an emerging market.
The Human Resources manager enjoys the demo about laptops and English. Nice chap. He doesn't want to buy any laptops or desktops. Nein. He can blow his subsidy budget on many things, but not hardware. Hardware buying is verboten.
"Do you mind if we use our own Apple computers?" I drop into the conversation casually.
"It doesn't matter which computer is use. It not important? All computers the same. For me is equal." Stratocaster, Telecaster; all the same to these chaps. No-one's ever offered them outsorced, externally financed hardware and educational leasing before. No-one. A huge market. The Human Resources manager loves it. I love it. Big dollar signs appear in a halo around the guy's neck.
I try to shut up while he scribbles.
"We go eat", I am informed, and to a local hostelry we did repair.
That Shakespeare in Love film has had quite an effect.
"Was ist eine 'foaming tankard'", he asked over the raw herring starter. "Is bad language ja?" ….
After a couple of foaming tankards, the conversation loosens. I'm torn between giving him the 'toys for boys' pitch: "let your son be the first one on the block to have his dad come home with a G3 in a flight case." Or should I chunter on about quality and cost-efficiency, in case he's one of these statistical objective anal-retentive maniacs?
His beady eyes had been on my G3 from the minute I scratched his wooden desktop with my flight case. I foamed my tankard and thunk as we chomped in silence on dead pig in sauce.
The best deals are the simplest. A deal you can explain to a 12-year old. What I do, and I hasten to add that this technique can cause harm to the unwary, at this stage is to imagine I'm explaining the proposed deal to one of my kids. If I think I can, and they'd understand it, then it's good enough. He solves the riddle by asking, or rather challenging:
"I buy yes. Is good plan what you are saying. This I think." Pre-orgasmic relief on my part. An assisted purchase plan for 500 units……slobber…….3-year lease.. ……couple of hundred iMacs, couple of hundred of these new iLaps, some second-hand gear…dribble…..empty market……no competition………pants-wetting ……customers with subsidies to blow ……
He continues.
"But key element for peoples in the near of here use one computer is training to think. Your company this you can supply that?"
Large gulp.
"Ah yes. Train the user to think differently?" I bleat, uselessly. "Ja. Exactly. This is what I want. No more before we know was not good system is now not. Now is new is different…" "I'm sure you've seen the Apple adverts." I add, trying to make head or tails of his prepositions.
" You know, the 'think different' campaign?"
"Nein."
So no iMac adverts have penetrated to deepest darkest Leipzig. Boston MacWorld this ain't. More like Rotherham meets Chernobyl.
"Ah right. Well …er your message is our message. We think differently. Yes indeed."
The conversation is going nowhere. He's bought the deal, but there's something missing.
"I make deal with you," he announces, breaking the deadlock.
"You supply me with what I want, I send you many peoples which buy computer
from you….yes?"
"Er yes, of course, old chap, how many computers would you like…." I feel like Terry Thomas or David Niven.
"Wery much hardware. You tell me how we make different computer network for here this office also yes we need."
An unmistakable fragrance appears in the conversation. The missing element in the equation. Goodies. Right. Old habits die hard, I tell myself. This bloke grew up in a different system. He certainly does think different.
What was East Germany is largely still not part of the main West German economy, even 8 years after reunification. Large plants and many industrial institutions are run by a sort of agency, which channels a West German's 8% payroll tax to …well to people like me. As far as I can make out, anyway.
My German is awful, so is his English, but it's not his money he's spending, so we have naturally gravitated onto a subject we both feel comfortable with. Goodies. Perks. Freebies. Mouse mats. Stickers for kids. "Maybe leather laptop carry-case for managers yes?"
"Of course we supply supervisory personnel with their own G3 laptop", I gamble, hoping that we can get away with one laptop and maybe a printer. His eyes went off to around 11.30 on the 'bandits at 11 o'clock' chart.
"My two sons and daughter she is nearly finishing school they is needing extra English lessons…"
The wafting odour of corporate corruption envelopes the conversation. The guy's done his homework, he knows what we can hide, what goodies he can expect, what he needs to keep his boss sweet. I wait for him to finish the shopping list of goodies required to land a 3-year training contract.
"And I am seeing executive course in your website what is this please I am interested for me you understand to evaluate in the near of London shopping yes you Chelsea tickets can get…"
So now I've got to find two Chelsea tickets, a bunch of second-hand laptops with German keyboards for a Pilot Project, as well as get one of our techies to see if the local phone network is usable, never mind find a safe host family in England willing to endure a noisy but rich Geman chap on a one-week intensive freebie.
Tough at the top. I need a freebie myself to recover from the pain of giving them away. How about getting someone else to get into the freebie act? Like Apple, for instance.
So how did Apple shape up to the second round of my round the world market research expedition?
"Could Apple help us approach and sell to new customers who are in the
market for hardware?"
The answer is they don't shape up. They're not in the picture. Apart from a few cloistered DTP freaks Apple don't exist. Apple is not World Online or McDonald's; there is no hotline or training academy. No contact with the front line. No listening going on. Apple regional head offices are hermetically sealed off. An Apple customer is someone who's breached security. Apple dealers are few on the ground and know very little. I have seen no Apple advertising anywhere, or in any of the schools I visit, or in the magazines I leaf through in corporate waiting rooms, or at the dentist, or on the booze cruises from Dover to Calais, or in any of the major international airports I spend so much time in. None of the customers I have spoken to in 4 countries in 9 months had ever actually seen an Apple computer. Not one.
Personally I get nowhere with Apple. Nor do any of my colleagues in the myriad web of contacts in two continents where I do business. I should congratulate whoever designed the internal Apple system that keeps irritating oiks like customers out. The system works. Although we buyers are trying to spend money we can't get in touch. Well done.
Congratulations. Genuinely. I can see why Apple don't want anything to do with selling computers. It's a horrible job. Truly horrible. Risky, tiring, unhealthy, lonely. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I'll shut up complaining about Apple, who are living proof that you can treat your faithful customers like dung-beetles and get away with it. Fair play to you. There's no need to go out and sell computers, just making them is enough. Stick the details on a website and hope people buy like that. If I was in charge at Apple I'd do the same.
Feeling very small, pretty discouraged, and cold, I empty a week's travel detritus from the beamer and point it back down the autobahn towards Schweinfurt and a new set of potential customers. I've logged 60,000kms in the past 9 months selling software that only works on Apple computers. Selling directly into 100% Wintel multi-national corporations. Selling directly to new users, old users, complete beginners, cynical seen-it-all-before company buyers, schools, old folk, teenagers; you name it. All you have to do really is to show them a G3 laptop, how some basic software works, sort out a sensible financial plan. A Mac sells itself, really. As Apple well know.
PS
Next month I'd like to discuss bribery. Some advance feedback from readers would be most helpful. How much do you think Apple or Apple salesmen should bung / donate /give backhanders to companies or institutions wanting to buy several hundred Macs?
