Brad noted, with some satisfaction, the twitch at the corner of Sean's mouth. Coupled with the constant drumming of his stubby fingers on the desk Brad knew the Sales Director was experiencing severe stress.

"Serves him right" Brad muttered under his breath. As Marketing Director he had been telling Sean for months now that before long the board would want to know exactly what he was spending his budget on.

Sean cleared his throat and attempted to martial his jumbled thoughts together. He glanced around the table at the assembled people he had invited to this crisis meeting. Two Regional Managers, Dave and Martin. Sean suddenly realised how weary he was of their constant depressing messages from the sales force. Yeah yeah everyone knew that sales were slipping away, and more and more customers were deflecting to A.A. Components, but WHY? And why couldn't the sales people tell him the reason?

He caught the eye of Janie, and shifted uncomfortably at her uncompromising stare. He remembered interviewing her and promising such a rosy future with an expanding company, but instead of filling her days with brochure requests and new quotes, most of her time was used supporting other departments with odd bits of typing.

Brad watched all this body language with amusement, he enjoyed seeing his pompous colleague squirm, and he decided to have a bit of fun with him.

"Now Sean" enquired Brad innocently, " what sales did you achieve from the ten golf days at, let me see, £10,000 a time"? pausing for effect and glancing around the collective faces he continued " and what sales did you actually receive from the six full page ads you ran in that new publication for, I believe it was £18000 wasn't it"? noting Sean's draining colour Brad continued to hammer his point " oh! and what about the big bash you threw for Distributors - how much new business did you get from that "?

Sean licked his lips, and blustered " come on now Brad everyone has to promote their business like that, of course we got new business" his voice trailed off. He knew from the file in front of him no actual new business had come in for three months now, and existing business was proving difficult to hold on to.

" It's marketing's fault" he declared " we need new brochures, a new message, and reduced prices, more discounts, more special offers" his voice grew stronger as he warmed to his theme of passing the buck " you all sit in your offices, you have no real idea how hard it is for us sales people out there in the front line "

Brad knew this was his moment, he smiled slowly and nodded at Janie with what was obviously a pre-arranged signal. Janie went to the door and spoke briefly to someone waiting outside. Opening the door wide she ushered in a middle aged woman who smiled warmly at the long faces around the table and sat beside Brad with a confident air. Brad cleared his throat and addressed the surprised meeting.

" I believe I have found the answer to our problems" he turned to the new addition to the meeting with a smile " let me introduce Judi Gerrard MD of Calibre Marketing Services who has come here today to show us how we can develop a strategy which will answer all our prayers"

Judi stood swiftly, she had observed the reactions of her audience, disbelief, fear and utter boredom faced her and she knew that she must offer these people honesty, integrity, and above all hope.

" Thank you for this opportunity " she smiled broadly ensuring her audience understood from her delivery that she knew her subject, understood their issues, and had the solution. " The answer is simple, effective and easy to implement. It is all about knowledge, measurement, and pro active selling. It is about trawling for every possible opening and then developing a relationship with that prospect. It is about knowing what your customers like about you, and what they like about your competitors. It is ultimately understanding what knocks their socks off in terms of service and delivery."

Judi sat down and leaned forward earnestly in her chair "Let me give you an analogy, when you go the Doctor with a medical symptom he does not just write a prescription for a known medication just because he has seen six people with the same symptoms that week. He asks you lots of questions to make sure the solution for you is specific to your needs. Then he records all this information in your file, to make sure he can give you continuity of care, unique to your particular case. Well, your GP is practising good marketing principles because he is understanding exactly what he has to do not only to make you well, but to keep you confident that he can look after you and 'service' your physical needs."

With the passion that is her trademark, Judi continued to explain the basic principle of holding all customer and prospect information in a computerised format which allowed 'work style ' pictures to be built up in order to understand the uniqueness of each business account. Smiling gently at Sean she acknowledged that whilst golf days and big bash events created good PR, inevitably the people who attended were already using the companies services, and whilst it is a nice thank you for business given, it has little value in the tough process of winning new business against unknown factors of the competitors.

Recognising she held the full attention of everyone, Judi produced a set of flow charts to illustrate the level of information which can be achieved with good direct marketing.

Sean could not believe his eyes, studying the charts he blurted out " this is amazing! I see here that you have information on the entire buying process, the names and titles not only of the decision makers, but of influencers, specifyers, even contractors and design and build personnel. And how did you find out that they currently use AA Components because they have a JIT system? And that they will be reviewing their suppliers in Oct, and…good heavens….. that their budget for the year is approximately £100,000? Sean looked accusingly at Martin, " these people are on your patch, did you know all this? " Martin shook his head, in his heart he knew that he had intended to call on this company for months but he never seemed to get round to it.

Brad was smiling broadly now. He indicated to Judi to use the flipcharts to support her simple and exciting concept.

"This is how we do it " enthused Judi as she pinned a map of the UK on the flipchart. " We will devise an information structure for you using the powerful Microsoft Access software on Office 2000. We will import your customer and prospect records into this structure and overlay your sales territories, and Distributor networks, identified by both postcode and internal product codes.

Using our experienced professional researchers we will spend an agreed number of hours each month, on the telephone, gathering all this valuable information on your behalf. We certainly won't insult you by suggesting we can sell your products for you, we recognise that is your own specialist skill area " Judi noticed the two Regional Sales Managers perk up at this point and recognised they were turned off by companies offering to sell on the telephone for them, creating poor quality leads and sending sales people haring all over the country to non existent business.

Judi put her pen down and turned fully to face her audience, she knew her next statement was key to turning the business around

"What we most certainly will achieve is an understanding of what your customers/prospects want from you, what will keep their business year on year, and who the companies are with available funds, and how to ensure they do not spend it with your competitors.

And "she paused for effect, noting with satisfaction a look of hope in everyone's eyes, "we will give you a comprehensive report every month on your marketplace, including research information on your industry and a comprehensive list of companies who are gagging to spend on your product sector. Of course, your report will also show accountability and bottom line costs so at last you will have a full knowledge of exactly what it is costing you to achieve every new piece of business, and how long it takes to convert from interest to signing the order."

Sean looked at Brad with a new respect in his eyes. Maybe, just maybe Brad had saved the day for the whole company. Of course he knew about direct marketing, after all they did mailings every now and then, but he had not realised he could hand over his entire identification measurement needs at an agreed fixed cost, which would free him up to concentrate on training and monitoring sales performance confident in the knowledge that he could be answerable to the board whenever it was required of him.

The conclusion of this happy story is that The Marchers marched into their next financial year spending £4000 per month with Calibre and increasing their market share by 3% and reducing their attrition rate by over 50%

That magical two-hour meeting with Calibre increased the company's profitability by an unbelievable 15%