Tom Killian decided to put in to practice what he learned at one of Warren’s workshops. He found a card of a potential customer that had sat in his Rolodex until the week after he returned from hearing Warren. He decided to use the appointment setting approach from the workshop to try to get an appointment with the purchasing manager. He practiced his fifteen-word greeting, and made the call. James, the purchasing manager, told him that he should be talking to one of the plant managers. James transferred Tom to Marty. Marty, the plant manager was too busy to see him that week. But, when Tom asked about next week, he did agree to meet on Tuesday at 9:00.

Here’s what happened, in Tom’s words.

"Tuesday rolled around and I was at the plant a little early for our meeting. I checked in with the receptionist, she called Marty, and he had an emergency in the plant and could not keep our meeting. He told the receptionist to have me reschedule for another time. I left the company folder I had brought for him with the receptionist and told her I would be getting back to Marty.

"Wednesday evening I received a call from James the purchasing manager. He told me they had run out of aluminum sulfate. He had checked with the city water superintendent, who is currently a long standing customer of ours, and he recommended calling me. James asked if we had any aluminum sulfate, liquid or dry. When we did, he asked if we could get some to him. I told him we could, and I would make some calls and get back to him.

"My manager was just getting back from out of town when I reached him. I explained to him we needed to get over to the customer tonight with alum. We met at the warehouse, got his truck unloaded and reloaded with a tote of alum. I called James back again and told him it would be there in half an hour. The total time from when they called until when they had product was about ninety minutes. James told me they were minutes away from having to shut down the whole plant. He told me he didn’t care what I had to charge for the chemical, or service or delivery. I told him I would charge a fair price for the chemical and a small delivery charge, but what I wanted most was to get a meeting with all the manager and purchasing people, so I can discuss handling all their chemical needs. He promised me that he would do this.

"I called James on Thursday to get our meeting set up. He was most eager to accommodate me on this. We set it up for Friday at 9:00. I met with all the managers and James today. I explained the benefits of our company. Our meeting went very well. I am trying to convince them we can handle all their needs. We can offer timely delivery. Less inventory for them. Mini-bulk, so they don’t have to handle any chemicals twice. We agreed we may not have to be the cheapest in order to get the business, with all the extras we can do. One of the managers made the comment that it was pretty amazing how they could get better service from someone they hadn’t done work with, versus their long standing supplier. I told him we would do this for any of our customers, except they wouldn’t have run out in the first place."