It was in December 1999, the last month of the 20th century. I still looked for new potential customers while most of the citizens of Singapore were busy preparing for the coming millennium. I still had one more unit to go to achieve my quota of this month.

The weather was ok on the day. It was a bit cloudy and windy. Normally November and December are the cool seasons in Singapore. The temperature will be around 26-29 degree, while it will be 29-34 degree in the other months.

Following the address the customer called Firetronics Pte ltd provided, I finally found the company. It sold fire-protection equipment to some of the Asian countries, excluding China. There were about 150 workers in the factory, 30 over clerks in the admin depart, 2 secretaries and 2 bosses. I always collected as more basic information of my customers as possible, because any one of them would be useful for then and afterwards.

I felt myself more like a setoff after Cynthia, the secretary, asked me to give her a quotation letter only. And she told me they had already trialed machines from Toshiba and Canon. Because in Office Automation Industry, more than 80% of the customers would decide to buy the machine if they have trailed it. Not only because the machine meets their needs, but most importantly because of the appreciations for the hard work of the salesmen.

In order not to lose my advantage that fast, I, by using some kinds of salesman's techniques, managed to take a look at the quotations Toshiba and Canon submitted. The copying speeds of the two machines were exactly the same as I proposed, but the prices of theirs were much lower than mine. That's one of the reasons I really hate Xerox. Xerox is all along selling her products at very high prices.

"It's ok. Price is not everything. Cheer up Danny!" Encouraging myself in that way, I started analyzing the situation. Toshiba's price was S$2800, which was S$700 lower than mine. But it lacked of some functions the customer might need. Canon's price was S$3000 and its functions were a good match to the customer's need. But Cynthia did not like the salesman, because he was a bit cocky. So he's out! The salesgirl of Toshiba was professional, but not as professional as I was. Because she cared too much on the advantages of her machine to focus on customer's needs. And she made a silly mistake by telling the customer that Xerox's copier could not do A3 paper collating. As a matter of fact, the copier/copiers did have the function.

So the case was not a difficult one any more. With great confidence and a grin in my face, I handed to Cynthia my purchase contract...
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