Dude! Turn Off Your Cell Phone!

How many times in a meeting, or a sales presentation, or just in a movie theatre, have you heard someone's cell phone ringing? My answer, "far too many times." And the worse part is when the idiots who have the cell phone actually answer the call! How rude or stupid can you be?

A few years back I was working as a Sales Manager on a very large account with an experienced but fairly incapable rep. Let's just call him Cell Phone Jimmy. We had worked our way up the food chain and finally got to the actual decision maker. It was a long and involved process that took almost 5 months. But now it was our time to try and close the account with this one particularly high level executive.

We went into our meeting very well prepared. We had done a lot of homework on the account and received a lot of feedback from mid-level managers and employees. As the call starts, the initial rapport building part is going well, we're chatting back and forth, he seems to like our company, we both went to similar schools, and all seems fine. As we delve deeper into his needs, I hear a cell phone ringing, muffled but ringing. My first response is, "Oh shit, did I leave my cell phone on?!", so I am speaking and reaching down in my pocket to check if it's me, but all the time I'm focusing my eyes on the prospect and what he's saying. The phone keeps ringing and ringing, and as I fish in pocket and pull my phone out, I casually look at my watch on my right wrist and then turn over the phone with my left hand to see if it's on. Very smooth and casual like I do this crap all the time! My phone however is not on, and then the ringing stops. Thank god. I look over at the rep and he is clueless so I figure let's keep going. By the way Cell Phone Jimmy always looked clueless.

We start speaking again and the executive is telling us what he wants from our company and I'm trying to align what we provide with his needs in my head when I hear the ringing again. I know it's not me so it must be him, but he acts as if he's annoyed so now I know it's not his phone that's ringing. I try to talk over the sound of the phone and remain focused on our prospect when the phone stops ringing and I hear a faint , "Hello?". I look over and my partner is actually answering his phone! I'm thinking you have to be kidding me, so I nod at our prospect and smile.

"Must be an important call.", I say to the exec, and he doesn't smile back and responds, "Uh...it had better be.", to which I laugh thinking he's joking but he's not of course.

"Uh honey, no I know, I know, but I'm right in the middle of a call. I'll call you back, I'll call you back.", says the rep in hushed tones as if trying to keep us from hearing him. Uh hello? There's only 3 people in this office and 2 of them are not speaking on the phone. I think we might be able to hear your voice dude.

"Sorry", Jimmy says and smiles, "Can we continue?"

"Sure", says the prospect but he's not smiling back, and I'm thinking, "We're screwed". So we continue the call and we're starting to feel comfortable once more with the prospect when Jim's cell phone starts ringing AGAIN. My partner tries to ignore it. "Great move, how about turning it off you idiot." is my initial thought. The phone keeps ringing which is making us all uncomfortable, and I keep looking at the prospect and wondering how much longer before he cuts the call short, and has security escort us out.

"Jimmy, why don't you turn it off?", I say to my partner.

His response, "Oh my wife would kill me. What if it's an emergency?"

"Everything with my wife is an emergency, but probably best to turn it off.", the prospect chimes in and then laughs. I laugh along with him, and then Jimmy chuckles and says, "Okay, I'll turn it off. Again sorry about that."

"We all know what it's like being married.", says the prospect and we all laugh. I'm thinking great, "We dodged a bullet there". So we start back in with the call and it seems the little phone mishap took the stiffness out of the conversation. We're joking around, talking about the customers needs, he's being much more open about everything and we are really making progress. This goes on for about 20 minutes,and I am just about to launch in to the presentation of our products when, that friggin phone starts ringing again. By this time our prospect is out of patience and completely pissed off.

"Thanks for your time guys. There's the door. We'll be in touch.", he says.

"But it's just a mistake. He just forgot to turn it off. Maybe we can reschedule?"

"He should've turned it off before he came through that door!", the exec said very loudly and very clearly. "Thank you gentlemen.", he said and pointed at the door.

"But we never go to present our products.", I said imploring a second chance.

"Have his wife call me and explain them.", was his response and I almost started to laugh.

We both walked outside, nodded to the assistant as we left the office, and when we got outside I was ready to strangle Cell Phone Jimmy.

"Jimmy, what the fuck were you thinking? Why did you not turn it off when he asked?"

"I was thinking who is it worse to piss off? Him or my wife? I gotta live with her not him"

He had a point, but I wasn't gonna let him off that easy, "Okay, okay, I get it. So what was so important that she had to keep calling you?"

"I have to make sure to bring home a chicken to cook for dinner tonight since it's my turn to cook."

"Jimmy, you mean to tell me we lost one of our biggest opportunities because of a chicken?!"

"I guess you could say that?"

"Well cocka fuckin doodle doo! Good job Jimmy."

-SFTD