Hello,
About 8 years ago I was in the city of Granada on holiday and I was in the Alhambra, a historical monument of great beauty and one of the most visited in Spain.
I remember that after tasting a Salmorejo (cold tomato soup typical of Andalusia) on a terrace in a square near the Paseo de los Tristes, I received an unexpected call from the sales representative in Andalusia of the company that sells ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometers) of which he has been giving training courses for the last 15 years.
This salesman, Jose Manuel, knowing that I was in Granada on holiday, called me to tell me that he had a deal for the sale of an ICP-MS worth more than 300,000 euros and that the client was a research laboratory in Granada.
A bit annoyed at having to sacrifice a few hours of my holiday, I arranged a meeting with the client and Jose Manuel in a bar near the cathedral of Granada with no other material than a pen that I borrowed from the hotel reception, as I make it a rule not to travel with my laptop on my holidays.
Once in the bar, the main researcher asked me if I would like to go with them to their laboratory, since the whole research group (more than 15 people) was waiting there to learn about the advantages of our ICP-MS compared to the equipment of the main competitor.
So, with a pen and my knowledge as a weapon, I went in front of more than 15 researchers to convince them that our equipment was better for their research.
After a few initial minutes, where I explained to them generalities of ICP-MS, which I could see from their faces that they already knew the technique, I focused on the main strength of our equipment, which had the quadruple deflector that works with constant radiofrequency and, therefore, does not have the possibility of discriminating a single mass unit before the entrance of the cell.
As I did not have my Power Point presentations, the whole explanation of the operation was done in a notebook with the researchers standing around me.
Diagram explaining the advantage in the elimination of interference for measuring As with our ICP-MS over the ICP-MS of the main competitor.
This explanation, as if I were a private tutor, caused the researcher to be amazed at my mastery of the technique, as he did not need any support material to show that our instrument had a much higher capacity than the other option that he had initially preferred.
The result, after more than an hour of explanations, diagrams and correlation of the performance of our instrument with the research he wanted to carry out on the dating of fossils from archaeological remains, was that the sale of the triple quadruple ICP-MS was obtained.
And the next visit to Granada was for work, but the company I work for gave me an extra 3 days holiday in Granada as a reward and commitment for helping my colleague Jose Manuel to make the sale.
Best regards.
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