Have any of you ever had this happen or...

[HBWT]

heard of it happening. We are a dealer of a certain brand of high-end window. There is another dealer of the same brand of window in our general area. We both serve an area inside of 75 air miles in all directions. This brand of window/door is distributed to retailers through Company X. Company X hired an outside salesman that handles our territory and deals with us and the competing dealer. He makes regular visits to our store and works closely with our "window & door expert" to get the bids to the contractors that are bidding on the jobs. It appears that the outside salesman that is supposed to be helping us is taking jobs that we get spec'd(and do the take-off) and just handing the material list to the competing dealer and the they have been under-cutting us by the slimmest of margins...as little as $100.00 on a $100K job! And this is a that the competing dealer shouldn't even know about. Most recently this dealer approached the customer(home-owner) and told him that whatever we bid on the job that he would beat it. This info came from the contractor that was awarded the job. Contractor tells the architect and architect tells us.
I've been considering a sting of sorts by creating a ficticious job with a ficticious contractor(a friend of ours) and ficticious home-owner and letting it leak to the outside sales fugger. Assuming he bites and tells the competing dealer about it and he, in turn, calls the contractor and offers to undercut our price...what would any of you do with the information? And in case you were wondering, I'm fuggin' pissed off!

[reupreckt]

have it go to a cell number, etc. Find out if you get a call from a competitor. At least if you have strong reason to believe that's what is happening.

If so, you need to call your window company and let them know what kind of integrity their salesman has. If they don't can the guy pronto, then find another source. After doing so, it might feel good to have your rep meet you somewhere so he knows he's fukked.

In any case, you should have some sort of "teaming agreement" that specifies penalties if they violate the confidentiality of the job. It's costing you money to spec these jobs.

[Capt.Molecule]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson–Patman_Act

[OFFK]

[rustyh]

does that dollar figure represent the whole house or something?

To answer your question though, that sort of thing happens. I ran into a situation like that with Trane air conditioning and the guys that were bidding on it. Evidently Trane's local rep would sell to some outfits for less than others, probably I suspect because one company simply pushed more units in a year than another company could/would.

Not sure if there's anything illegal about it. Unethical, maybe. I'm an ex geologist that's been passing himself off as a computer idiot for 30 years, I know nothing, feel nothing for sales or how all that is supposed to work.

Rusty
'05 330i ZHP in Imola

[rustyh]

understood the situation/question to begin with. :)

Rusty
'05 330i ZHP in Imola

[6000miles]

...and tell vlad about every project your competitor is bidding on. vlad is a russian contractor who calls me once a week and promises to get me a better price on ANY bid for my silicon valley project.

or raise your price by $1k, company b will still underbid by $100, but then you can better your price and walk away with the contract.





--> feel like kicking something?


6000miles