People are Weenies (Spoiler Alert: this post is kind of one of the bitter ones...)

Why can't people just do what they say they're going to do?  The beauty of being over 50 is that (at least in my personal life), I've jettisoned most of the unreliable people in my life (except family, you don't get to jettison them - you just have to work around them).  If you have people in your life that you can always count on - hang onto them!

If you have ever served on a volunteer committee of some sort, these people are like gold.  Over all these years in sales and dealing with other sales people, I don't understand why any monkey that can listen and follow through isn't rich.

WEENIES I HAVE KNOWN
As Design Incentives, one of our functions was as a manufacturer's representative.  Most reps are at the mercy of the manufacturer:  they set the commission rate, they decide whether to drop the commission on a big deal, they decide how much work you'll do for your low commission rate.  If you're a good rep, it looks easy.  The manufacturer doesn't see the (literally) years of working to get in that client's door, preparing many proposals and program outlines before you actually get any business, proving yourself with smaller projects, all of the time and energy put into securing and maintaining that client, learning their culture and politics, etc.  Once secured, it looks like orders just roll in effortlessly and the manufacturer ultimately decides that they are paying you money for nothing.

Most manufacturers hold sales meetings annually that include all of the reps from around the country (our territory was Michigan; we had counterparts all over the U.S.).  Reps are big talkers at the bar when discussing unfair policies of particular manufacturers.  (This is the part where I throw former counterpart colleagues under the bus:  you know who you are...):

On many occasions, the reps were fired up in the bar but when we got to the meeting, Karen or I would speak up and, instead of supporting us as discussed, the other reps would spend a lot of time looking at their shoes so that we looked like the only complaining bitches in the room.  You can't really blame them - in many situations, if you refuse to accept an unfair policy, there are many desperate souls behind you happily ready to accept it - for awhile.

GOOD CUSTOMER/BAD CUSTOMER
As suppliers, when you find a customer willing to fight internally for their convictions - do whatever you need to do to hang onto that customer.  I have been very fortunate to work with some really intelligent people who were willing to do what was best for the business and we worked hard to find their solution.  I stayed in touch with those people and follow them from company to company where possible.  But there are always exceptions:

In the 1990's we had an automotive program that rewarded dealers for purchasing manufacturer auto parts; the dealers accrued points based on their purchases that they redeemed for merchandise rewards.  The #1 redeeming item was (4) filet mignon from a gourmet food supplier.  One day, an executive was overheard in the hall asking, "what in the world does meat have to do with auto parts?".   Rather than presenting concrete data (that we provided) on exactly how those steaks were responsible for  moving hundreds of thousands of dollars in auto parts, our contact simply removed the steaks from the reward selection without any discussion at all. (See previous posts about the unwillingness to ask the boss a question:  let's just assume what they might want...). This was absolutely the wrong thing for the program.  (of course we were biased, but we had the whole merchandise program - we weren't losing sales, just depriving the participants of the #1 favored item.)  It took 3 years and 2 personnel changes for us to get the steaks back into the reward selection where they shot back to the #1 redeemed item again.

GROW A PAIR
It's also quite common for customers to throw weight around that they don't have.  Rule of thumb:  the more they demand and the more important they make themselves sound, the less juice they have.  I learned this the hard way as I played the testosterone game only to have them go limp later when I needed them.

What I've found over 30 years in business - whether you are the supplier, the client or the manufacturer, male or female - balls are in short supply.  The courage to fight (diplomatically) for the right thing for the customer or the business is very rare.

It's been said that people join organizations but quit bosses.  In the last 5 years as companies laid off tens of thousands of employees, we often saw full teams move from one organization to another as employees followed non-weenie bosses to the next company. I imagine that one of the selling features in a job interview would be the strength of the team that you can bring with you.

So moral of this story: don't be a weenie.  If you're not going to do something, that's okay - just don't act like you're going to do it or actually TELL someone that you'll do it:  Just Say No.  Caution:  once you have a reputation for doing what you say you'll do, everyone will want you on their committee or in their department, but you'll be building a reputation of trust along the way, and maybe future job opportunities because of it.