Ok, so here is an email chain of one woman I have to deal with here. I thought it might amuse, especially those in marketing... (I have bolded my thoughts....hehe)
From dumb sales person:You mentioned yesterday that with a little research you can find out who the correct purchasing agent is at each facility. Can you please show me how you are able to retrieve this information? I know you can retrieve for certain businesses however, not all facilities have their own website. But if you should know how to do this I would appreciate to be shown. It will help me with getting my foot in the door and have Allstate recognized. Thank you for your time on this matter,
Me ( I did an immense amount of work to show her..): Here’s an example:I used google to find this using “corrections and procurement” “commissary and procurement” “commissary and purchasing” etc.I then proceeded to find her some sites w/ names and such- which i didn't have to do...
Dumb salesperson:This is good, however this is not a correctional department/ agency..(Ok, well I was just trying to give an example of what you can find). All the other information I already know how to locate bid proposals per state(Well excuuuuuse me, I found the site and I didn't know if she heard of it).But thanks for some of the websites. I still would have to say you cannot retrieve the correct purchasing agents name from the individual websites.(I found her at least 2 names of purchasing directors... not good enough? Not a list of exact names. sorry)
My Peaches and cream response: I appreciate you getting back to me. Unfortunately, because I took 30 minutes to do this, I was unable to find a lot of information. It is a tedious task, however with the time and the desire you can find a lot of people. As Andy(my boss) said yesterday, he thinks you should start at the top. I thought that the information on this site http:// was very good. There were 2 names on the site:(enter purchasing director's name, which was not good enough)
Its just a matter of targeting who you want, and you can find anyone’s name (Anyone that recently went to college should know that, I was just trying to pass on the knowlege). I was just trying to give you some examples of what I found. The information should be public on those that purchase (because its is government), which is why I maintain that we should be able to find at least a lead. I was just trying to help. I guess that I would use the information a bit differently (I would use my brain).However, you have been doing this longer than I have so I suppose that you would know better than I would(She made sure I knew that the other day... since 1992-ok!). I thought I could provide some insight on how to search for information. I apologize if this was not what you were looking for.
It kind of sounds like she was being lazy and wanted you to just do it for her.
yup! i work in sales (kind of- i have to deal with the people who sell our products who are idiots) and they want me to do all the work for them and then they reap all the rewards of being the "hero" to the company!