Nothing to do with music................

I gave sales presentations and product demos to corporate bigwigs for several years with Sun, a leader in Automotive Diagnostic Equipment. We brought out a new computer analyzer which one of my accounts had funded a lot of the R&D on and I knew it well. It retailed at $25,000 and had a neat little feature....it talked. When we brought it into the main product line, I was responsible for doing the intro work for all the branches and their local sales reps. I also did a ton of trade shows with it and gawd knows what all for about the first 6 months. For the trades we had put in a demo program and the tester and I had a real dog and pony show going that was informative, humorous, and frankly appealed enough to some that we got some good sized initial orders. Toward the end of this time I got stuck with a show because the local rep felt it was beyond his abilty at the time and though he could help out, "Could we get Patterson to do the demo?"

So I fly into Memphis to demo an exotic and expensive analyzer to.............a convention of private cab company owners in the south. Have you ever ridden in a cab owned by a smaller cab company? ......In say, Birmingham or Houston or Tampa? I had......and I couldn't help but wonder why I was doing this! Geeziz, the things are lucky to have 3 wheels and a bad miss on only two cylinders!!! Have you ever ridden in one where the steering wheel spokes are lined up properly? I arrive and set-up with the local rep. We eat the rubber chicken meal and I get introduced. The tester and I do our bit and I swear to you it was like the cartoon where Daffy gets NO RESPONSE from the audience except for the chirping of crickets. About half way through, I reverted to the saleman I was and started asking questions about their businesses. Not a soul in the joint had anything more than a cheap timing light.

Afterwards though, a lot of them came up and said how funny and interesting the demo was............Couldn't use the thing, but loved the hell out of it. I know this may not be the experience you were looking for Rick, but as far as bad audiences go...........Well they were nice guys, just had no idea what I was talking about.

Spaw