Bad Economics 101

The other day, during my attempt to sell products to the outside world, I met a man. He was an ordinary man. But a man, nonetheless.

What is so memorable about this meeting was the predicament I was faced with and my realization thereof.

I am always faced with snide remarks by clients and have become quite good at either deflecting, reflecting or avoiding the comments. But this man of a man I encountered left me speechless.

After a successful "pitch" and promise to help his company grown through the use of my product, this man proceeded to confront me with the fact that.... "You are selling to my competition aren't you."

*Systematically lists local companies to which we sell.*

"Yeah, we sell to them."

"So you are keeping my competition in business."

I didn't have a response. And I never NOT have a response. "Well, yeah. I guess." I manage to meagerly squeak. Now uncomfortable that he has put me on the spot. I began thinking to myself, why don't more people get mad at me for making their competition grow and how do I respond to that fact in the future.

I didn't have to ponder too long before realizing that of course we have to sell to his competition. He buys almost nothing from our company compared to the very competition with which he is implying.

If we only sold to ONE company because otherwise "we are keeping his competition in business" we would go out of business. Now that doesn't make much sense, now does it? What an idiot. I can't give him too hard of a time, because it was I that had to stop and explain to myself why what he said made no sense, or dare I say cents. Oh, I am so punny, I could just die.