Stan Dale had just joined Gartner Group in sales, the summer of 1983. His territory was New England and shortly thereafter Bell Canada was added to his accounts. The following spring he and his associates decided to do some prospecting seminars in Canada – Bell Canada was then Gartner’s only Canadian account and they were receiving only one service, Telecom (STS). It was decided to go with our strength so an ILCM (Large System) briefing was set for Toronto. They followed the usual marketing protocols of buying a list, sending out invitations, and making follow-up phone calls, in order to expand the audience. As the event approached Stan was working with our analyst Hugh Green on what he would include in his delivery. Recall that at the time Amdahl had a substantial position in the Canadian large mainframe market with about 35% market-share.
The day of the big event arrived and we had attracted well over 100 prospects. Both Hugh and Stan were nervous, so Stan assured Hugh that he had “salted” the community and that we would be well received. Hugh had his doubts but finally he took the lead and went to the podium. He tried to break the ice with the attendees, asking, “How many of you know who your Amdahl representative is?” There was a sprinkling of hands but certainly from no more than 30. He was clearly trying to get an assessment of what the mix was, to anticipate how he would structure his presentation. At the time Hugh did not feel all that comfortable with Amdahl specifics, but the show of hands relaxed him.
Hugh then asked, “How many of you know who your Gartner representative is?” Every person in the place raised their hand. Hugh made some sort of startled but pleasant comment regarding how awe-struck he was and went on to do a bang up presentation on ILCM issues.
Gartner wound up signing about a dozen clients within weeks of that seminar and our position in Canada was cemented. The following year we had the IS conference in Toronto, with something like 600 people in attendance!
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