But it's not just the number of patients that concerns Buttner. There's also the little matter of downtime. The Philips unit that Buttner's partner bought--Mengel had told me in the car--had experienced significant downtime. How come? "Dunno," Mengel had said, laughing. "Shit happens."
Now, in Buttner's office, Mengel pushes the button: "Ya gotta figure in downtime, too, Michael," says Mengel, raising an eyebrow.
Buttner sighs. "Don't remind me, Jim. Don't remind me."
"You haven't experienced one second of downtime--with your GE unit--have you?"
"Not one second, Jim," Buttner agrees. He tells Mengel that he's "gotta go back to my partners on this one," but he also tells him, "You know I'm a GE guy, Jim. No downtime."
"No downtime," says Mengel, grinning.
Fusion's Baltimore offices are modern, glass and steel, and they occupy the second floor of a building that sits on the edge of the city's famed waterfront. Most of what goes on here is backroom stuff, a couple of dozen employees keeping track of sales records and moving paychecks. But here too are the recruiters, trainers, and evaluators and the boss himself, who's managing a series of performance reviews today. Groop's Fusion is, if nothing else, driven by numbers. As a consequence, he concedes, turnover can be high: "Among our performers, it's almost zero. We basically do not lose people who are performers. But it's fairly high among the nonperformers, 25% to 35%."
That's one reason Groop stages training "events," tests and role-playing, to make sure the salespeople have mastered the arcane details of their product lines. And yet, there are still failures. "Nobody with a heart likes to let a person go," says Groop, "but you've got to. We have a process for what I call our Come to Jesus Meetings. They know they're not doing well, but they can't bring themselves to admit it. So I deliver the bullet that makes them relieved."
Dressed in dark slacks and a white oxford shirt, Groop sits across a big, shiny boardroom table and takes a series of salespeople through their plans and numbers. One is Gianna Vennari, who's managed to become one of Groop's top sellers while driving her Lexus through the back roads of Appalachia. She recently sold $9 million in equipment to the nine-hospital Appalachian Regional Healthcare system. The area, says Vennari, is "just very depressed--but they have volume."
Also in town to see Groop is Kristen von Felden, who handles Fusion's other main client, IBM. She works out of IBM offices in Baltimore, where her current project is selling an IT security system to a communications company servicing the U.S. Navy. "They're very concerned about the security," Von Felden says. They are also, she tells Groop, balking at the price of the IBM system.
"That long moment of silence," says Groop.
"Very long," says Von Felden. In fact, another provider has offered to do the job for less.
"What do you come back with?" asks Groop.
"IBM is the Mercedes you can trust," chirps Von Felden.
"And what do they say?"
"They say, 'Ah, but we're this tiny little company."
Groop sighs: "No, no, no, you can't let them think like that. You gotta come back with, 'This is post-9/11. You're servicing the U.S. Navy, for chrissakes! You want them to think you're doing this on the cheap?"
Watching the usually soft-spoken Groop get excited, Von Felden's eyes light up. Then she goes, "Uh-huh, but what about the pricing?"
"When's the deadline, Kristen?"
"It's happening very quickly."
"Why don't you suggest that they bring two of their key people to IBM's security systems headquarters in Boulder. We'll wine them and dine them and introduce them to the top people at IBM, and they can see with their own eyes just how solid the backup system is. If it helps, I'll fly in too--on my dime. We're going to want to close the deal then and there. Before they get back and get their resistance built up again. Just us. Just them. And IBM." Groop pauses: "You know, Kristen, if this deal was only worth $10,000, we wouldn't do the Boulder trip. But this deal is worth it, right?"
"Right, Peter," she says, nodding sharply. The money for the trip will come straight out of Von Felden's pocket. While Fusion gives its salespeople health and life insurance and 401(k) benefits--the company didn't at first, but Groop eventually relented--it still does not cover travel and entertainment.
"T&E?" says Groop. "What T&E?"
After a decade of success, Peter Groop is still obsessed with the "elephant complex." Fusion's client list, which also includes Kodak, is still GE-heavy. Last year, GE alone accounted for $275 million of the $300 million in sales generated by Fusion. "If GE walked out that door..." Groop says without bothering to complete the sentence. "It's a scary thought."
The agreements with IBM and GE are for three years, renewable. Fusion has a year and a half to go with GE, and as Groop says, "Our GE numbers have gone nowhere but up." Not surprisingly, he worries that this kind of success might make GE want to recoup all its profits. "But I think they know they can't do it by themselves," he says. "Why should they monkey with success, huh?"
