Several years ago, my then manager called me to meet with some representatives from a company waiting for him at the front desk. My manager was too busy at that time and said that they were there to show him some software. The 3 gentlemen who where there explained what they have and immediately I realized that they are talking to the wrong person. My manager oversees hardware and ASIC design activities and they were showing us a software platform that makes it very easy to design the software component that manages the interface for mobile devices such as PDA and mobile phone. When I said that they are talking to the wrong people, I was told that they had flew in from a neighbouring city specifically for this meeting! Feeling sorry for the 3 blokes, I said they need to pitch what they have to another manager and will go see if this manager is available to meet with them.
When I asked this other manager about meeting these 3 gentlemen from interstate, I was told no he is not interested as the platform his team is using is determined by his bosses back in HQ! Somehow, I managed to get one of his team leader to at least go learn about what this company is offering.
Later that day, curious why my manager would be interested in meeting with someone with a product totally irrelevant to what we do, I asked him about it. As the story goes, someone from that company has been calling my manager and pressing him for a meeting. They kept at it even when my manager told him that it is not relevant. He was just giving them the opportunity to show their demo in the hope that all the calls would stop! In a way, this other company wasted the traveling expenses for 3 people to fly interstate for a meeting where no one is really interested. It is almost as good as flying 3 people interstate and go talk to some strangers.
I suppose what these 3 gentlemen were trying to do is to fully explore all opportunities. Not very different from how an insurance/investment sales person would pursue a "difficult" potential-client. But your chances of selling an MP3 player to a person who is deaf or a light bulb to a person who has no access to electricity is going to be very slim even if they agree to let you do a demo.
