FIREFLY! FIREFLY! FIREFLY!

I've started re-binge-watching the short-lived sci-fi-western television series Firefly.  Of course it's limited by its venue, some of the situations are two-dimensional, and let's face it, it's not Shakespeare. 

But I love it.  I love the characters, I love the actors, I love the world-building.  I love, love, love the theme song.  Did I mention that I love Firefly?

So this week, I'm posting Lesson #18 from The Handbook.  It's a lesson from the series, and in particular, from the episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds," that guest stars Christina Hendricks, more recently of Mad Men fame.

And two side notes-- 

1.  Alan Tuydek, who plays Wash in Firefly, also has another connection with The Handbook; Lesson #9 references the Disney animated film Wreck-It Ralph, in which Tudyk voices the character "King Candy."

2. Alan Tuydek AND Jewel Staite (who played Kaylee on Firefly) are BOTH scheduled to attend the Wizard World Reno Comic Con... Life is GOOD!

Anyway. So. Here's the lesson.

The Sci-Fi:  Firefly.  Television series by Josh Whedon.

The Sales Sitch:  The setting is the 2500s, after a civil war in which the planets and forces seeking greater freedom and more independence and rights were brought back under the control of the Alliance.  Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds (a former Browncoat, as the rebels are known) is the captain of a Firefly-class spaceship, a cargo ship that he uses to eke out a living in interplanetary transport.  He and his crew (including another veteran soldier buddy from the war) take on a lot of smuggling, robbery and other extra-legal work, particularly if it will serve as a way to thumb their noses at the Alliance authorities that be.

Crewmember Jayne Cobb is portrayed as a fairly amoral mercenary, not usually coming across as too bright or sentimental, but very competent at his job (which is often beating people up, or even killing them).  He has a special weapon that he likes to use (“It is my very favorite gun.”) and it actually shows up in a number of situations in the series.  As noted in wikia devoted to the show, “He had named his favorite and most powerful gun, a Callahan full-bore auto lock with customized trigger.” (Its name is Vera.)  “He acquired it after killing the previous owner, one of six assassins trying to kill him.”

The Sales Sitch:  Sales is not an arena in which to be understated or subtle.  Sometimes sales reps are afraid of coming on too strong to a prospect, but you need to go in with your best offer, to show your full strength in order to show up the competition, or even better, to blow them completely away and to establish your own primacy.   You need to bring out the big gun.

If you come into the fray with anything less than your best, there are a number of results that you can expect, and none of them are good.  First and foremost, you can lose the sale to your competitor who has made a better offer.  Their best, or even their second-best, might be better than the less-than-best offer that you brought to the table.  But if you go in with your best, then even if you lose the account, you know that it wasn’t because you mis-judged how much effort to put into it… you’ll know that the deal was beyond your control no matter what, that you didn’t lose it because of anything you could have done differently.
 
And if you DO win the account with a less-than-best offer, you might be encouraging your competition to keep sniping at you… they may feel that they only missed beating you out by a little bit, and that they are still in the game when the sales opportunity cycles back around.  The client may feel this way, too, whereas if your proposal really crushed the competition, both may feel that your competitor just isn’t in your league. 

Another bad situation that can arise from winning an account with a second-best offer is that if and when there is a problem with the sales or service, it may give the client a reason to take the business elsewhere the next time around.  They may think they don’t really have that much to lose, since your deal was only a little bit better than the other provider’s offer.  On the other hand, if your deal was so much better than that of your closest competitor, the client may be willing to put up with a few minor setbacks… after all, they did get such a great deal on the product.

The Sales and Sci-Fi Lesson:  Go in with your big guns, your best deal.  Always.  Or risk losing to someone else who does.

The Sci-Fi Skinny:  Firefly, the short-lived but much-loved fan favorite television show from Joss Whedon (American writer, director, producer, b. 1964) is often (very accurately) called a ‘Sci-Fi Western.’  The civil war in the storyline, while not over slavery, is over states’ (or planets’) rights, and many of the planets visited by the crew of the Serenity are frontier civilizations reminiscent of the early American West.  Like Christopher Nolan, Whedon is another individual who has, by virtue of originality and creativity, worked his way up to an impactful position in Sci-Fi film.  In addition to screen works (big screen and small screen) including Buffy, Angel, Dr. Horrible and The Avengers, Whedon has also made a name for himself in the comic book field.  Firefly ran 14 episodes in 2002-2003, and led to a movie, Serenity, in 2005.