The phone rings very early. Too early. And it’s not just any phone: it’s the mobile phone of a well-known Central European trader… and the veteran salesman already knows what’s coming.
A number that doesn’t usually show up on the screen. A customer who’s gone months without so much as a sign of life. But, of course, on the other end of the line, a friendly voice greets you with excessive familiarity.
In the fresh produce business, calls like these are like the canaries the miners used to carry down into the underground galleries: an early signal that something in the market’s air is changing. And the experienced salesman knows how to read it.
In this episode we’re going to dig into one of those conversations every sales representative in the sector has lived through at some point. A conversation that hides deep lessons about the strategic classification of customers, about the signals that a market trend is turning, and about that merciless law we call “the inelasticity of supply in the short term”.
Because when an occasional buyer calls in a hurry asking for goods, the real message isn’t in his words, it’s in the very fact that he’s called at all.
Welcome to a new episode of Freshconomics Podcast.
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