Nagaraj says that Eric Weimer, a district sales manager based inRichmond, Va., who had been using a Palm to track customer data on hisown, understood the constraints and convinced the other reps that theyneeded to limit the number of fields and the size of the drop-downmenus. For example, to collect data on pinspotters (the machines thatreset the pins), some reps wanted to include every model that AMF hadever made in the drop-down menu. Weimer argued that a salesperson justneeds to know whether a customer has an AMF pinspotter; in most cases,the model doesn't matter since the main selling proposition is whenit's not an AMF product. So the group whittled a drop-down list of 22choices to eight critical items. Reps also asked to see the status ofall of their customers' sales orders. But because a typical orderincludes 80 to 100 line items, that would have dramatically increasedsync time and overloaded the Palms. Instead, they decided to give repsjust information on shortages (when AMF can't immediately supplyeverything ordered) and warranty orders (when warrantied equipmentbreaks and replacement parts must be shipped quickly). This keeps repsin the loop when customers have problems.

To help fine-tune the application, Fottrell and Nagaraj enlistedWeimer to represent the tech-savvy rep's viewpoint. They also gotinput from Dave Cykoski, a longtime AMF rep based in Jacksonville,Fla., "because we thought he would never give up his Daytimer," saysFottrell. "We knew that the rest of the salespeople were somewhere inbetween."

At the December 2000 sales meeting, Weimer led his colleagues througha hypothetical day in the life of an AMF rep using Applix, showingthem how they could use the system to focus on the customers mostlikely to spend money, as well as how to update prospect or customerinformation. He also illustrated how they could use their laptop(which they'd keep in their hotel room) to view messages from thecredit department or see their customers' unresolved calls to the helpdesk. Weimer told his fellow reps, "You'll have the opportunity tosay, 'I know you talked to AMF a couple days ago, and we didn't getback to you, but this is the answer.' You become more valuable, andcustomers will want to talk to you more than someone doing a coldcall."

Weimer deftly fielded reps' questions and challenges. "He was rightback at 'em with some real, specific business reasons as to why it wasdone the way it was done," recalls Fottrell. "There's no way an ITperson could've had the same credibility."

The reps got their Palms and training on the Applix software at theMarch 2001 sales meeting. Because AMF was about to enter Chapter 11,reps were understandably distracted. AMF's aggressive investment inbowling centers in the late '90s had left it with what Buhl calls "abroken balance sheet." Before filing for bankruptcy in July 2001, thecompany laid off 171 people, including two district sales managers.(It emerged with a restructured debt in March 2002.)