Analog Devices/Linear's corporate HQ is down the street, think they have any free samples of a couple items I'm interested in lying around to give me without waiting for the mail?
Says they have a sales office there...
Unlikely, they want lots of info for "free" samples, Mother's maiden name, best friend in high school... etc.
george H.
Gawd, take the fillings out of my teeth why don't they.
Might be fun to drop in if I'm ever over that way, though. As Mom used to say - "All they can do is say no"
Tell them to buy you lunch too.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
I'll put on my nicest suit and say to the sales manager over lunch: "Sir, I'm interested in buying at least _fifty_ of your finest digital audio codec ICs."
I'll lean in and say it quietly like I don't want anyone else to hear what an amazing opportunity I'm offering
DNA sample?
The big advantage of having a personal sales rep is that they will get you free samples and eval boards, fast. They don't provide much actual technical support any more; that's all on the forums.
Some eval boards, even for cheapish parts, are hundreds of dollars.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
You aren't the only person with a schedule. I expect they would accommodate you as best they can, but why not make an appointment rather than just "dropping in"? If you contact a salesperson beforehand, you can let them know you are coming and they might actually be able to find some samples. They sell thousands of parts and don't just have then sitting on top of their desk waiting for someone to request them. Heck, TI gave up distributing their own samples and let Digikey mail them out.
-- Rick C
To get that level of treatment you have to be believable and there has to be a prospect of orders. I have some trouble because my manufacturing is all done through contract assemblers who aren't even in the same territory.
-- Rick C
Yes, in reality I would likely put in a phone call ahead of time instead of just showing up at 9 AM in my pajamas. :-)
"HEY WHAT YOU GOT IN HERE"
No.
There's more chance of that than having the samples wants, just laying around.
My company has a strict policy of $25 maximum value for free samples.
Getting or giving?
We have one customer guy that we give a freebie of any VME module that he wants. We'll loan or sample a product to anybody that is seriously considering buying a lot of them.
Things don't cost all that much to make. And once a potential customer plays with one - especially if he has to write a bunch of code to use it - he's more likely to buy more.
We get a lot of freebies: parts, eval boards, enclosures, resistor kits, lasers, EMI materials kits, even thermal imagers.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
So did you find semiconductor sales a rewarding field or...
Is that giving them out or accepting them?
-- Rick C
I rather doubt you'd be able to get samples at HQ. I'm not sure where the warehouse is these days but it's certainly not at corporate headquarters and probably hasn't been for decades. It might not even be in Norwood, or MA for that matter. I don't think the sales guys keep much in the way of samples in their desks or car trunks, either, the catalog is just too big. The sales guys have to request samples to give to customers. It might actually be fastest to go through normal channels.
It's kind of a pain but ADI is a big company, and like most big companies has lots of systems and procedures that drive behavior, rather than the other way around.
You'd never make it in our house. Microchip has given me something like 20-30K opamps (8-10 reels) in the last couple of weeks. I have
30 or 40 full reels of Toko inductors in a cabinet. Some, like TI want a shopping list for each build but 50 or 100, each, of a half-dozen parts isn't unusual. ADI gives us 100 Sharcs (even "Griffins"/SC584s) at a pop (again for specific builds), if we need 'em. These can be worth $25 each (probably more for pre-production samples). "Strict policies" are really dumb. Hell $25 doesn't even buy a decent lunch.
Again, you really don't have to constantly tell us just how stupid you are. We got that *long* ago.
It's amazing the shortrex would need an explanation of the obvious but he isn't very bright.
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