Actually the title is not about me, but it could be! We all know that the last year has been a very trying one for all people, not just those of us in the promotional products, but those all around the country. As an executive of one of the larger distributors in the US I have been caught up in what most people have been doing, aligning costs with the sales revenue.
Yes this includes the fun stuff (I say this 100 % sarcastically) of making budget cuts, laying off people, reducing benefits, etc. I have been involved in countless projections of sales and profits and more analysis than I care to think of. It has not been fun but it has been a necessary evil that has had to be done.
One of my responses to the economic challenges of this year involved me drastically cutting back on some travel during the second half of the calendar year. This seems to make sense…right? Again if there was a good reason to fly to the east coast or the west coast I would be on a plane tomorrow. We all still need to go about our business, unless we are closing up shop and this is certainly not a factor with our company. But again in an effort to be fiscally responsible we cut back on some discretionary travel trips.
As I write this I am returning from a sales meeting in Ohio attended by about 25 of our sales reps. I will let you know that we have almost 400 sales reps around the United States, most employees but some 1099 status folks who are compensated 100 % on straight commission. At this meeting we had a mix of long time seasoned veterans (some with over 30 years with our company) and some exciting new hires who had aligned with us recently for a variety of reasons. I would like to say that they “saw the light” and realized we were the place to be but for one reason or another we seem to fit their needs!
After a day and a half of teaching, listening and learning I was overcome with the realization that these people are real and that these people have feelings. For the past several months of analysis and projections I have been seeing their names and their sales numbers, volumes, commissions, profits, etc. on reports. Mind you I have known some of these people a long time so that this week was not my first introduction to them.
The overwhelming reality that I faced was that while I have been reviewing budgets and projecting future sales and expenses these folks have been trying to live and get by day to day in many cases. As a salaried manager with bonus opportunities and a vested interest in the company it is not as if I am just skating by with absolutely no impact on my income. I have been affected but not to the extent that the sales people on the street have experienced. I saw and heard cases of 20, 30 and 40 % losses in income. Again I knew this because I see the reports however this week it touched me more than a name on a piece of paper!
Have I been stuck in the ivory tower? Yes I think I have!
I think at the end of the day, as a person responsible for managing the business, many decisions that have been made would be the same. What I do think could be different is the way you arrive at the decisions and the manner in which you communicate them could be more compassionate.
Whether you own and run a small distributorship or a supplier or a large national firm does not really matter. Perhaps in a larger company it might be easier to “forget” about the personal side of the business if you are not interacting with the reps on a daily basis. The bottom line is that salespeople have feelings! They want to be heard! They want to be appreciated!
I have a special line that I use in our company at certain times. In those situations where someone is complaining about the actions of a particular rep I attempt to get to the core of the issue and see what happened. Sometimes it becomes apparent that a person would rather complain about the salesperson than remedy the situation. It is at that time that I will say in a very sobering tone straight faced as I can be…
”well maybe we should consider eliminating all of the sales reps. I think if we did that things would go much smoother around here. Don’t you think?”
We all know how ludicrous that this sounds. We all need salespeople! They are at the heart of our who we are and what we do. Nothing happens until something is sold!
The wake up call that I got this week was to never forget the salesperson on the street and what they go through. Stay in tune with who they are and what they do! Spend some real face time with them. Listen to them! Find out firsthand what their challenges they are encountering and discuss ways to overcome them together.
If we can remember to do these things, especially at times like this, our companies will all be better off. We need each other, management and sales, more than either side will admit but it is true!
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