News flash: Louis Feuer has decided to look for a job. Well, not just any position. I want a sales representative job like the one I hear about from business owners every week. I didn't think they still existed, but I have been proven wrong.
I want the job where:
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I do not have to do anything but minimal paperwork.
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I know the owner or sales manager will probably not look at my reports.
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I can tell the owner or sales manager, “Just give me time, more time to build relationships that generate money. A year's worth of time would be great.”
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I don't have to go to the office during the day unless I feel like it.
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I receive a cell phone, a car allowance and a big marketing budget.
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I don't need to find new accounts but can live off the success of the company and/or the previous sales representative.
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I only have to talk about one or two products and don't need to learn about the entire business.
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The boss is afraid of me, instead of my being afraid of the boss.
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I can continue to ask for and receive raises since someone is concerned I might leave and take the business with me.
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I can spend the day giving out gift items, order lunch, then just sit back and see if that makes the telephone ring.
If there is not a job in your company like this one, you are off the hook. You need not read any further. For the others, let's move on. (I hesitate to call these roles a “position” since I may be elevating the value of the work. “Job” seems to be the best name for this too prevalent salesperson.)
Now, I already know these jobs exist in the industry. What is annoying me is that no one has considered me for any of these jobs. I know how to delay getting things done. I know how to do lunch. I could easily adjust to living off the success of others, and have always resented paying my own cell phone bill. I would enjoy a car allowance. At the current price of gas, I would love to send those bills to my boss, and the opportunity to threaten just one person with the idea of my leaving.
For more than 35 years I have searched and searched for this job, and only now have I come to realize how many of you in sales management have the opening I am looking for.
What's going on? Are we afraid to manage? Do we become so attached to our employees that we have little regard for their productivity? Do we find it easier simply to pay salaries, Social Security, withholding taxes and benefits — and not ask for work in return?
I am wondering why I am the one getting angry. Why am I adopting your problem? I guess I feel your pain, or, at least, what should be your pain.
But before you start terminating salespeople, take some time to rethink what you expect from them. Should they be making a certain number of sales calls each day? Not just stopping by an existing referral source to say hello, but setting up appointments, looking for new business and generating leads?
If salespeople don't know what is expected of them, you may have encouraged some to create a unique set of priorities that includes having fun and flying below the radar screen while enjoying the ride.
If you have people on the payroll who are not productive, yet you have this burning desire to keep paying them regardless of their unproductive ways, you are evidently not alone. I am glad changes in the industry, accreditation and competitive bidding have not forced you to tighten your financial belt. If you have money you do not know what to do with, please send it here weekly. I promise I will at least send a thank-you note.
I may be lecturing only to a small group, but, wow, do I feel better getting this article to print and off my chest. Thanks for reading, and, honestly, if that job does open up, call me, please! I can do nothing as effectively as anyone else.
But if you are a sales manager who is actually managing and monitoring, I may have to decline the position.
Louis Feuer is president of Dynamic Seminars & Consulting Inc. and the founder and director of the DSC Teleconference Series, a teleconference training program. He can be reached at www.DynamicSeminars.com or by phone at 954/435-8182.
