How Lazy Managers Get the Job Done! They don’t!
By Chris Mullins
This is NOT limited to the Sales Manager business either. Not by a long shot! As always, this week’s Business Nugget column applies to butcher, baker, candlestick maker.
Once again, I’m perplexed and shocked at just how lazy some of you are.Yes, lazy. Come on, when are you going to make a change? The changes you said you were going to make, you admitted you needed to make. I’m going to share some of the shocking highlights of one of my latest leadership telecoaching sessions. By the way this Sales Manager is really a senior executive at a very big corporate publishing group. This member of my Leadership Coaching Club, I’ll call him Tommy, has been a member for over 2 years, he’s made many incredible accomplishments, but we just had a session that showed me exactly how much further he has to go if he has the courage to raise the bar. Let’s begin.
Tommy’s allowing is sales team, which by the way if you’re not a sales manager you can plug in just about any title, i.e. business owner, office manager, publisher, landscaper, cleaner, software company, you name it, this column, as always applies to all of us. Tommy’s sales team is running him. His dilemma is that he has an opening for a new salesperson because the last person, Henry, never made his sales territory work because many days he didn’t show up for work.
Do you think after the first time this joker Henry didn’t make it to work Tommy fired is “sorry blank”? NOPE! Henry just kept running the show. Read on and you’ll see what I mean. This salesperson made a fool of Tommy at least half a dozen times, which means when he said he was working on the road selling, he wasn’t! Henry would fill up his call sheet (sound familiar?) with tons of stops to speak with prospects, but never went there. How did Tommy know he didn’t show up? Well he FINALLY decided to call some of the customers to see if he did show up, BINGO, customers said NOPE!
There you have it, Tommy did all the proper documentation and fired Henry, he said proudly. Mostly he was proud that he did the proper documentation. To make matters worse, Tommy then tells me he’s not sure what to do with the new empty seat. I said, well do you need to fill it? YES! Tommy yelled. Then, just seconds later he says, “well no, deep down, not really, but you know I mentioned putting an extra $200 per month of easy money into the pockets of my other salespeople to divide up the territory and they DON’T WANT IT! They don’t want the headaches.” Geez, when do you think Tommy and all the other leaders out there just like him are going to get with it? Stop letting the team, the company control you! Tell you what to do! Stop being afraid to LOSE THE TEAM?
Finally, Tommy shared a story with me about Jim, the SEASONED SALESPERSON. This guy brings in an easy $50K a year income for himself just by maintaining his automotive accounts. By the way these automotive customers have told Tommy they’d be happy to advertise more if someone would just come in and give them an idea or two. Do you think that Tommy did anything about this? Nope! Anyway, I said why don’t you just give Jim the extra territory and tell him what you expect specifically with regards to increased revenue? Tommy says, no, he won’t do it.
At this point, I’m just listening. Then he shares with me that he knows of an excellent salesperson from a competitor who would love to come on board in the automotive territory. But Tommy doesn’t feel right stealing people. OY! This is all about being LAZY, not incompetent or even being the right person for the job, just plain lazy. Too lazy to deal with the challenges that will inevitably come up just by firing Henry, firing all the salespeople who don’t jump on board with, YES, I’ll take on some of Henry’s accounts, etc. Too lazy to hear everyone’s whining who doesn’t like the choices the leader makes. Too scared to do anything about the whining and lazy salespeople.
What’s worse about this whole thing is that I can tell you first hand that most of the leaders above the managers like Tommy, know what’s going on, but they too don’t do a thing about it. Guess it’s just easier to lose money everyday! They too are lazy for all the same reasons!
The question for you is, how does this apply to you? For those of you that are thinking to yourself, this guy is a joker, I’d bet that you have many of the same challenges to deal with yourself in your own situation, just a different scenario. Right?
The last thing Tommy said to me before I began my “accountability, are you being lazy speech?” was, “one thing I know for sure, when and if I ever go to another company it will be different. I’ll kick butt from the very beginning.” I said to Tommy, after the “accountability, are you being lazy speech?”, “Tommy, let me leave you with this one thought”.
“This could be that new beginning!”
Chris Mullins, The Phone Sales Doctor™, president of www.MullinsMediaGroup.com, is a sales and communication expert with a special love and focus on how to use the telephone to “sell and market you” for all business professionals. Chris personally listens to and critiques telephone sales calls (inbound/outbound), presentations, staff usage of the telephone, etiquette and offers role-playing time with careful examination and analysis of what you’re doing right, what you need to fix and how to fix it to improve your closure ratios, quickly. Chris is also the “Phone Script Doctor” that will review and/or rewrite your support staff and sales team’s scripts, outlines or call guides. For a FREE 3 Month Test drive of “Chris Mullins’ Nuggets® For Sales” print newsletter, email: chris@mullinsmediagroup.com and put “Test Drive” in the Subject Line or call 603-924-1640, , you’ll also get a FREE invitation to attend Chris’ Weekly Off-The-Cuff 30 Minute TeleClinic.