It's All About Activity

In years past I had bosses who told me it was all about "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" and then working hard and generating activity. First of all, what the hell are bootstraps? Do I look like friggin Teddy Roosevelt? Who rides a horse anymore you idiot? Secondly, it isn't all about your activity. It's about the right activity, and what you do with that particular activity.

It just so happened this boss had no sales experience AT ALL. That's a smart move by management. Let's hire an uber nerd to manage your activity and this will help you make your numbers. Why would we hire an experienced manager who knows when you're working, when you're not? Why would we promote a person who can actually help you manage your time and get you to work smarter not harder? That would actually make sense that's why. In my experience, despite their best intentions, even upper management can make stupid decisions that seem to have no foundation in reality.

So this boss had spent most of his formative years earning his MBA (8 years- Apparently he thought it was not prudent to finish his degree quickly). In addition, he was working full time as a manager at Spencer Gifts, which was regarded as a positive by management. It seems to me there is a big difference between selling fake vomit and penis pasta as opposed to a real sales job where you're out on the street everyday pounding the pavement. But apparently, management views it differently. Or maybe they just don't care. Just want to fill a vacancy no matter what the consequences. I've noticed in all the companies I work for, filling a spot is really what people do when they hire. And they hire people they like, people that are like them. Short managers hire short employees. Rude managers hire rude people. Despite all of the science involved in the hiring process, poor hiring decisions are made daily.

So this inexperienced manager comes in to "right the ship". As if our sales team was sinking. We were 95% to plan and just had a bad first 6 months of the year. But here comes the MBA to save the day. He has charts, graphs, and statistics on what we should be able to forecast by the end of the year. According to his calculations if we do 25 cold calls per day together with 20 appointments per week, we should close at 110% to plan. Assuming our closing ratio is 19.73 percent which is what it is currently. Really? Really? 19.73 is our closing ratio? Which half of a client did we not close?

He rides with me for the first time, and I want to hate him but he's a very nice guy. Wife, family, kids, same as most of us. Amiable enough, but nerdy and a numbers guy which no offense, doesn't work in the sales arena. Hey, I majored in econometrics I know. I was a numbers guy too but people don't respond to data, they respond to OTHER PEOPLE! I take him to a really big prospect who I have been working on for a year to see if he can help. My immediate concern with him on the call is that he will be awkward with the customer and secondly that he will not know the sales process. Here's how the call went:

"Good morning Carol. Thanks for meeting with me again. I just wanted to introduce to my boss, he's just here to help if you have any questions. I know this our 3rd time meeting, so I hopefully after today we'll have made some progress and start working together."

"If you give me better pricing I don't see why not?", Carol answered and laughed. She was definitely a numbers person, but very amiable. Nice lady.

Ray held out his hand for her to shake, "Uh hi my name is Ray, I'm Murray's new boss. Please to meet you." he says, shakes hands, and then looks at the ground. To say the situation is awkward is an understatement.

"Pleased to meet you Ray. Well I hope you can help us negotiate some of this pricing we're looking at from you guys. Murry tells me you guys aren't budging?"

"Don't know if I can do anything right now with the pricing. It looks pretty good from our corporate, but I'll use the Jedi mind trick on them to see if we can make it happen.", he said, looked up from his shoes and smiled. He had that weird smile, like a taxidermist or serial killer; nervous and creepy.

I suppressed the inclination to say to whom, "Who the hell makes a Star Wars reference in the middle of a sales call?" Now the contact is looking at me strangely so I try to take control of the call.

"Ha ha ha... I know you were looking at a reduction in price to help cut costs, and I'm sure we can review the pricing. But we are really selling a superior product here in terms of clinical outcomes. It shows a 35% reduction in hospital length of stay in the most recent study by Weintraub", I said and handed her the clinical results.

"Yeah and it comes with a free light sabre", Ray piped in trying to add another weird joke to the situation.

"Thank you Obi One.", I said and laughed again," But with a reduction in the length of stay this will help reduce your overall costs as opposed to just looking at our pricing and reimbursement. Does that make sense?"

"You mean if we use this product you'll guarantee a reduction in our length of stay by 35%?" our contact said and looked at me in disbelief.

"No, I didn't say that. I said that it has shown to reduce length of stay by 35% in some clinical studies. I don't want there to be any misconception on our part. It's a 35% clinical reduction. Nothing is truly guaranteed. "

"Use the force. It's guaranteed.", Ray said again. I thought I saw him holding an action figure but that could've been my imagination. I shot him an angry look and he stopped smiling and looked down at the ground.

"Keep in mind you've been using our products for a while in free trials and your patient's outcomes have definitely improved. Check with your doctors and nurses."

" We have and we're not sure the cost savings is realistic or justified. You've done a great job of convincing everyone that the product does work and so "kudos" to you, but were fairly happy with our current vendor", she said.

"We can appreciate your loyalty. It makes sense, but you've seen all the clinical evidence right? It beats all of our competitors hands down in performance under clinical trials and it's working with your patients right now. Why would you stay with a product that doesn't work as effectively? Especially if you can reduce the length of stay", I stated very matter of factly as if there was no doubt.

"Unless you can give us a 10% reduction in the cost to justify the usage we are going to consider other options. Sorry."

"I would love to reduce the pricing, but the quality of our products is worth that tiny bit more of an investment on your part since you'll be saving in the long run by reducing your patient's length of stay. "

"Let me see the pricing again. ", she said with a smirk on her face and I handed her our pricing list for the 3rd time in 3 months. She took it, looked it over, and said nothing. She started to type some numbers on her calculator, wrote on the proposal, scribbled a few more numbers and still said nothing. I was silent, waiting for her to speak first and give me a buying sign. We were both quiet for a time, and she opened her mouth to speak but instead Ray broke the silence

"Listen Carol, this could go on all day, but we need to go. We have another appointment in a few minutes. Do you want to get back to us when you've made a decision?"

Carol was startled, "What? Where do you have to be right now?", she seemed offended.

"We have a 2 o'clock appointment. Why don't you just get back to us. Thanks.", he said it with no inflection in his voice. As if he were a robot. I could see that Carol was visibly upset and she thought he was being rude.

"Okay. I'll get back to you, but right now I'm leaning towards staying with our current company."

"That's fine", he said. "Let's go Murry. We don't wanna be late."

"What? Uh okay. I guess we'll get back to you Carol. Thanks for meeting with us. I'll be in touch."

"Okay. I guess I'll review this and talk to you later. Thanks for coming in."

We shook hands and I walked out of there bemused by my new bosses behavior. What the hell was he thinking? We were so close to making a deal and he just gets up and walks out?

"That was awesome!", he said, obviously invigorated by the call. "I've always wanted to do that! Turn the tables on a customer by getting up and walking out."

"I think we blew it in there Ray. She was close to making a decision and no offense you pushed her in the wrong direction.", I was trying to quell my anger with him.

"No way dude. That was just like Tin Men! You make them want it by getting up and walking out. You make them think they're missing out on something. It was textbook sales technique."

At this point, I couldn't help but be angry.

"Ray. Just so you know, "Tin Men" is not recommended reading for Sales 101. Neither is "Used Cars", "Boiler Room", or any other movies you may have seen about sales. You need to practice your rapport building, needs analysis and closing techniques. This isn't the movies, it's REAL sales.

"No way. You watch. She'll call you back. I guarantee it. And she'll wanna do business with us! It just like in the movie. They were pissed at first but they camme back and bought the siding."

"Ray. Sales is not like in the movies. It's not that easy!"

"Sure it is. It's about activity and talking to people. If you can relate to people they you can sell. And the more people you get a hold of the more sales you make!"

"Ray that's if people like you and trust you. If they don't; you're screwed."

" She liked me. I can tell. She definitely likes you"

I was visibly pissed off at this simple analysis of my job and sales in general. If it was that friggin easy, then everyone would do it! Ray's simple analysis of the situation was offensive to me and sales people as a whole.

"You wanna know what movie I was thinking of when you were in there talking to Carol and telling her we'd get back with her?", I asked him.

"No. What movie?"

"'I Am Sam'. Cause what you did in there was retarded."