"Your sales numbers are down - you need to make more calls!" Ever heard that one before. That is the mantra from a manager that does not know what to do to fix a problem. Back in the old days (like 15 years ago) this was the way you sold. You sold this way not because it was efficient, but because there were not many options. I know from experience. I even remember at one of my jobs as a headhunter, my manager would make me every Monday cut employment ads out of the newspaper, paste them on a larger piece of paper, and turn them in as the new leads I was going to hunt that week. From there I had to cold call them on the phone, and at a minimum visit 50% of the companies in person, unannounced. Furthermore, I had to produce a business card showing that I went and did not go to the golf course or the bar with my buddies. Guess what my results were? Let me just say that if you throw enough crap on the wall something will stick but by no means was this scalable or efficient - it was done out of necessity. Unfortunately, there are a lot of managers out there, some who have done sales before, and some who have been on sales calls and had sales meetings so they think they have done sales. Unfortunately many of them have not had an "in the trench" job like this for any period of time. I call them Glenn Gary managers. Have no idea what I am talking about? Go watch the movie Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross. It's a classic.... A classically wrong way to sell or to tell people how to sell - at least in this day an age. Wake up dinosaurs - or get out of the way.
I realize this post is just a rant and not a solution, but I needed to rant today.
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