BloggeRhythms 10/13/2012

Results of the two debates so far have brought a few memories back of my own career, and reconfirmed the educational value of “exposure” for me.

 

Through a series of events, resulting mostly from pure chance rather than a specifically detailed plan, I rose quite quickly to a position involving multi-million dollar transactions.

 

First selling metal buckles to garment and belt manufacturers in Manhattan, I then moved on to woven labels to clothing makers in the same market, item prices for both comparatively minimal.

 

Those endeavors were followed by lift trucks, costing anywhere between twenty-five hundred to twenty thousand dollars on average, depending on size and specifications. And after that, I arrived in the equipment leasing and financing business where six-figure deals were every day occurrences.

 

The reason I bring this subject up today is that when I made the jump from label sales to materials handling equipment, although the basic sales processes were fundamentally the same regarding calling on prospective customers, the significantly higher unit costs seemed overwhelming to me. Quite frightening in fact. 

 

When my lift truck sales manager learned of my trepidation, he sat me down to gave me a lesson I’ve never forgotten. He explained that the only thing that mattered was the customer’s need and ability to afford an acquisition. So, while shirt manufacturers might need labels costing four cents each and critical to their products, warehouse owners couldn’t move freight without lift trucks and thus, to them equipment cost was simply a business expense, as well. Consequently, he taught me to overcome my own awe about high prices, and get on to simply satisfying customer’s wants and needs.

 

Along the same lines, in graduating to financial sales I faced similar concerns regarding transaction size, some of which were truly large amounts by any standard. However, my manager in this case gave me similar advice, using the word, “exposure.”

 

What he explained was, that here again, the fundamentals of sales don’t change, only the price involved does. And therefore, I was intimidating myself by letting my own perception of the deal size get in the way of conducting business professionally. And, naturally, he was absolutely right, whereas with time, experience and job growth, eventually transaction size meant nothing at all, only customer satisfaction counted in the end.

By taking the advice of those willing to help and train me, I ultimately headed a force of 125 salespeople located in 26 offices across the nation producing $500 million in annual sales and growing. Tops in our entire industry specialization. 

 

So, in the preceding examples it can be seen that a critical key to success is growth on the job, learning and understanding customer's needs and wants, and most important of all, listening to them and figuring out ways to provide satisfaction to all parties involved in any kind of transaction.

 

And that brings me back to the past two debates. Because in them we have blatant examples of what happens when people simply don’t grow into jobs, nor show any desire to professionally mature at all. And instead of demonstrating any examples of the slightest success -whereas they have none- the incumbent team at the top chose to sully, snipe, deride, and harass their competition, acting like spoiled children who’d flunked a grade-school test because they hadn't learned a thing yet. Which is also the reason, I believe, why our entire economy is sinking and national growth and world position declining. 

 

And I guess this also illustrates why the administration has such a strong liking for public school teachers.  Because today’s teachers have no desire to educate anyone at all, and those in the administration have no wish to learn, grow or improve whatsoever, making them absolutely perfect partners.

 

That’s it for today folks.

 

Adios