Annals of Sales: Early “Coaching”
July 27, 2010 at 6:21 AM | Posted in Business, Sales | 5 CommentsTags: Bill Stewart, Burroughs, Plex
A "Bag"
I remember the exact moment when my first sales manager, Bill Stewart, gave me what we now refer to as a wake-up call: I was just going from the entrance ramp onto the Cross Island Expressway in Queens. In those days, first of all, there was no question that the sales rep drove. Not only did we do all the driving but the managers examined our car for neatness. I was in one car recently that reminded me of an archeological dig, layer after layer of sloppiness (putting it mildly). This would have been unheard of back then. But the early seventies were before the advent of mini-vans, those combination chuck-wagons and play-pens and before parents were both entertainers and travel agents for their children. In my first week at Plex, just a few years ago, I was heading to lunch and my rep said “you driving?” I looked at him like he had two heads – my driving days were long over. But back in 1974, I was at the bottom of a very real totem pole.
Bill and I had been talking about the Branch’s sales performance. I was, at that time, under quota like almost everyone else. I said something to the effect that I was not at the bottom of the sales list – a list that came out every week. “Tom, he said, “let me stop you right there. I don’t care how other people are doing – if you don’t make quota you won’t be working here very long.”
What! I had been counting on being somewhere slightly above mediocre so that I could somehow keep my job a little longer till some easier work came along. I would have been head-over-heels with average. But Bill wasn’t buying it. He had scoped me out.
When I heard Bill’s words I thought of my mother who would say, as mother’s do: ‘just because their parents let them, doesn’t mean that I will.’
There is karma in the world: we can’t get away with anything.
5 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a Reply
Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Customized Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
At ASK, I had to take Carol Bartz, now CEO of Yahoo but then EVP of Sales for Sun Microsystems, to have lunch with our CEO, Sandy Kurtzig. I remember having my 1989 Nissan Maxima detailed the day before the lunch and still having doubts. I had it detailed one more time just before picking up Carol. For the second detailing, the guy came running out to me and asked if I was sure I wanted it detailed. I assured him I did. After the job, he sure looked guilty taking a tip. I also remember going to the restaurant the day before, talking to the manager, asking for the best server, tipping her $50 before the lunch and promising more if things went well.
I know that when I was at Oracle a year or so ago in Services Sales, I didn’t see this type of behavior. Maybe it’s not necessary. Maybe it is. Maybe it makes the job more fun. Back then, it seemed like a kick that someone would pay me a salary to have lunch with people and then pay me much more if good things happened.
Comment by Brian Boyd— July 28, 2010 #
Great story. I’ve always wanted to meet Carol Bartz — I’ve admired her from afar. So, what was she like and please dish about that lunch which I don’t recall hearing about.
Comment by tommackey— July 28, 2010 #
Yes Brian, we want to hear how it went. Always dangerous taking a customer to meet Sandy (and some other ASK VPs) but taking a female customer…!
Comment by Graham Page— July 28, 2010 #
It was during our attempt to sell Sun MANMAN/X. The salescycle was going swimmingly. Theresa Conroy did an amazing job. In the end, we were somewhat hindered by the lack of a product. They were a great prospect for the product at the time since Sun had limitless access to hardware and that’s exactly how much hardware it took to run the GUI.
The lunch came about near what we thought was the end of the cycle. The guy we were primarily dealing with reported up to Carol and she had an interest in meeting Sandy so we took advantage. I remember picking up Carol at Sun in Mountain View and driving her to that Italian place on the corner of El Camino and San Antonio and fretting that Sandy wouldn’t show up but we arrived all at the same time. In the car, Carol was all business and primarily interested in what other platforms we were running on and why we would bother with any other than SPARC. At the table, Sandy and Carol chatted about the business climate, again why we should only be running on SPARC, Sandy explaining our relationship with HP and DEC and a brief rundown on their respective resumes. Shockingly, there were no eyebrow raising moments other than my squirming a bit while Sandy discussed our relationship with HP.
Judging from so comments Sandy made in a recent email regarding an ASK reunion, she and Carol stayed in contact after that.
To be honest, I never had a bad experience with Sandy meeing a prospect. I do remember taking another top ASK exec on a call along with Steve Maddox. As Steve and I walked up, the rumpled exec said, “Man, you guys look sharp.” Afterward, Steve and I howled with laughter over the idea that it was somehow ‘over the top’ to wear professionally drycleaned, tailored clothing to an important customer meeting. This was, of course, back when you didn’t have to ask the customer if the meeing was a ‘suit and tie meeting’, ‘business casual meeting’, ‘dressy casual’ or ‘jeans and a wifebeater’.
Comment by Brian Boyd— July 28, 2010 #
Great story. Sandy could be wicked with partners – I recall her asking a DEC VP who he reported to. Being DEC of course the answer began with ‘Well, um…’
In the UK HP invited the ASK sales team on to some fancy yacht. Bil Tilbury loudly to his colleagues: ‘Just remember to be diplomatic about what we say. For example, this thing we’re standing on is called a….VAX’
Comment by Graham Page— July 28, 2010 #