Boss Life

by Paul Downs

  —

  THE NEXT MORNING Nick has bad news. The Air Force job in Virginia has gone to another company. Forty thousand dollars that we had been counting on. I sympathize: “Those assholes,” and ask the obvious question: “What happened?” He tells me that he has had a bad feeling ever since he went on the site visit.

  “It was a big meeting, with a bunch of companies. They showed a slide show of what they wanted—it was the proposal I sent them with our name removed. I thought it was a lock for us. After the meeting, I went to introduce myself to the officer who presented. He was standing out in the hall, talking to a guy from another company. They were laughing and joking, and they kept going on and on, so eventually I left.”

  “You drove twelve hours to the meeting and back and you didn’t even talk to them?”

  “I’ve been e-mailing them proposals for months. They know who I am.”

  “You should have talked to them so they would put a face on all those e-mails.”

  “Yeah, I probably should have. I thought we had this one for sure, though. They kept telling me how awesome the designs were and thanking me for doing all that work.”

  “Give them a call, see what happened.”

  Later Nick tells me that he’d heard back from the guy: our price was too high. On the Air Force contracting Web site, I see that the job went to the outfit whose salesman had been joking with the officer. The winning price was three hundred below our bid. We’d sent pricing along with our proposals, and the officer probably showed it to the company they really wanted to work with. We’ve been played.

  The next day we ship the three Eurofurn orders that we received in early March. We haven’t received any new requests for quotes since I came back, so we only have to finish and deliver the prototype table. I presume that their sales are slow, just like ours. Or maybe they are waiting to see the prototype before committing to more orders.

  At three-thirty, I have my appointment with Bob Waks, the sales consultant. He has a couple of inches on me, and I’m 6-foot-1. Blue blazer, golf shirt, tan slacks, tasseled loafers. Leather briefcase. Silver hair, neatly trimmed. Firm handshake. Laser-beam eye contact. “We finally meet! Sam has told me so much about you.” I take him out to the shop floor for a tour. Bob shows polite interest and then asks to see the sales office. He meets Dan, Nick, and Emma, and I show him a couple of proposals. Again, a polite but muted response. I’m expecting him to be amazed by our software models; I’m a little insulted by his lack of enthusiasm. We retire to my private office for further conversation.

  “Why am I here?” is his first question. I describe our situation: falling inquiries, falling sales. I don’t know why the inquiries are drying up. I’m not sure what’s happening with sales. I’ve been through dry patches before, and they always corrected themselves eventually, but I’m afraid that this is going to be an especially rough ride. I’m almost out of work, and I can see that my cash will dry up soon as well. I tell him that Sam Saxton thinks he can help me. I hope that Sam’s right.

  “I’m not sure that I can,” is his surprising response. “I’m a little worried about you. Whether we are a good fit together. Guys like you can be good to work with, or very, very bad. You are a classic boss, Paul. You make quick decisions, and that’s good. I don’t have to fight my way through layers of an organization to get to the decision maker. If Paul Downs says it’s a go, it’s a go. The problem is when I tell you something you don’t like. You might agree or you might fight me. If you fight me, we’re wasting each other’s time. I don’t need the hassle. I have lots of customers. And I can see that Downs is a smart guy, you can think on your feet, and you can talk your way into anything.” Yup, that’s me. “But you aren’t going to like what I’m going to show you about how your sales ‘organization’ isn’t working. Your first instinct will be to figure out how I’m wrong about you. Then you’ll start fighting me. Pushing back. Telling me how I’ve got it wrong.”

  I think about this for a second. It’s true that I make quick decisions and that I’m used to having my own way. And that I can debate with the best of them. All my employees know this and never argue with me about anything. If I feel like it, I explain my decisions. If I don’t, I don’t. I’m not used to any push-back. Sometimes I wish I did get a fight from my workers. I know that they are smart people. They must have some good ideas. I must be wrong fairly often, or my business would make more money. But they don’t challenge me. Am I that intimidating? Possibly. I think that this is why I was interested in joining Vistage—to get someone to criticize me when I needed it. And this is why I called Bob. I want someone to take a hard look at how we sell.

  At the same time, I’m not so sure that Bob Waks is the right guy. He is the classic salesman—tall, groomed, confident, articulate, and he gives off a sales-y vibe. Ice to Eskimos. Anything goes to close a deal. There’s nothing to dislike about him—he seems like a very friendly, smart guy—but he’s 100 percent sales. And this rubs me the wrong way a little bit. I’m used to selling a thing, and I close the deal by making the thing so good that it speaks for itself. No fancy double-talk required. We are craftsmen, and we fade into the background as soon as the job is completed.

  I have to put my prejudice aside. I have Sam Saxton’s testimony that Bob is effective, and his numbers back that up. I want my sales problem fixed. I don’t know whether Bob is the solution, but I have to try something. So I reply, “It’s true that I make quick decisions. It’s true that I push back when I’m challenged. So what? That’s who I am. I’m also good at change. And so are my people. We don’t get hung up on yesterday, because yesterday usually sucked. I’m willing to take criticism. And I believe Sam when he says that you are good. So let’s presume that I’ll be good to work with and that you will help. What’s the next step? What do you actually do? When can we start? And how much will it cost?”

  Bob tells me that he’s going to need a couple of days to put together a recommendation and a contract, but he’d like to set up the meeting to review them now. Am I available next week? I’m going to be in the Middle East the following week, but we set a date for Thursday, the thirty-first. I think I’ve been maneuvered into doing something, and I don’t like that. On the other hand, I’m heading in the direction that I wanted to go. I have nothing to complain about, other than a vague sense that I haven’t been in control.

  On Monday, after another dismal set of numbers, I tell the crew that I’m doing everything that I can think of to turn things around. I tell them about increasing the AdWords budget and the consultant. After the meeting, I ask Dan and Nick whether any of their clients are likely to place orders this week. They don’t know, but promise to reach out to the most likely prospects. They are busy with outbound e-mails all morning.

  Discouraging replies start arriving after lunch. The worst is from Cali Heavy Industries. Dan thought that it was a lock. Now Dan’s contact writes, “We have chosen another vendor to move forward with this project. Thanks for your hard work and good luck in the future.” I call Jim, the dealer. He’s “in a meeting.” Send him an e-mail. No response. That’s a thirty-five-thousand-dollar job, gone. Add that to the forty thousand in Air Force work, and we could have been in much better shape for May.

  Thursday is the last day of May. First thing in the morning, I go over to Bob Waks’s office. His coy protest that he might not be able to help has been replaced with a multi-level plan of attack. First, evaluations. The fact that I have been making sales for twenty-six years notwithstanding, I will need to take a series of tests to see whether I am psychologically suited for the job. Dan and Nick will take the same one. It’s called DiSC Profile and is commonly used in business. I’ve never heard of it. I will also take another set of tests to evaluate our company sales practices and culture and my own performance as sales manager. Sales manager? Is that what I do? I never thought of my job that way. Bob will also come out to our office to observe us at work, so that
he can better understand how we approach our job.

  After the evaluations, training. Dan, Nick, and I will take a ten-week course on the basics of the Sandler method of selling. I haven’t heard of this either. I didn’t realize that selling comes in different systems, but it makes perfect sense. Every company makes sales and wants to make more. And some people are bound to develop a theory of how it should be done.

  During the training, and continuing on for the next twelve months, we will also receive two monthly counseling sessions with Bob himself. These sessions will allow us to discuss the ongoing development of our skills and to get help with challenges that come up.

  It takes about an hour for Bob to go through this. In the end, I have one more question: how much? For the whole package, $37,000. Holy smokes. On the other hand, I could continue doing what I’m doing, even though it isn’t working well. Sam saw his sales rise by 40 percent in the first year after the training, and he attributed all that to Bob’s work. If my sales rise 40 percent, I will have an additional $800,000 coming in the door. Spending $37,000 for that result is a bargain. I have to pay Bob $8,000 right away and the rest in monthly payments of $2,416.

  The eight grand is 8 percent of my working capital. The payments don’t seem that bad. I ask Bob if I can put it on a credit card, and he says yes. That will help—I can give him the deposit, wait thirty days before I have to pony up cash, and retain the option of rolling the card balance if I’m still short on funds. I can’t do that for very long, but it will give me some time to see whether the program is working.

  I asked Bob whether he would be willing to include Emma for the same price. She’s smart, and I want her to keep our clients’ point of view in mind. Nick, Dan, and I have a lot to win or lose, and that might cloud our perception of what we are being taught. Also, if the rest of us go through the program, she would be the only person in the sales office who hasn’t learned the new methods and the new lingo. I don’t want to have to explain it all to her while we are learning it ourselves.

  Bob agrees and I sign the contract. I decide that I’m going to approach it with an open mind and do my best to learn something. After lunch, I give Dan and Nick an overview of the training and the cost. They look very worried. “This worked great for Sam Saxton,” I say, “and I’m sure it’s going to work for us. Look, I just bet thirty-seven thousand dollars that we can be better at selling than we are now. Sam’s sales jumped forty percent. If we sell forty percent more than last year . . .” I take them through the calculations I’ve performed to convince myself that this is a good idea. I need them to buy into the program or it will be an expensive waste of everybody’s time.

  At the end of the day I take stock of the month. As usual, there’s no clear message to be assembled from the jumble of data and events. Things that seemed important at the beginning of May have faded in my rearview mirror and been replaced by fresh concerns.

  The numbers for the month are mostly bad. Total sales: $114,042. We shipped the Company S job back to them on the first, and they paid me what they owed in the middle of the month. Inquiries for the past four weeks have been consistently terrible: eleven per week. Increasing my AdWords budget has bought us more clicks, but so far they haven’t translated into more calls. It’s also been another month of low build totals: $137,086 moved from the shop floor into the finishing room. If that’s all we have to ship next month, we’re in trouble. Surprisingly, our cash position did not deteriorate. I started the month with $105,203 on hand, took in $182,594, and spent $175,113. That means an increase of $7,481. Stopping my own pay made a difference. I will end the month with $112,684 on hand. At our current rate of spending, that’s enough to operate the shop for fifteen working days.

  An increase in cash is better than the alternative, but it doesn’t mean that all is well. I’m still down $24,470 from the beginning of the year. And I need to figure out why cash held steady and whether it can be sustained. Four factors are working in my favor. First, we shipped a lot of the jobs that we sold in January and February, with a total value of $198,496. That effort yielded $91,035 in preship and final payments. Some of these jobs had been sitting for a month or more, waiting for the client to get the site ready. And a few have been ready to go since last year. The shipment total, being higher than the amount we spent, results in a theoretical profit for the month of $23,383. Not all of that magically appears in my bank account, but it’s better than a loss.

  Second, we booked the deposits for the last sales of April in May because I deposited $27,418 on the afternoon of Monday, April 30. Third, one client surprised me by paying for an entire job up-front. That table cost $24,111. We had been expecting a check for $12,506.50, and instead we got one for $25,557.66—the table plus 6 percent sales tax. I won’t need to pay the sales tax until the middle of the month after we deliver, so we got a nice thirteen-thousand-dollar loan from a customer without even asking.

  The last factor is easy to overlook. May 2012 had twenty-two working days. The extra days can make a difference when there’s a thin line between good numbers and bad. We shipped two jobs worth $15,833 on the last day of the month, which helped to boost the month’s numbers at the expense of June’s totals. Overall, my month has been puzzling. I’m doing everything I can to fix things, but I don’t know if I am doing the right things or if any of them will work.

  JUNE

  DATE: FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 2012

  BANK BALANCE: $107,096.18

  CASH RELATIVE TO START OF YEAR (“NET CASH”): -$30,058.14

  NEW-CONTRACT VALUE, YEAR-TO-DATE: $803,722

  I come in early on Friday. There’s an e-mail from Bob Waks with a link to the personality test and sales self-assessment. He says these will provide an objective measure of how I am performing. He ends with a warning: answer the questions honestly, or you are wasting your time and money. OK, I think, an unbiased evaluation would be useful. My visits with Sam Saxton and my strolls through the Eurofurn factory have been eye-openers. I’d like to know how my sales efforts measure up. I’ve never taken a personality test before. The questions don’t quite make sense. I come to the conclusion that there are no right or wrong answers, just choices. It’s liberating. I rip through the questions and press Send. Now for the sales self-assessment.

  There are two sections: one about selling, and another about being a sales manager. The first questions aren’t hard:

  Do you know how to generate leads?

  Yeah. Pay and pray. I give Google a ton of cash for the top AdWords spots and hope they show my organic results in a good position as well. And it’s been working great, at least until recently.

  Do you know how many potential jobs are in the pipeline?

  I’m keeping a tally of the leads that come in, and about half of them get proposals.

  After a few more process-oriented questions, they take a different tack:

  Do you want to succeed?

  Of course. I’m sick of failure. Who doesn’t want to succeed?

  Have you written down a list of your goals?

  No, why would I? I just want to sell more; do I need other goals? I have a million e-mails to do every day; I don’t have time to write anything down.

  Do you control your own emotions and behavior?

  Absolutely. At least in front of my employees. And my wife and kids. Keep it all inside, locked down tight. I have to be strong.

  How do you make major purchases yourself?

  I do some research, make my choice, and slap my money down on the counter. Is there a better way to shop?

  What is your definition of “a lot” of money? A hundred? A thousand? More?

  I’m spending eight grand every day, selling tables that can cost fifty thousand dollars. A hundred dollars is a rounding error. It’s what the scrap in one trashcan costs me. A thousand dollars? Not much. A hundred thousand is a good pile of cheddar. A million dollars is a lot of money.

&n
bsp; Do you have a system for selling?

  Yup. Write a great proposal. Put a bunch of them out there, and some will come back.

  Do you track your selling activity every day?

  Nope. I’m sitting in a small office with Nick and Dan, so I know what’s going on.

  When do you send a proposal?

  As soon as I can! I want to put my info into my client’s hands before my competitors can even raise their pencils. The buyers always say how impressed they are by our speed. I’m sure we’ll score highly on this question—we can hardly do any better.

  Do you know whether the person you are dealing with is a decision maker?

  Sometimes, when they tell me. And I can always tell when it’s a boss on the other end of the line. But the others? We’ll give anyone a proposal, so that they can pass it up their chain of command.