“He who conquers others is strong; he who conquers himself is mighty.”
Lao-Tzu, Taoist philosopher

I was put in charge of a sales force in trouble. Sales were declining and eighty per cent of the sales force had quit. I visited all the remaining sales offices and quickly determined the problem. Sales managers were “too busy” to write personal orders. They all had nice offices with beautiful furniture and big training rooms. They recruited new sales people frequently and spent weeks in the classroom “teaching” selling. Many sales managers had already quit because they were not making money.

The first thing I did was to eliminate classroom training. We established a policy that required sales trainees to witness seven presentations, while prohibiting classroom training. It worked. Managers went back into the field to sell. Their income jumped from personal orders. New sales people learned to sell by observing. They prospered. The sales managers started earning overrides.

“We have met the enemy and they is us.” So said cartoon character Pogo when talking about American involvement in the Vietnam War in the 1970s. Sometimes we do stupid things that undermine all the positive actions performed building a sales team. Avoiding the demons that generate failure is as much of success as doing the right things. The story above dramatizes the situation where a sales person promoted to management thinks the job is a desk job. In today’s article, we review three soul destroying demons of arm chair management, thinking you have “arrived,” and stealing credit for success.

Demon #1 - Don’t Be An Armchair Manager. No sales manager earned his promotion behind a desk. The promotion to sales manager has been earned because those ambitious enough to be sales manager did not spend much time sitting on a chair, except to work the telephone to make appointments.

Antidote to demon #1- When promoted, keep doing whatever it was you were doing that got you promoted. Teach it to your under people. Spend time in the field selling, watching people sell, and having people watch you sell. This is far more important than any activity that can be done while sitting behind your desk.

Demon #2 - Think You Finally “Know It All.” Success can lull us into a position that we feel we finally reached a point in our career where we have arrived. We can get a big smug in our awareness of competence as evidenced by recent good sales performance.

The first night I arrived in Japan in October 1978, I had a meeting with the president, Herb Scheidel, who I had worked for during my Florida book selling years in the 1960s. Over dinner at a piano bar in Shibuya, he and I reminisced on our many sales management years. I offered that my assignment in Japan was a good one because I had so much experience and knew so much about the direct sales industry. I was thirty-five years old and had seventeen years of experience; if I didn’t know it all, I thought I came very close.

Ninety per cent of what I know today about the direct sales industry I learned AFTER I informed my boss I knew it all. Even in retirement, as I begin a career in writing, and read other books on sales management, and speak to sales managers in different industries, I know the learning process continues.

The word “stonehead” is a Japanese contribution to the direct sales industry, indicating a sales manager or sales person who has mastered a sales technique successfully and will not change, no matter what. I first left Japan in 1985. I had helped manage a sales force with almost a thousand sales people. When I returned in 1999, the same senior sales managers were in place, using the same single prospecting system and the same sales methods. The sales force had dwindled to forty. We sent the sales managers to visit other groups using newer prospecting and sales methods. Despite the new techniques they saw, the old “stonehead” managers either refused to, or could not, change. A year later the business closed down.

Antidote to Demon #2 - Attend courses and read with an open mind. Keep trying new things.

Demon #3 - Taking Credit for Success A sales manager who says “I” often, has a problem. The correct word is “we”, or the name of someone else, when explaining sales success.

Some years ago, a senior sales executive took credit for a new supplementary product innovation. The added product helped the consumer use the primary product easier. The new item helped close more orders. The product development innovator, who actually came up with the idea, was thousands of miles away, so the person who took credit felt safe to brag. He was not as safe as he thought. The word got back that he had taken complete credit for the new product innovation. The product developer was angry about not being recognized for her contribution. She seethed with resentment that another person, in a higher power position, stole the glory that was legitimately hers.

There is irony here. The reason a person wants to take credit for every success is to win approval of the “higher-ups.” “See what ‘I’have done or accomplished!” The effect of such bragging is almost always the reverse of what was intended by the braggart. The so-called “higher-ups” are always suspicious when a manager takes credit for everything. Senior management does not appreciate that style of bragging. It is recognized as a defect. Senior management understands how this taking credit for success is demoralizing to all the others who contributed to success.

One of the ways team members retaliate when the boss takes credit for their idea or contribution is to stop cooperating in training and/or stop giving suggestions on how to improve the business. A sales manager, who gives in to the temptation of taking credit for the efforts of others, finds it almost impossible to build effective teamwork.

Antidote to demon #3 - Be a hero. Look for ways to give credit to others. Your sales results are the only “bragging” you need to do.

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