"The Pandemic Is A Lazy Salesperson's Dream -- an Excuse for Not Coming In To Work, And I Have Had It!" - 02/25/21 Edition
Stephen Says Column
Dear Stephen,
NeoCon is just about six months away, and I am excited. It means the industry I love is coming back. Yet today I can still barely get my salespeople back to making sales calls and leave their house. When is it that they think they will re-engage in a safe, socially distanced fashion with our customers? Next October?
I do not care what they say, you cannot sell furniture on a Zoom call or LinkedIn postings. And I do not mean “out making sales calls” in the traditional sense. I know designers are not seeing people in their office. I want my salespeople coming into our showroom and being creative about interacting with our customers. Invite them here to us or out for coffee. Or invent something new. Orders are down!
Listen to this: I have one woman who works for us, a sales rep, and she’s already been vaccinated. One of the first to show it off on her Facebook.
Yet I can tell she is afraid to socially distance with any of our customers, dealers or A&D clients. So instead, she posts a different one of our chairs each day on her LinkedIn. That is not what I am paying her for. I get that using social media is not a bad thing, but I do not need an expensive outside salesperson to work in social media marketing. Even worse, in general I see very few emails or calls to customers on the sales staff CRM. No action equals no sales.
I realize there is some risk, and even potential legal liability in sending a salesperson out to meet customers at an outside café or restaurant even with social distancing, mask wearing and hand washing. But we’re at a point where we can safely balance all the factors, and I need the right people who are willing to make business happen today. This pandemic has been a lazy salesperson’s dream come true, and now with the vaccine there is no excuse not to return to work. Sorry, I know not everyone agrees with me, but
that is how I feel. How can we sell office furniture if we arebnot willing to come to the office ourselves? I have made the decision to start replacing the salespeople I feel have become, in my opinion, agoraphobic, simply too afraid to go out and carefully meet with our customers in our big safe showrooms or outdoors or somewhere other than
the client’s office. What do you think? Am I being unreasonable? I have just decided if you are employed here and do not want to come to work and perform the critical requirements of your job, sooner or later I will replace you with someone willing to find a new safe and creative way to sell in person. And I am not going to tell people — I am just confidentially recruiting for this new breed of salesperson who is willing to leave their house. Here is the thing, the customers may not let us in their office, I get that, and am tired of hearing it because they themselves are eager to get out and see people. Most of our designer customers are younger than my salespeople and want to meet off site, so who am I to judge the risk factor. In many states the vaccine age is down to 55, and it will continue to drop. We have a mature sales team. Most have been vaccinated, and they all tell me they are going to dinner at restaurants, so why can they not come into the giant showroom we have? I have a friend who owns a large dealership, and they employ at least 150 people. Last week, he walked around the office and said there were at most 10 people in the office that day. Ten. What in the world is going on? One-third of his salesforce is also over 55 and most all have been vaccinated. Business owners want our employees to be safe. Yet let’s face it; we sell office furniture, so what kind of message are we sending to our customers if we are afraid to go back to the office ourselves? I saw a letter in your column several months ago with the same frustration. But right now it is much different. More people are vaccinated, and the world is healing. With NeoCon around the corner, and the economy rebounding, I want salespeople willing to find a new creative way to sell and not just on Zoom. Stop Zooming and start moving! Do not tell me the customers will not let you visit them, have them visit us. I lead by example, and I have been in the office every day. So tell me when are most companies resuming in-person selling and working in the new normal? Why have NeoCon if no one is going to show? This is not a geographic, age or political thing. It comes down to salespeople learning how to sell in a more creative way and back out in the field or they will be replaced. I went to an RH store last week, and it was busy to the legal capacity for that city, and the salespeople were writing orders. My salespeople with our designer products and sales tools just are not. I have had it. Maybe I will approach these inside RH people brave enough to come to work and have them come work for me!
Signed,
Reality Check
Dear Mr. Reality,
I ran your letter even though it is a similar theme to one we shared earlier this year because your concern is echoed throughout the industry. I have a pile of new letters from managers with the same concerns. Also, something you wrote hit home.
You can send your workplace
questions to Stephen at: StephenSays@bellow.press
Questions selected to be answered, will appear in this column. Please use the Subject: Stephen Says for all emails. Stephen Viscusi is a bestselling author, television personality, and CEO of the Viscusi Group, global executive recruiters located in New York. Follow Stephen on Twitter @stephenviscusi. Like Stephen on Facebook and follow him on LinkedIn.
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