TENSION IN THE SUITES: Management pushes harder to squeeze more sales from many sales people who have had the wind knocked out of their sales

Management is cracking the whip, hard! At wholesale and retail, the bone chilling and frightfully audible staccato of “snap,” “crackle,” “pop” goes the “we sell” or else pronouncements.

In meetings, company newsletters and those perfunctory “from the desk of” missives (most of which is ignored), the mad bosses are furious. They’re harrumphing mad at the maddening situation.

Make no mistake about it (they think and say), they’re telling the troops in no uncertain terms about the tough business conditions — as if the troops don’t know uncertain terms and times.

From high tension in the suites (executive and bedroom), the message from on high is the same: We’re a great company and you better cut your losses — always good to do — and concentrate on providing even more value to improve productivity — another proper action.

So what’s the problem? Not everywhere, but in many places, the “sell more, sell, sell, sell more” refrain is a one way command, a ferocious “gimme sales” fatwa usually filled with mercantile fire and brimstone, yet mostly and remarkably bereft of sales generating input from the troops themselves.

The boss knows. But many of the knowing bosses really don’t know they're engaging in sales prevention. More than mildly detached, the only time some of them are on the sales floor is when they walk to and from appointments, casting their “sell something now” gaze that's blinking red.

Too bad so much top management is missing in action. Unfortunately, they’re estranged from the real world, worrying in the reel world and getting angrier by the moment by the real whirl of tough business blinding them to a path potential solutions.

Most people, and that means all of us and those folk we lump together as consumers, want to live better. Surprise, surprise.

We want to dream and not be sold, and so do they. We know we have to pay for what we want, and so do they. But mostly, we want to be transported to a place of comfort, a haven we can find shelter from the daily storm, and so do they.

Most furniture promotions, whether they are from vendors to retailers or from  merchants to the masses, are marinaded in price which has little dream power or the juice to stimulate loyalty and build relationships.

Start helping people dream more about furniture and stop selling to them. All the rest  is commentary.

Be the equivalent of the universal hot dog vendor greeting a Buddhist customer who orders and intones, “Make me one with everything.” And as the vendor hands him the hot dog, the wholly person responds, “How about my change,” to which the wise vendor says, “Change comes from within.”

Hot dog, let’s find a way to satisfy people and make them one with furniture and relish the change from within us all.

Comments

[Dan Mocias]

Sorry...But Buddhists don't eat meat!!! LOL