Don’t Shoot Your Food #3

Credit: Tiffany Fox

At the very beginning of my sales career I worked for a guy that was...contrary. That is to say, he had no trouble finding fault with sales guys and customers. I was new to the game so I gave him plenty to complain about.

We had "production meetings" every Wednesday. The plant manager would list every job by rep. We'd meet in the big man's office while the production dude updated each order. He did this one rep at a time.

The meetings were excruciating for me. I had very little work. In the beginning, I was lucky to have anything on my list. Most weeks it simply said something cute like "when you book something we'll print it." I hated those meetings.

Our plant was in downtown Atlanta. I lived in Lawrenceville. If you know anything about the area you know what kind of drive that was. Even in 1978 I had to leave home by 6:30 to make an 8:30 meeting to discuss work I didn't have.

One week I skipped. I called the office to let them know I was making calls. I told the secretary, "I don't have any work so I don't need to be there. Let the big man know."

He was furious. When I got in, I had a note to see him. I walked into his office and the massacre started. It wasn't corrective instruction. It was bellowing and belittling.

I listened for about five minutes. I stood up and walked to the door. The boss yelled, "where do you think you're going." I responded, "I'm going home. Nobody has ever talked to me like this and it isn't going to start now. I quit."

The big man's son (soon to be President of the company) stopped me in the hall. I received an apology but I never forgot the incident. Moreover, I saw the same mindset in our daily management style.

I gave it my best effort but left the company three years later. It wasn't a fit. Our company and my clients defined quality differently. My boss argued that competitors were simply better at picking samples. I couldn't see myself being successful if I stayed.

I signed on with another printer. It was scary. I knew I would be competing with my former employer for every project. I was prepared to spend my first year rebuilding volume.

Sales doubled. They doubled again. $400,000 turned into $1 million, then $2 million then $3 million and more. It was like stepping on a roller skate. I was booking work from everywhere.

I share this because it's an example of "The Right Environment being Critical." I was spending valuable sales time picking samples and hiding inferior work. I was also doing my best to avoid the big man. Those hurdles suck up lots of mental bandwidth.

This series is called "Don't Shoot Your Food." This is the third and final segment. The focus is wasting sales time.

Please listen to me on this. Time is the most valuable thing you have. How you spend it is everything. So is where you spend it. Wasting time is shooting your food.

Get real with yourself. Find the best fit, focus and knock em dead. You're the only thing that can stop you!

The preceding content was provided by a contributor unaffiliated with Printing Impressions. The views expressed within may not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of the staff of Printing Impressions. Artificial Intelligence may have been used in part to create or edit this content.