A Day at the Races

Today I had the pleasure of talking to a potential new hire for the store of one of my clients. This salesperson is thinking about jumping from the frying pan into another one. In the process of doing an interview, I asked why he was leaving one company to do the same thing for another company. His responses were very telling of the kinds of problems retailers at all levels are facing today.

ME: “Why are planning to leave your current company?”

Mike: “I am not making the kind of money they told me I would make.”

ME: “How much did they say you could make?”

Mike: “I can’t remember, but I know I’m not making it.”

To Mike’s credit he did show me his commission statements which proved he was right. The commission statements also told me the reason why he was looking was for a new sales position was the fact he is coming off probation, and still not making enough sales to cover his draw.

ME: “What would be different in this position; which is basically doing the same thing you did in your last position that is going to improve your income?”

Mike: “I don’t know.”

That sad part of this exchange is the fact this is his third sales job in 20 months. In spite of having little skill or talent for selling, he is able to move from job to job because most store owners wait until they are desperate for people to cover the floor. This forces them to hire the best available at the moment, instead of the best.

Desperation is why Mike, with little skill or talent for selling is able to get a sales job. Once he moves on to another operation, their performance standards will drop a bit, accelerating the death cycle for the business. Hiring the Mikes of the world is one of the reasons why perfromance standards drop.

To my client Mike is a strong potential hire soley because he has experience. They prefer hiring people with furniture sales experience, the justification being that hiring people with experience shortens the learning curve. The problem with that, is most people looking for sales jobs with experience have bad experience.

This is because of the lack of commitment by owners to developing their salespeople. Everywhere I go, owners tell me they have trouble hiring qualified salespeople. I ask them what they mean by a qualified salesperson, and their description is usually that of the next Michael Jordan.

There aren’t many Michael Jordans out there. Even Michael Jordan wasn’t Michael Jordan without a lot of time and effort invested in coaching and training; something most retailers are reluctant to do today.

The fact owners are reluctant to do the kinds of things necessary to improve the quality of salespeople on the floor, like training them, is out of fear. This kind of behavior reminds me of the old saying: “Cut of his nose to spite his face.” I never really understood it until now. There are a lot of store owners don’t want to train new salespeople because they are afraid they will be training the competition.

This attitude actually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as the new salesperson fails and leaves and looks for greener pastures, like Mike is doing now, forcing owners to once again do an emergency hire of the best available, and the vicious cycle keeps repeating like a bad day at the races.