The Fog of Being New

At the end of my last post I used the term ‘fog’ as in “The Fog of War” a term used to describe being in a situation that does not allow for perspective.  I often don’t know what I should be doing or if I’m doing things correctly… I’ve been trained and I’m following my training but I don’t know that what I’m doing is correct or best practice.

Being new in an office is very different to being new in outside sales. In an office one can observe and mimic others as well ask quick simple questions anytime… I played phone tag with my manager for most of the day today. In outside sales you are alone for most of your first 90 days and being alone with everything new the fog can envelop you.

The good thing is when a fog lifts it was like it was never there, you don’t remember it and the day can seem more clear then ever.

Baby Steps… How I Stumbled Through my First 35 Days

Like a child… you need to walk before you run.  I have done my share of stumbling in the past six weeks and learned that falling is part of the program.

I’ve learned that having a micro manager for a boss is not easy to get used to when you have never had one.  I know what it’s like to be quickly accepted into the ‘boys club’ that makes up a portion of the staff. I have found that for most things I am on my own with just enough rope to choke but not hang myself.  I understand that being an expert in one industry makes me nothing in another.  I have found that what should be a 10 minute task can take days.  I have been able to destroy and repair client relationships in less than a week. I know who I can trust and who I cannot.  I know dark secrets about co-workers and clients. I have found a product launch to be my savior. I now know how little I knew 35 days ago.

Shadowing Day 1 – The Closer

Day one of shadowing had me traveling with a traditional sales guy, by traditional I mean a smooth talker, good with people, able to shift gears at any moment.  He is not the strongest on product knowledge and admits this quickly letting the client be the expert on product… he is all about the deal.

The first appointment was with one of his best clients, not a big client but very loyal.  The key discussions were about increasing their current discount. The rep told her that we could not move the discount on some products however on premium products we had some flexibility. He offered an additional 5% on the premium products and ‘would see’ if he could get any for the rest of the line, knowing it wouldn’t be a problem to move all products 5%.

The rep had the ability to go with an additional 25% discount on the premium but %5 seemed to make them happy. I’ve seen this with other accounts where the price is dropped quickly for non-loyal accounts to bring them on board and not so quickly for loyal accounts… just enough to keep them happy.

The second appointment had no loyalty to any supplier, for her it was all about getting her clients needs met with a high value product.  No matter what a sales rep did right you would only ever get a small percentage of her business.

The last appointment for the day was the most interesting for two reasons, one it was not what we expected and second it was a challenge. This is an account that hasn’t used us as a supplier much (if any) and the rep was prepared to wow them with up to 50% discounts on two product lines to bring some of their business in. Early in our discussions with the client we heard that sales were down and today was a terrible sales day. The client was not in a good mood and the setting was not to talk product or discount in fact when discount was mentioned she flatly said “I don’t care what the discount is I need people coming in the door”. The rep quickly adjusted and talked about marketing and advertising, the client was more receptive to this and a date was set for the client to attend an upcoming advertising seminar sponsored by our company.

Tomorrow I’m traveling with my manager.

10 Hours, 2 Starbuck’s Runs and 200 Slides… Day 6 is Done

Today was my first day of training which encompassed 10 hours and about 200 Power Point slides. My morning training was from a theoretical point of view and consisted of my trainer reading Power Point slides and talking about the subject.  I made sure to stop the trainer and ask her anything I didn’t understand and she was more then willing to help.

My problem with the morning session was the number of slides and the all the theory of sales and product design over practical knowledge. I kept asking practical questions that I will need the answer to in the field and couldn’t get the answer for many of them.

After the morning session my manager came in and asked how it was going,,, then asked me to explain a technical feature…. I had no idea… I was sure it was one of the 100 slides however it was obvious that I missed it.  My manager wasn’t testing me, she was testing the trainer and we talked about some of the key features without slides, we used the white board and talked about practical applications for the end users.

The first 100 slides of theory were not a waste they were good to get the basics of the terminology and I did get some questions answered however the expectations were higher then they should have been.

I will look for more practical information tomorrow and I’ll make sure to look to understand any of the foundation principals.