ISHN "FDO"

September 2008

George J. Hayward

"The Sound of Silence, Can be Deafening!"

The sound of silence, with me, I am told, it means that I am either mad, don't care, or don't know...........actually, it can mean any of those but, most probably, I'm simply - thinking.

We're all different.

Involved abroad, we had a salesperson reporting to me several years ago. He was doing a nice, but very slow job of penetrating in several particular prospective accounts. In person, with me, when asked, however he would give a detailed on-going account of his progress with account prospects. Sometimes to the point of "TMI".

Regarding another prospect, the same. And yet another, and another......  and so on.....

The problem was getting that progress information written and communicated back to our superior, who too, had a "right" or the, "need to know" .

Activity too, needs to be reported. Activity begets progress which begets accomplishment (i.e. sale, etc.). "The sale is the by-product of the effort". (Jerry Beck).

This person believed in only "officially" reporting results, final results. He felt nothing else needed to be communicated. Waste of time, waste of effort. Wrong........ human nature senses silence meaning little or no activity, no activity means no action working in the pipeline towards the goal......whatever.

I'm not big, at all, on factory "required" sales call reporting (which actually can violate independent contractor status - IRS wise). In my experience, most times it is not read at all and is simply so-called evidence of activity of time spent on product demos.

One time, an ex-factory salesman, used to filling out, so called, "call reports", then reporting to me in his usual way, actually put in his report, "Mr. Right not in but, I dropped off a dozen donuts (12)"  HE ACTUALLY PUT IN (12) like I didn't know! He's gone.....

Unfortunately, most often it is a waste of valuable selling time to conjure up this useless paper work to make the bosses, boss happy. Usually the best at this paperwork are the worst in sales. Don't come across very many, real good salespersons that excel in writing good sales reports......you probably don't either.

A good friend from the south once told me the best BBQ comes from places that the firewood is simply dumped outside the establishment.To stack the firewood is considered a waste of time, since they go through so much. The bad BBQ places however usually stack the wood neatly......because they have the time, since they aren't so busy serving customers good BBQ. It's true.

I DO believe in real periodical activity communication. Communication to those in a need to know, need to know the progress made, where it stands now and where it needs to be next. Also, I believe in competition news or trend activity reporting, or market conditions or things that will/can affect the trade channel partners. But, real communication is "exchanging" information, meaning it's 2-way....now "that's the ticket"!  Problem, it seldom occurs, at least in this business. Why?

The sound of silence, can be deafening. Silence is not always golden.

Think about it.

George J. Hayward