The Company, Part 2

over.

The average home improvement sales office will have about 20 salesmen. Each salesman is required to “close” nearly 25% of his leads. Each salesman is given from one to three leads a day six days a week. If we say an average sale is $10,000 then the average salesman is expected to turn in $60,000 in orders a week. For those orders he should get $7,200 in sales commissions. Does this actually happen? No.

Usually, all salesmen must appear at the branch office each morning at 9:00. The meeting will start promptly and the sales manager will have each salesman talk about his sales – if any. No complaints are allowed. Anyone who complains about anything will be fired after about two warnings. Most (but not all) salesmen are outside / independent contractors and no deductions are made for taxes of any kind (not true at Sears).

It is important to understand how salesmen with “negative personalities” – they complained -- are usually removed from the company. Rather than just fire them, which can cause a higher level of animosity among a group that is populated by some very unsavory people, the “bad salesman” will just be handed leads that are slightly less positive than others. He may be handed leads that are known to be for appointments where only one of the two required homeowners are present – thus making a sale impossible. Send a salesman a hundred miles to a single wide trailer in the vast desert of Arizona to talk to a black toothed harridan who’s hubby is still in jail, can cost the salesman $30 in gas. Do this a few times and he’s gone.

The level of customer rejection of the salesman in this business is extreme. The level of control of the salesmen by their managers is even more extreme – it has to be to keep the salesman going.

The company makes each salesman have a logbook and in that book he will record his starting location and the ending location of each call he made. He will include the time he left one place and the time he arrived at the next. He will also include mileage. He will also have a place to note what he did at the person’s home. If no one was there then he records it. If they would not let him in the door then he records that. If he got in but was tossed out then that goes in the book too. Lastly, if he “pitched price” and they refused to buy then he has to record the starting price and the ending price. If he made the sale then he records that.

All of the sales materials are the property of the company. He may not make copies of any documents – especially those describing sales techniques. He may not make copies of the names / addresses and phone numbers of people he has visited. Even his calling a