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Perfection Is Unattainable

By Mike Ma

An interesting statement came up yesterday as I was wrapping up a Distribution Audit of a client's retail organization. After hearing our views about changing compensation from gross sales to activity and behavior-based metrics, the President of this client remarked:

"Well, we are asking wholesalers to work harder. Of course they'd be upset."

Why is that exactly? Can we expect our people to be sales geeks, nerds, or dorks? That is to say, should they love selling and treat it like a passion? They'd research every sales tactic and hone in on every sub-segment like an Olympic skier trying to shave one one-thousandth off their time or a golfer achieving artistry through their swing. Not because they would make more money as a byproduct of doing any of these things (which all three wholesaler, golfer, and skier would), but because they strive to be the master of their craft. To quote the wisdom of Roy McAvoy seen below, "Perfection is unattainable."

There are a couple paths to success that lie on the shoulders of the wholesaler here, but I think the bulk of it actually lies on the management.

1) Hiring -- For any new hire, we have to test not only how great their presentations are, but test them for their own internal development drive. Do they care about selling? Do they want to be world-class in it or are they just here for the bps?

2) Compensation -- See some of our previous posts and studies on this matter, but we have to use compensation as the start to change the dialog of what is important. Behavior-based metrics are not an end state or a silver bullet to all compensation issues. It should be seen as a way station to get more predictable, all-weather compensation plans that apply in markets good or bad

3) Training -- Are we focused on giving all of our wholesalers, even the very best, most seasoned more skills? And all doesn't have to be training programs per se, but this thought alone can change the dialog of what we say in our weekly/monthly meetings. Let's ask less "What did you sell?" but more "What did you learn this week?"

And I don't mean to single out wholesalers, this is true for anyone in the business,-- marketing, operations, technology, compliance, no one should be exempt. We should all want to work harder, depending on how you look at it. After all, perfection is unattainable.