IS IT EVER REALLY TOO LATE?

I work with Sales Reps of all tenures. Whenever I work with a new rep, it seems they always asked me, “Am I Too Late”?


My answer is always, “Too late for what”? The answer as you can probably guess was, “Too late to start with the company”. This would always lead to a conversation about market share, opportunities, company stability and territory.

Then yesterday I was talking to a friend who recently started with a company. The company is a 20+ year old company and he had asked his boss the same question, “Am I too late”? I was very interested in the answer he got so I asked him what it was. Yep, you guessed it, the answer was about market share, opportunities, and company stability.

This bothered me, now I was starting to think that all managers (including myself) were being fed our lines from one big corporate propaganda department without our knowing it. How could the same answer come from 2 different people, in different industries at different times be explained any other way? Then I started to look up some information. What I found was very interesting. All the talk of market share, opportunity company stability and territory was true.

The facts are all of these factors are constantly shifting. A big account today may be a competitor’s account tomorrow. The prospect that would never listen before may be all ears next week. A customer loyal to a brand today may be looking to make changes next year.

It was becoming very apparent to me that it may very well NEVER be too late at any company. As long as there is competition driving the market, someone will always be looking to change for one reason or another.

Now this is all GREAT information for anyone who is starting a new career with a new company, but is this pertinent to someone who has been with a company for many years and has developed their territory? You bet it is. Maybe even more so. With a track record in an industry, and excellent product knowledge, a rep will be better able to make the case for changing suppliers or products and coming over to his or her company. Knowing the area, the local competition and the local pricing makes the job of presenting a value proposition even easier. Also having a good reputation in the territory adds to the total package.

Surely there had to be a time when you are too late. There must be a point where opportunities just end. I needed to know, so I went to the internet to look at what the experts say about it. Every website, every expert I could find all agreed that it is never too late in a market driven by competition.

In my web surfing I did find some experts that said yes there are actually times when it is too late. These are times when technology or laws change making your product or service obsolete. They all contended that it is up to the company, with input from the employees to always stay ahead of these issues. If in fact you have a cutting edge product or an old standby that has been tried and proved, or, if you are offering a service that customer’s value, you can never be too late.

The economy can stress the situation; it can make people think that there is no opportunity because of slowed spending, but this doesn’t mean you are too late. It means that it will take more time in some cases to build a territory. Right now there are a lot of companies that are not making any changes because they don’t want to gamble on the change making things worse instead of better. In the near future, when the economy turns around, there are going to be a tremendous amount of customers who have been enduring less then optimal results and service levels that will be looking to make drastic changes and make them very quickly. The reps that have been there while things were in the holding pattern will be the reps that get the business when the time comes!

WOW, from “AM I TOO LATE” to “THE TIME HAS NEVER BEEN BETTER”. That’s what I am talking about!!!

Lorin