WE GOT TROUBLE

In the classic musical movie, “The Music Man”, one of my favorite songs is called “Ya Got Trouble”. I am here today to tell you about some trouble many of us have, and to paraphrase the song,

Ya got trouble

Right here in every city

That’s a capitol “T”

That rhymes with “P”

And that stands for “PROCRASTINATION”

Ok I admit it doesn’t rhyme very well but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true!

Today as I have never before seen companies are cutting back on the number of sales reps while they increase the number of leads and customers they have. This means that sales reps are being asked to make more sales calls per day to meet the demand. Usually this would be a good thing, but if you factor in the hesitation on customers parts to spend right now, the sales rep is doing a lot of work for fewer sales.

What this scenario has caused is sales reps having to do more for the growing amount of customers. I am not saying this is an overburden for reps, I am saying that to keep up with everything they have to do reps are waiting until the last minute to get things done. In other words, they are PROCRASTINATING!

This procrastination is becoming a self perpetuating problem for reps. The longer they wait, the more they need to do, the more they need to do, the longer they wait to get it done. The unfortunate part of this is the customer is the one suffering the most.

YES, the customer, you see by waiting until the last possible minute to do things reps are not as prepared as they could be. They are delivering work that is at best not perfect and at worst sloppy and in some cases unfinished. This means the customer isn’t getting the service before or after the sale that they deserve.

I know also that this means the rep isn’t making sales which means they aren’t making commissions. I also know if the rep doesn’t make sales the company doesn’t make money. I also know that if the customer doesn’t get the service they deserve they feel they have lost the money they have spent which causes the customer to stop paying which causes the company to have charge offs, which causes the rep to have charge backs against their commissions.

Holy smokes, all that because of PROCRASTINATION, we really do have trouble.

So what is the fix? Like Larry the Cable Guy always says, “GETTER DONE” and getter done NOW! Don’t wait, when you know you have to deliver on a promise you have made start early and get the work done right and completely. That way when the time comes to deliver the customer gets everything they deserve which in turn gets the rep and company everything they deserve also.

If you have never heard the song “YA GOT TROUBLE” go rent the Music Man this weekend and enjoy one of the all time best musicals ever produced.

Lorin