I decided to treat all of my people the same. I would give all of them their space and I would make myself available to them for what ever their needs were. The younger salesmen had been close to me when I was on the routes, and it was easier to work with them. However the older ones, the ones that had seen district managers come and go, were going to prove to me that they would be the toughest one’s to work with.
They thought that I would just stay away. That’s what they would have liked. I decide to prove my worth to them by treating each one of them as though they were equal to each other. My goal was to get them to join together, to form a team. I had a challenge before me in order to get this done.
When a newer salesman came to me with a question, I referred them to one of the experienced salesman to get their answer. Then if they weren't satisfied with the help or did not get any help then I would come to their aid. I scheduled all of the key accounts on all routes in a way that I would also maybe see that salesman while he was servicing that account. Sometimes I would bring him to my meeting with the account manager. I would ask for their input as to what to advertise or how to display the product being sold. I felt that this exercise would help to develop the salesman to be a closer part of the team. He would then feel more confident in making his own sales calls when he was expected to.
I climbed into the route trucks with the route salesman and rode the route with them, wanting to meet every customer on all of my routes. I believed that I should meet every customer on every route at least once. I believed that the small customer was the icing on the cake. In most cases the small customer were the accounts that had been with us the longest. I felt that we needed to take care of them just like all other accounts regardless of size.
After the first few months my district made their quota. It was a great feeling for me to get out of the gate on a winning note. It was good for the people that worked with me in my district too. I still had an upward climb with a couple of the older people in my district. These were men that were set in their ways. They still wanted everything to be the same as in the past. Like most of us they didn’t like change. The change of having a new supervisor was bad enough, but now there also was a new general manager in place too. New rules, new ways of doing things.
Change is never easy. Sometimes it’s forced upon us. But change is inevitable. It’s the very thing of change that drives our world in sales.
I would be challenged with change too. The change for me was leaving the ranks of Route Salesman to management. I was also met with the same change as everyone else, a new general manager. At first these changes were not easy and I would come home at night and talk to Darlene about what was said about me through the salesmen and management and what was expected of me to do this job. Though she may or may not have understood Darlene backed me with encouragement and positive words that helped me move forward and succeed. Behind every successful man is a strong women. Darlene was the strongest person in my life, the strongest person I think that I ever knew. My mother was strong and stood with me in my early years and she had since passed the torch to my wife.
Everyday i was at the plant before any of my people and I always had a short meeting with them to make sure that they had a plan for the day and to see if they needed any help to accomplish their goals for the day. I would run reloads of product if needed, if none were needed then once each week I would go with one of my people and ride along with them on that route for the day. By doing this I would get to better know the people that worked for me. I also would get to meet every single customer in my district, large and small.
