Posted to LinkedIn 1.31.12
I started selling medical devices 37 years ago... when the
industry was really starting to fire on all cylinders in North America. I have
operated sales and service teams of up to 300 people with great success over
those years... always striving for excellence in sales and exacting standards
of moral and ethical values. That is the way it has always been in the medical
device industry, our teams were no different from those of most of the
companies. Sales and sales management was rewarding, career path oriented, and
the customer development and loyalty that resulted, benefited the companies,
greatly.
Lately however I am seeing some very, very disturbing trends
in the medical device industry, relative to the way sales people are being
treated by sales management and by corporate executives and directors. I am
getting calls from excellent sales people who have been terminated with no
warning, for no apparent reason. The managers implementing the decision to fire
the sales people, and the supporting HR functions seem to be daring the sales
person to complain... daring them to challenge the decision.
The sales people seem not to have any alternatives. Accept
the severance (which typically seems to be narrowly attached to local
regulations), shut up, and move on. Get your resume in order; ensure your references
are in line; strategize your network; touch base with LinkedIn, contingency
search firms and so on. It is almost like a strategy on the part of many
companies to milk good reps, and when it is advantageous to fire them so that
they can eke out a slightly better margin by hiring a lower paid sales
person... just do it! There are no consequences, why not, Just Do It?
What if there were consequences?
What if we start a registry of companies that seem to be blatantly
abusing their sales people. Terminations without cause; Terminations with no
progressive process; Terminations that seem intended only to allow a manager to
hire a buddy into a position; Terminations intended to cut costs, never mind
the fact that the sales person developed the territory, but hasn’t fully
benefitted through the compensation program... yet.
What if we start to black ball some of these companies so
that it becomes industry knowledge that one shouldn’t bother taking offers from
the company, because the end result will be frustration... and worse? I would
like to hear from LinkedIn registrants... not yet about experiences, just about
the strategy of black balling companies who continue to abuse their sales
people. Pass this on to colleagues and have them weigh in, too.
We don’t have a union, grievance committees and so on. It is
beginning to look like we have lost our champion sales managers who will
protect their own jobs by listening to the accountants, lawyers and presidents
who are trying to milk the companies. But we do have tools... networks... to
give the companies reason to reconsider... Should we be using these tools? I
for one would be willing to start such a network, were it deemed necessary...
