Growth Dynamics Get Down

I am prepared for lots of pushback on this post, so please feel no hesitation in reacting positively or negatively to my thoughts on this topic.

For the last 36 months the booming economy delivered record growth and profits for many sales organizations. That growth also created a challenge that virtually every sales organization had no success in overcoming: a lack of qualified sales talent to capture the available opportunities. The constant refrain of “where can I get some more salespeople” was heard coast to coast and there seemed to be no reliable answer. As typically happens in that business environment, sales leadership quit asking for good salespeople and settled for any available body that could walk, chew gum, and hand out product literature. The recycling of poor to mediocre talent that could get overpaid for their production became acceptable as sales managers were afraid of reporting that all the territories were not being covered. The high tide floated all ships, even those that were rusted out or never really proved sea worthiness.

I have been negligent this past week about creating a Positive Moment post. The thick of thin things seemed to capture me and overcome my commitment for some reason. Maybe it was the pressure of coming up with an idea or analogy every single day that finally took me down. I just know I could not find the focus to sit and type.

Another short message today as I have had two of my favorite people connect with me and catch up.

Well, we have all been dealing with this pandemic situation for about 50 days now, and I know we are all going crazy with the varying degrees of self-isolation. It does suck, and it is OK to go ahead and admit it. There is nothing like being free to go where you want to go when you want to go, and most of us never realized it until we could not exercise that freedom. But here we all are, still existing in this state of uncertainty and not knowing when the world will be less scary or intimidating.

At times, my tendency to be impulsive has brought me exciting surprises. I have stumbled across great restaurants or roadside wonders that I couldn't have planned to find. I just turned a corner, continued down the road and was rewarded with a gem of an experience. Sometimes the opposite has happened, resulting in wasted time or a totally, useless purchase ending up in my closet or garage. When I look at those misbegotten objects, I shake my head and wonder what I must have been thinking when I decided to grab that dust collector. No plan or goal, just an illogical decision, the list would be embarrassing if I ever wrote it out and shared with people.

I missed it yesterday, and I am fine with it.

I apologize right off the bat for jumping on the Star Wars date connection here. Those movies have been a true modern phenomenon, but I am not one of the ardent faithful of the series. Today it just seems an easy connection to take that play on words and tie it into this 7-week ritual. Again, sorry…

Yesterday the East Coast was battered by a huge wind and rain event. Starting about noon here outside of Philadelphia, the weather turned violent. Winds blew in excess of 50 miles an hour, throwing porch furniture and anything unsecured across the landscape. Soon after that started the rains came in buckets. It was the proverbial cats and dogs type of rain with sheets of water blasting my windows at my office and at home later. Inevitably when this happens, we lose power. The family was forced to call for take-out dinner and there was no TV to watch and the internet disappeared. You would have thought it was like 1990 or something!

I knew it was coming, but I did not know when it would actually arrive. Yes, I went back to the office today because working in my bedroom was not cutting it for one more day. My mind had been kicking the idea around for about a week, but I wanted to be a good citizen and remain “lock down” compliant. Finally, I just needed to grab my keys, start the truck and go to work back where it feels normal to go to work.