the strip mall initiative

“Business is all about the planning!”

This is the phrase that my boss repeats over and over again. And planning is all he ever does. Rather than making sales calls to increase profits, he plans. He calls each employee into his office everyday to hold meetings that can last for hours. Then, at the end of the day, he’ll hold an hour long all-staff meeting.

I’ve never seen him do any actual work, however. It’s all still in the planning stages.

Some of his past strategic inspirations included a plan to increase employee productivity; a plan that consisted of reducing everyone’s sick and personal days to three a year. Which means that I am only allowed to be ill once every four months, after which my pay will be docked.

He also developed a plan to increase profits. The plan called for a change in the commission structure of his sales force. People that used to make $650 in commissions now earn $100, thus increasing his profits.

Lately he has been brainstorming up a storm. And amid all the thunder and lightning, he has come up with yet another plan…this one designed to increase sales. Because, now that he’s bled the sales staff of commissions, the only way to make more money for himself is to get everyone selling even more…life isn’t cheap. And he’s got a beach house, a cabin by the lake, a boat, a wife, a girlfriend, and two cars to maintain.

He unveiled his latest plan during a 90 minute meeting earlier this week.

“In addition to the usual number of sales calls that you’re required to perform each week,” he announced, “I expect you to start using your time in between these calls better.”

“We’re now carrying a line of wide format printers that are perfect for marketing and visual communications. So while driving from one sales call to the next, it will now be mandatory that you stop in at a strip mall or shopping plaza and go door to door from one store to the next. I want you talking to the owner and selling them on these printers. Try focusing on the privately owned grocery stores, for example. Explain to them how these printers will be the perfect thing to help advertise weekly specials and for point of purchase displays by the cash register.”

“So starting next Monday,” he continued, “you will be required to stop in at a minimum of 15 stores each week. Naturally, there will be a new form that you’ll have to fill out so I can track your progress. This needs to be turned into me by Friday at 3:00 outlining each store you visited, the location and phone number of each store, and a brief summary of the meeting. I think that this will easily bring in two or three more sales each week.”

Perhaps we were all too tired and disillusioned, but no one had the heart to point out that a small ma and pop shop probably wouldn’t be very interested in purchasing a $5000 printer for displays that they receive for free from manufacturers such as Pepsi and Nabisco.

And when I begin stopping in at all these different stores, not only will I be leaving them with product literature, I’m going to start dropping off my resume as well.