and somehow we stay in business

We assembled in the conference room for a ‘working lunch’, which usually means that we the staff will get reamed out over free pizza and pop. As Vince, our boss, plopped four greasy slices onto a thin paper plate for himself he said, “While our sales have been sluggish and we really need to step it up, that’s not the point of the meeting today.”

Which was a surprise since every meeting we have always focuses on our sluggish sales and how we all need to start performing.

“No,” he continued, “today I wanted to take an opportunity to recognize ten years of outstanding service by a true superstar, our very own Lenny!”

The rest of us stopped in mid-bite and glanced at each other. Slowly, since we sensed that it was expected of us, we put our slices of pizza down and gave Lenny a very half-hearted smattering of applause.

Last year, in recognition of his ninth year of employment, Lenny had been promoted to Sales Manager, a position that didn’t exist prior to this. This year, he got a watch, on the back of which was inscribed, ‘10 years and counting!’

After being moved up in title to ‘Sales Manager’, I was demoted to a sales support position…meaning that Lenny began the manager of a sales staff that consisted of one…himself. Only recently have I been moved back into a full-time sales position. Stephanie, a recent college graduate, was hired to fill my old position as Lenny’s ‘support’ staff. Three others were hired before her and each quit after a week, meaning that I was continually being re-demoted. I wasn’t confident that she was going to remain with the company any longer than her predecessors had.

“Thanks Vince,” Lenny said as he slipped the watch around his wrist and hoisted his pants back up over the massive girth of his waist. “You know,” he told us, “everything I know about sales I learned from this man right here!”

“Tell them about that great sales call you had last week,” Vince said as he slapped Lenny on the back.

“Well, I’m at this company,” Lenny began, “and I give a great sales pitch and can tell that the guy is ready to buy. But then he says to me, ‘your product looks fine, but I just don’t have any money.”

“Which is a common objection,” Vince interjected. “But just listen to how Lenny handled it!”

“So I decided to play dumb and say to the guy, ‘No money? So you mean you’re going out of business?’ Of course they aren’t!” Lenny laughs. “So the guy admits that aren’t going out of business. There’s money, he tells me, but their budget is already spent for this year.”

“See how Lenny handled that?” Vince asked all of us seated around the table.

We all gave each other blank stares, unsure what Lenny had proved in his handling of the situation.

“So did they buy something?” Stephanie asked in a timid voice.

Having heard this same story from Lenny three times in the past week, I already knew the answer.

“No,” Lenny said. “But he assured me that next year they would.”

So by catching the guy in a lie…one which he told Lenny only as a nice way of saying, ‘we’re not interested’…Lenny extracted from him a promise to buy next year. Not that this does anyone any good this year. And I have a strong suspicion that they won’t be buying anything from Lenny next year either.

As I sat there with the beginnings of heartburn working its way through my chest…more from Lenny’s story than the pizza…I wondered how, with a teacher like Vince, our company hadn’t gone out of business long ago.