Black Sales Journal

It is true that many professionals are losing their job. Hopefully it will not happen to you.   If it does happen, your ultimate goal is to be prepared and be the professional.  Losing one’s job does happen.  Have your bases covered.  If you do lose your job… lose it “Like a BOSS!”

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At some point in your life, you may have to endure the act of “getting fired.” Obviously, there is no positive light when this is happening, yet it does happen in the world of sales.

One of the most common reasons has to do with performance.  Performance issues happen to sales professionals of all colors and backgrounds.  They can be particularly vexing for the Black professionals because the stigma that getting fired carries coupled with racial preference and racial prejudice issues can severely limit future hiring opportunities.

You may find a few articles and publications that talk about what happens when you get fired. Rest assured that for a sales professional, this does not have to be a “death sentence.”  Most people, sales professionals included, associate their livelihood with their identity, and can be devastated if they are terminated.  Additionally, changes in your relationships with co-workers, many of which you may classify as friends, can be just as shocking.  This is especially true with the suddenness of a sales termination.  This is less important than the impact on your psyche and your family, but significant.

There is no way to ‘get fired’ gracefully as you have are not in control.  Your reactions to the activity can be calculated and professional if you follow some of the suggestions below.

Always be Prepared for the Unexpected

Termination does not have to be a “death sentence”, yet it is a separation by any terminology.  You should always be prepared no matter how well you are doing in the job.  Since losing your position can happen for of a number of reasons, including the company ceasing to do business, you should have this plan in effect even if you are doing well.

It is normally, for all professions, a “sudden” act that may catch you “off guard”.   For this reason, I prescribe to a steady state of readiness.  Let me explain that this is more of an attitude than anything else.  Recognize that you have no ability to know for sure, but may be able to predict when it will happen.

What is more important is that you treat your situation with planning and preparation.  I also believe that you should take care to recognize that you may well be under contract.  If you are not under contract/agreement you need to recognize general ethics that I strongly believe that you should consider.

Here are the items you should focus on:

• Your Sales Contacts – Always have your prospect contact list duplicated on some type of accessible media.  Many sales professionals use a company issued phone, PDA, and computer.  Your contact’s information is on those devices, and your ability to recreate that information is limited once you are separated from it.  You have worked years to put it together, take this precaution.  As a sales professional this is ultra-important.
• Key Contact Data - Have [your] Customer Profiles of your key clients up to date, and stored where you can access it—as discussed in(Black Sales Journal 1/20 Deepening Your Customer Relationships Part II). There are many that believe that client data such as this is company property.  I believe that when I have achieved the relationship that gives me personal access to client particulars about their family and social data, that it is my personal property based on my ability to be in the position to get the information in the first place.  A customer who has allowed you to be a “business friend” has not given you clearance to share his wife’s name and their personal particulars with the new sales professional left there to service the account.   It is yours, and it would be wrong to let that information go to someone without them achieving that status.
• Have Your Contracts in Hand - Have access to your sales contracts.  It is important to have your signed copies in your possession, not in your files at your place of employment.  This would include your employment agreement (if you have one), your non-compete agreement, and any non-disclosures that you have signed.  This will tell you what you have agreed to do, especially including employment after termination. There is a possibility that some provisions change if you are separated by termination.
• Know Your Rights re Final Payments - Have a copy of your sales compensation plan handy as well.  This will advise you of what is done regarding your final commissions/bonus payments if you have some coming.  If you have these papers, you don’t leave this most important area up to your former employer.

Some Things Can’t Be Taken Away From You

Remember to document your accomplishments - Keep up-to-date copies of your sales numbers.  Your ability to get a job will be based on your ability to show past sales accomplishments.  Nothing shows this like the real numbers on the actual reports.

I still have information from when I was a sales rep (1979), as well as a sales manager (1985), and all jobs after that as well.  You might wonder why?  The answers are quite simple:

# 1 – You can lie about the numbers, but the numbers don’t lie!

#2 – It’s not what you know; it’s what you can prove!

I kept the information that came in paper form.  You may have to print it, and should do so at the end of every year.  This is far from too much to ask.  In discussions about these numbers I was always in a position of strength.

No one can take away your pride – If you are a solid citizen, parent, partner, or friend, no one can take away the fact that you have great worth.  Don’t ever let the removal from a position rob you of your self-esteem.  Keep everything in perspective.

Above all, realize that “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”  If you are giving your best, there is an employer out there who needs you. Your comments are welcome.  Contact me at Michael.Parker@BlackSalesJournal.com.

Sounds like a dumb advertisement doesn’t it?  Anyone who believes that a sales professional should work for free has a touch of a fever, but the actual situation plays out everyday.

Yet in reality, many sales professionals, and especially Black sales professionals find themselves in that situation, unintended of course.

It happens when you invest time and effort in making presentations to buyers who based on reasons beyond your control, take your presentation’s price, and your constructive ideas, and give them to your competition.  When that happens, they are actually saying you should work for free!

How It Happens

This can happen to anyone, any color, and any creed.  It is what happens when someone makes a decision to be courted and accepts the benefits of a relationship, yet not get married.  The problem arises when the fruit of your labor is used to better the position of the customer, even though they had no intention of making the move to you or your organization.

You come in with a ‘killer’ price, and a product offering that is exceptional.  You realize that based on the customer’s needs your organization can use a combination of products that are currently available on the market and couple it with some creative financing to make it palatable.   In the whole, your price and product offering is enhanced by your terms (financing, payment deferral, and other benefits) and you feel success is in the making.

As you know the customer can benefit financially and product-wise from the activities of the sales professional without ever making a real commitment to you, and certainly without putting any food on your table.  You may have felt this ‘sting’ several times before, and you do not have to be a ‘repeat’ victim.

You do all of the work, and the customer gets the benefit and any reward goes to the sales professional who followed your lead.  You have to ‘wait until next time or next year’.  Can’t buy much bacon with that! Objectively, this is part of the sales process, and a part of the process that you cannot avoid; yet you can manage.

Take Smart Precautions

To avoid this being your anthem, you have to develop your principles and rules and stick to them.  You also must work on gaining commitment before showing your complete arsenal of products and services during the process.  That commitment is based on the answers to the questions below.

When presenting, seek to get agreement on what you need to solve, and what level of price and program will “land the business”.  Logic would show that you could still be manipulated; yet this starts to get at some of the problem.  You will want to cover these bases:

Ask the all-important questions before the solicitation process.  These are the requisite questions that will define what it will take to separate them from the incumbent:

• Why are you looking for competitive quotes/bids?
• How will the quote/bid process be conducted?
• What pricing difference must be made? What will it take for you to change?
• How long have you been with the incumbent? Does the incumbent get the last shot?
• Is the playing field level with the others that are quoting (other than the incumbent)?

The purpose of these questions is clarity about the buying process and what definable difference that you must make.  Knowing the answers, if the buyer is honest, allows you to do what is necessary to be successful, whether with this customer, or another one.

An important point is that you cannot be hesitant to ask these questions.  They are part of what a true sales professional asks, and gets clarification of before the sales process.  What you learn about how the process is defined in the eyes of the customer will speak volumes.

I am sure that you sales veterans out there do this already, yet it bears mention for the new sales professionals

Don’t hesitate, ask!  Yes, the customer can still violate his/her own rules, but does so at the peril of alienating you and other sales professionals.

How Does this Affect The Black Sales Professional?

This affects all sales professionals, and it is part of the sales ‘game’.  It is what happens when customers must get competitive quotations of products and services because they want to check how they stand, or to satisfy a procedure that does the same.

Here is where it gets vexing.  Black sales professionals can easily be subject to working ‘without pay’ because of the complexities ofpreference and even prejudice (See Black Sales Journal 5/19 A Deep Dive into Preference, Perceptions, and Prejudice).  If a buyer has no intent on doing business with you as sales professional, or your organization, and is planning on taking your work and giving it to the incumbent, they are wasting your precious time and effort.   Issues regarding preference manifest themselves that way. The buyer strengthens his or her relationship with their current vendor, while at the same time improving their price and terms, thanks to your efforts.  Prolonged activities like this could obviously cost you your job.

In this way, being used is bad for your current employment health.  The above questions, if answered truthfully could save you some time, or at least help tip you off as to who the prospects are and who the ‘suspects’ are.

The Reality

You will always run the possibility of wasting time on good accounts that have no intention of moving their business because of their relationship with the incumbent.  They just want to use you for leverage to make sure they get a good price or program.  You have to make the decision of whether you want to be a willing participant, or should we call it a ‘not-for-profit sales professional’.

You have many choices that include not working with a prospect to contacting every few years to maintain the customer pending a personnel change of buyers.  The most important thing is that to increase your effectiveness, you don’t want to waste your time while you better someone else’s program.

You owe it to yourself, and it will make you more effective.

Always be effective!

Your comments are welcome. You can reach me at michael.parker@blacksalesjournal.com.