Dealing with falling sales

This was a headline in the February 2009 edition of Management Today. The article goes on to give the reader 7 tips, the headings of which make for interesting reading. They are:

• Be positive
• Don't stop marketing
• Target your effort
• Hold a sale event
• Sharpen up your sales team
• Incentivise your people to sell
• Mind who you sell to

The first point, reinforced by Sam Walton's quip, "I was asked what I thought about the recession. I said I'd thought about it and decided not to participate," is particularly ironic. Being positive seems to be the first thing to disappear in the face of declining business. One just has to look at the number of people being laid off for evidence of that. There appears to be little or no concept amongst business leaders that laying people off is hardly positive and simply exacerbates the downward forces.

Yet this is by no means the only irony in the list. For example, the second point cites 'plenty of research' that shows 'firms that cut their advertising and marketing budgets lose out in the short-term as well as the long run.'  True, but equally so of making people redundant. Thus the message here seems to be that it is preferable to lay off people than to reduce adspend! 

I find myself questioning whether business leaders understand that business success is ultimately totally dependent on people. At the end of the day a business can have the best plant and machinery and the best systems under the sun, but it still requires people for anything at all to happen. Yet of the 7 points on the list only two are actually people focused, and even those show a dismissive attitude towards people, stating that 'in boom times sales teams are lazy and don't work as hard as they can' and thus demanding you 'cut out the dead wood', and then talking about incentivising non-sales staff for referring sales leads to the sales teams. Typical, top-down, command-and-control management attitudes.

In his latest book, "The Future of Management" Gary Hamel argues that, “For the first time since the dawning of the industrial age the only way to build a company that is fit for the future is to build one that’s fit for human beings as well. This is your opportunity – to build a management system that truly honours and cherishes human initiative, creativity and passion, essential ingredients for success in the new millennium.” None of this sees us moving forward in that direction. I would suggest that, if we are to avoid recessions like the one we are currently experiencing, this is essential.