THE CEO OF A FRUIT-DRINKS COMPANY WHO WANTED HIS ENTIRE SALESFORCE SACKED

This was one of our most challenging and traumatic engagements with the TRACS Executive Retreats till date. It also turned out to be a major milestone in our journey with the Concept. All these contributing to the case, this narrative will obviously be a bit longer than usual and we’ll therefore crave your indulgence to approach it with some patience as we try to trace our way back through all the labyrinths!

THE CEO OF A FRUIT-DRINKS COMPANY WHO WANTED HIS ENTIRE SALESFORCE SACKED

It was in those early days of the intro of the GSM service and I not being tech-savvy, wasn’t quite at home with my new phone set. It was a very busy day and I was taking on a very long drive and not being quite tech-savvy, was not at home with the ettiquttes of calls-handling while driving. By the time I alighted at my destination, I had missed a whopping total of 19 calls out of which one number whose owner I didn’t know then had called me 12 times.

Every sane person should be worried! And I think I wasn’t too far from that then’ so I immediately put a call across to the number and when it was picked up by a very agitated voice I quickly offered my apologies, calmed the nerves, got to identify the owner of the voice and sought to know the reason for the seemingly frantic outreach.

Well, it so happened that the person has heard a lot about one of our Directors and the what little ‘magic’ he could do about turning organisational performance around and therefore wanted to meet him asap! He was the CEO of a major fruit juices and drinks business with a sprawling factory that was recently acquired from its original foreign owners.

To cut a long story short, arrangements were quickly made for our Director in question to meet with this CEO and thereafter, our team went on to try to fully engage with him as our man had to undertake a trip that was already at hand.

But by the time he came back the proceedings had stalled! Why? The CEO simply threw a gauntlet at them! “I heard you guys have a way of turning things around and that you are also into recruitment. I want to sack my entire Salesforce and replace them with new people who I would mandate you to recruit, train and deploy as you deem it fit!”

Now that was the most blatant brief we’veever received

Now that was the most blatant brief we’ve ever received!

Of course, we promptly told him that we couldn’t carry out that bidding the way he had requested and instead offered him our professional process for handling any performance related case, especially in a group or team setting.

And his response was simple: do it or leave it!

It was at this state of abandonment that our colleague that was originally contacted by this CEO met the situation on his return and therefore quickly went over to meet him.

After hearing all his explanations, our man informed this angry CEO that the least we could do under the circumstance was to request for the entire Salesforce to be brought unto one location for our team to engage them in a mini-retreat as quickly as possible.

Expectedly, he bluntly refused and nearly had to ask his security staff to escort our man out of his exalted office! “How can he spend more (transportation, accommodation, feeding and allowances, etc) money to host the same people who had been wasting his resources and market opportunities for 3 years in a row? It’s either you guys are completely deaf or impervious to reasoning or were irredeemably inexperienced!”

But in spite of all the insult and vituperations, our colleague held his ground and calmly explained why we had to do what we needed to do. When all the entries failed, he quietly left with the explanation that when the CEO is really ready to redeem his business, we would only be a phone-call away.

Weeks passed and we didn’t hear from this client. But the person that originally referred him to us called in to confirm what the issues were. Apparently, the CEO was very honest and had clearly told him what our position was. Kudos to him on that!

But he reiterated that we were arrogant and inexperienced to which the Referee informed us that he bluntly told him that his perception of us was completely wrong and actually misplaced.

He had also told him that he didn’t then know much about PROSELL Consulting but about the guy in the firm that he had spoken to him about, he had absolute confidence that if that his business could be successfully turned around, that guy could make it happen! After all, that’s the only Nigerian he knew that could make people walk bare-footed on red-hot charcoals of fire without their feet being burnt as a most eloquent proof of his raw power of motivation.

His business continued to go down upto a point he came short of closing it completely down. But his contact also continued to urge him to listen to us.

I guess one can understand his frustrations. Up to that time, he had used about three highly reputed Management Consulting firms; one local and two, of international operation. If these could not solve his problem, how could this little unknown fry in the industry claim to hold the silver bullet?

Eventually, one day, out of the blues, the call finally came! But he only wanted to meet with the colleague of ours that his contact originally referred him to! And so, off he went!

On getting to the CEO’s office, he promptly and disrespectfully trust a paper before him. “I’ll bring down all members of my Salesforce to the Headquarters (not the neutral venue you requested) for the engagement with your team on only two conditions! Tell me what you will deliver and how long that will take. Secondly, we won’t pay you guys a dime until the end of your deliverables’ timeline. Thirdly, you’ll also agree with me that if your promised deliverables are not met, your firm will forfeit its professional fee!”

Our colleague’s first and understandable impulse was to simply turn around and walk away! We’ve already created a reputation of not taking any insult from anybody no matter his position; no matter the value of the brief! But for the sake of the TRACS Concept, being then in its infancy, and the need to prove a major point (three well known Management Consulting firms had already failed in this task), he calmly accepted the challenge; insults, threats and all!

But our colleague didn’t stop there! He was apparently set on ‘finishing’ our firm. He quietly informed the CEO that we could only make reply when we had at least seen the members of this his Salesforce. “If you have any trust in the person that referred you to us, just tell us when and where and after that, we can give you whatever you want!”.

The D-day soon came and half-way through the programme we held a brief meeting after which our colleague was mandated to go meet with the CEO with our own Card!

And what was it?

Utter craziness!

“In just 60 days after this mini-retreat, this same Salesforce will not only stop the continuous slide in your Sales, but will grow it by upto 30%!!! If that doesn’t happen, we’ll willingly forfeit our Professional Fee as you’ve earlier demanded!”

Our client was thoroughly flabbergasted! For the first time in all our meetings with him, he let out a very loud and mischievous laughter!

As he saw it, this was a good confirmation of what he had been saying about the fact that we lacked the necessary experience, especially of his industry. He also pointed out that if we were really serious, it was an opportunity for him to escape the mistake of paying for what ‘would obviously not work’ as he had done with the earlier ‘world-class’ consultants.

He then then asked our colleague if he was ready to set what he had just said to writing and the latter promptly agreed.

He gave our man a yellow A4 sheet of paper and told him that he would like him to write his undertaking in long hand and then sign it so that he would have a double assurance of non-denial.

We fast-forward the story again!

He then came back to re-join the team and we went on to conclude the mini-retreat and dispersed but with a lot of back-slapping and ‘Hey-Ho!’ that got a lot of observers talking.

One late afternoon, 35 days after the engagement, exactly on July 3, 2007 our contact man received a frantic call from our highly mercurial CEO. He had to abandon every other thing and cross over, as both offices were in the same part of the city. Moreover, we were all gravely concerned, as no clue was given regarding what the issue was about.

What was the problem?

The June Report was out and the company had recorded a 46.7% MoM growth! We were all thrown into a shock that lasted several months later! Of course, our payment which was meant to be made after 60 days if we met the ‘Bet’, was effected same day, with even some apologies for what the CEO called ‘little misunderstanding and unnecessary doubts’.

Midway into the narration of what happened, he had to stop and ask the same question that we’ve now gotten used to hearing from most of our stunned clients, “What exactly did you do to my people? Was it magic?”

Now they had suddenly become his people who a little more than a month ago he was insisting on not setting his eyes upon! But we’ll leave the story at that.

It was an episode none of us will ever forget for several reasons and we are happy that till today, we are still talking about it.

You see, sometimes one has to stoop very low indeed in order to conquer, especially with the TRACS Concept’s approach to organisational performance transformation that often sounds too simple to be true.

Apart from the very loud one about the phenomenal Sales result, several other positive developments also emerged from that relatively very brief encounter at our client’s office on that cloudy day in late May, 2007.

On a lighter note, even till today, one of our colleagues is still riding a car that came out of what started on that day!

About one and half years later the fruit juice company had done a complete 360^o turnaround and soon went into massive recovery and retooling of abandoned plants, machinery and generators; aggressively expanding the business even beyond the country as well as going into international supply-chain partnerships; recruiting new staff indifferent departments and at various levels.

Interestingly, three years down the line, only 2 of the original Sales staff that the CEO wanted sacked had lost their jobs and we even picked them out as early as the day of that momentous mini-retreat.

But we must also point out that we made two strategic errors even in the midst of this feat. One, we should have requested for some hand-holding with those two Sales people. Secondly and more importantly, we ought to have insisted that the entire top Management of the company, including the CEO himself, should go through a full TRACS Executive Retreat themed on either TRACS FOR BUSINESS-UNITS TRANSFORMATION or TRACS FOR TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP. For this latter error, everybody paid dearly much later!

But that’s a story for another day! What is most evident and important here is that the TRACS Concept works, no matter what!