Chapter 1

ship wrecked

    "Hey, Louise, how was your weekend?"
    "Great Joe," bubbles Louise the front desk receptionist/office administrator/regional coordinator. Louise has been with Acme for only 14 months and has been given more responsibilities as other Acme employees have left the company. She sees it as a challenge that may help her later. If nothing else the new activities make the days go by faster, especially now that everyone has cell phones, voice mail and email.
    Joe likes her a lot more than all the other support people that have come and gone in this office. He feels that her gung - ho attitude is a little much, but he figures that it was probably due to her being younger than he is. You see, Joe has been around Acme for over eight years and sees himself as the senior salesperson. He has been in the trenches as a named account executive longer than anyone else. He knows he knows more than anyone, but being "Mister Positive" in this environment is not something that he can do. Every day is too much of a challenge! It's getting harder and harder in the field and it never seems to get easier inside of Acme. Now, he doesn't even have his system support engineers to help him with his email.
       It is Monday morning and Joe dumps his briefcase at his desk on the way to the coffeepot. Just outside the break room he runs into Bills, Bill Hamilton. Joe calls Bill Hamilton "Bills" because of all of the money he has. It's rumored that he bought a new house in Wercforit Estates. Bills is a couple of years older than Joe and transferred in from another region as the area manager about three years ago. Last year he was reassigned to a named account executive position because of the sales force reduction. It didn't seem to affect him too much. He's the number two salesperson in the region for the first half, right behind Melissa. "Hey, Bills, where are you off to this fine Monday morning?" Joe asks.
Bills replies in a rush, "I can't talk now I'm on my way to a breakfast meeting with the field service engineers."
In a panic Joe cries, "No one told me about a Monday morning meeting!"
    "I've been meeting with a different service team every two weeks or so since I was transferred. Normally, I'm at the start of the 7:30 meeting, but I asked them to begin it without me today. I wanted to come in and check out the demo room. Care Free Leisure is coming in on Wednesday and I wanted to make sure we still had the new multifunctional 752F on the floor. You know with the way that Corporate is mandating to rotate our demonstration equipment, you always have to triple check."
    "Why do you meet with the service people every couple of weeks?" questions Joe. "They call whenever there are persistent problems with the equipment. Lately I haven't gotten any calls, so they must be doing a great job."
Bills, "I don't meet with them to talk ONLY about service issues, I also discuss what is happening in the field with them and our customers. They're a wealth of information. It was because of Corie Wratchet that I got this demo on Wednesday. I had called the purchasing person at Care Free Leisure just three weeks ago and everything seemed fine with their old box. They said they were not in the market."
    "Then Corie tells me a week ago while she was on a routine service call that she heard Paul, the production manager bragging about a big print job they just won. Well, you can imagine how fast I jumped on that. immediately went on the Net and researched their company some more. Heck, I even got a new D&B profile for them and within two days had a meeting with Paul. The meeting went well and I've been back with Tom (the local system support engineer) to look at specific needs. It certainly isn't a closed deal, as a matter of fact; I would say that this is really not a demonstration, but rather an Acme overview with some equipment thrown in. Look, Joe I've really got to go. Have fun in Happy Valley."
"Yeah, right. Let me know how your demo goes. Good luck," Joe replies. Joe watches Bills hurry out the door. Joe can't help but think that Bills is one of the luckiest guys he knows.
    Joe finally enters the break room and notices that the coffeepot is empty.
    He decides it isn't that important and heads back to his desk where his briefcase has fallen to the floor. He didn't have time earlier to zip the pocket and his papers are scattered on his chair and the carpet. He moans, "Another Monday," and gathers his papers and planner.
    He picks up his black leather case and retrieves his laptop from the middle compartment. He had actually won this briefcase three or four years ago? He was the top copier salesperson on the team for the quarter and he won this black, Acme embroidered briefcase. It was either the briefcase or a brown satchel. The briefcase is OK, but not as nice as the new ones with the compartment for your PDA. Joe tries to think if it is the last prize he won. He realizes that his mind is wandering and decides to get down to business. It's 8:49 and he picks his phone up to see if there are any messages. He is relieved to find only two messages from Friday afternoon and one from today. He hits his message button and starts listening to the first one. After just a few seconds his knuckles turn white and he moans again before he slams the phone down.
    The message was from Jack at the warehouse. He said that he wasn't going to be able to deliver that 418SF today because the sorter never shipped. Great, another supply chain problem, Joe thinks. They just never seem to get it right. "Can't anyone do anything right around here!" he yells. He marches right into his manager's office at the end of the cubicles. On the walls are the familiar pictures of a golf course and a crewing team with the ALL too positive statements - team work allows everyone to win and challenges are meant to be overcome.
    Bobbi is Joe's manager. She is definitely a different manager than Bills. Her style is more like his old high school coaches and less like a corporate manager. She can motivate you and will listen to your problems, but she wants results. At only 5' 2", she has proven time and time again that she is no one to tussle with. She's demanding of herself and has recently started turning up the heat on Joe to get more activity. And now with this new EBAY or EBDAY stuff, Joe knows she'll be wanting more. Joe doesn't know where those results will come from. His territory has always been very competitive and his customers always shop around for the best prices. That is a fact and management is just going to have to understand it. He works hard enough as it is and he certainly can not do any more. Joe's favorite saying is, "You can't get blood out of a turnip." The real problem is getting equipment delivered. They CAN'T do anything right.
    Bobbi pulls Joe back to his reality by asking, "Forget to set your alarm, Joe?"
    "Oh, I, huh… you know how bad traffic is in the morning." He lets Bobbi's comment slide without much of a defense. He left his house at 7:45 this morning. He can't be responsible for rush hour traffic. It's not his fault that this wonderful city could not plan the roads any better. "Hey," he continues, " I didn't come in here this morning to talk about traffic. I have a problem that YOU need to fix."
    Bobbi has been through this scene a couple of times before with him and knows that by the end of the conversation, Joe will be settled down and focused on other "problems." She has tried for some time now to get Joe to take greater ownership of his days. A couple of times she has seen a sliver of change, but when something goes wrong it always comes back to someone else. She has tried to give him suggestions, but he likes to think of himself as an "old salt" even though he just recently celebrated his thirty-second birthday. All of those suggestions have gotten the same reply, "You can't get blood out of a turnip." There must be a way for her to make him more productive.
    Joe rants for five minutes about the equipment delivery problems and that if they were fixed he would be at plan or better, before Bobbi asks, "OK, Joe what is OUR issue today?"
He finally gets to his 418SF not shipping on Friday. "I promised All Square Construction that it would be there, and now I pick up a message today saying that it wasn't delivered. They are going to be really mad and I may lose the business. You know how long I've been working on this one. How can I make my plan when everyone around me keeps screwing up?"
    Bobbi interjects quickly, "Settle down, Joe, I'll call Jack and find out what happened. What has the customer told you so far?"
    Joe's defenses go up and he says he hasn't talked to the customer yet. He wants to have a definite delivery time before he calls them.
    As Joe walks out of Bobbi's office he can hear her say, "You shouldn't let this stuff affect you so much. The supply chain isn't out to get you. It's an issue that we're...." Joe doesn't hear the rest. He has heard it all before. He walks past his teammates' cubicles. They're all empty.
    He decides that now may be a good time for that cup of java. Joe slams his shoulder into the door. It swings open easily under his weight. Once again the pot is empty. "Oh well, I've got bigger things to do than make a pot of coffee," he muses.
    Back at his desk, he turns on his computer and connects using the fastest technology available, one step above carrier pigeons. He waits looking at his blank screen. What's he going to do for the rest of the day? He tries to remember if his plan and review is today or tomorrow. He knows he has that initial call late this afternoon at Carroll's Food and Beverage Wholesalers. He can't remember if it is at one or two. His desktop appears and his computer is finally ready to go.
He punches the keys and gets to Lotus Notes to check his mail. Nothing from his bosses. He decides to read the other stuff later. Lately, later has been never.
    His screen is mostly a sea of red, which means the emails haven't been opened. There are a few emails that have been opened, but even those haven't been fully read. Who has the time for all of this information overload? He figures all he needs is the spec sheet and the price. If anything comes up during the sales cycle, he'll get special pricing from Bobbi. This EBADUH stuff isn't going to be around forever. (EBITDA - Earnings, Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. Phase-one of Acme's new compensation model was just beginning to rollout to the field. The sales organization was now tasked with ensuring that every deal had adequate profit margins in it. Goals were not based just on projected revenues. The sales force now had two targets to achieve in Phase-one, revenues and profit or EBITDA.) And besides, he had that five-unit fax order at the beginning of the year that was way above cost. It wasn't his fault the system support engineers took three days to install them on the customer's network. "Now I can't even offer free installation with my equipment," Joe gripes.
    He sits there in his cubicle debating with himself if he should call All Square Construction and test the customer's reactions or let a sleeping dog lie. He eventually decides against calling and instead calls to confirm his appointment for Carroll's Food and Beverage Wholesalers. Kelsey, his contact, picks up after just one ring then pleasantly and professionally does her introductions. Joe feels lucky because Kelsey is normally hard to get a hold of. She does confirm their appointment for one, but explains that she will not be the only one he'll be meeting with. "There will actually be three or four of us meeting with you."
    "Great," Joe replies enthusiastically, "the more the merrier. I'll see you at one."
He replaces his phone and notices that it's already 10:30. If only he could find more time. The days just seem to be one problem after another. There's never enough time for my real job - selling. He thinks back to his glory days, when he was at plan and things were great with the company. Back then he could sell Rogaine to Robin Williams. At one point, several years ago he even sold a customer an additional copier just for back up. The customer had placed it in their maintenance closet and would roll it out when the primary unit needed repairs. It didn't quite work out as planned though, because an employee was making copies of his or hers asstribute and sending the images to the owner. They never did find the person. But they did cancel the extra machine.
    Joe mutters, "I might as well listen to the rest of my messages." Once again he starts to listen to Jack explain the NON-delivery. Joe saves the message just in case he needs to forward it to Bobbi later. It may come in handy if he loses the order. The second message was dated at 2:56 on Friday and it was from Rod Stoneworth the owner at All Square Construction.
    "Joe, its Rod, please give me a call. The machine hasn't arrived yet and some of my people leave at three. You know the number. Thanks."
"Hmmm... I guess I could call him, but I have nothing to say," Joe thinks. "I'll wait until I hear back from Bobbi."
The last message that he retrieves is from his regional sales director, and it's dated Monday 7:45am. "Joe, this is Bishop. Give me a call today; I want to discuss a focus group that Corporate is putting together on some of the equipment delivery issues. Since you're the most vocal, I figured you would jump at this chance to help improve the system. I'll be on my cell today the number is...." Joe wants nothing to do with any focus group. Just then Bobbi approaches. Joe hangs up. He'll call Bishop back later with some excuse NOT to participate.
    "Bobbi, did you fix it?" Joe asks.
    Bobbi nods and says, "Yeah, Jack told me that the unit should be arriving this morning. They found the sorter Friday afternoon. I guess it was there the whole time. They had stored it with the wrong mainframe. It wasn't a big issue after all. Let me know what this customer says, OK?"
    "Sure not a problem Bobbi," Joe says. Joe is just about ready to thank her when his phone rings and he turns to answer it. This effectively terminates his conversation with Bobbi.
    "Joe here," he automatically says.
    "Ah, is this Acme?" a shy voice on the other end of the phone asks.
    "Yes, it sure is the last time I checked," Joe's reply is robust.
    "Ah, my name is Stephen and I got this number from our files. I was hoping I could talk to someone about our machine...."
    Joe interrupts and asks, "Is it broke?"
    "Uh, yes sir it is," Stephen eagerly offers.
    "Oh well, you'll need to call our service folks. They're the best. Got a pen Steve? Great, dial 800 AOKACME."
    "800 AOK -ACME?"
    "Yeah, just dial 1-800 A O K - A C M E. You know spell it out on your phone's number buttons. You do have a push button phone don't you, Steve?" Again Joe chuckles a bit too loud.
    Steve quickly thanks him and calls yet another Acme number.
    Joe decides to wait until after his afternoon meeting to call All Square Construction. No reason to get yelled at now. I'll wait until I'm sure their box has been delivered. It's only a couple more hours and hopefully they won't be as mad then.
I better get going, if I'm going to grab lunch before my one o'clock meeting. Joe turns off his computer and gathers his stuff before arranging his briefcase. On the way out he looks to see if there's any coffee. Bingo, he's in luck. It looks to be fresh pot. Maybe my luck is changing, Joe thinks. He looks around for one of those small white Styrofoam cups. After a moment or two of looking, he locates the stash of four sleeves in a cupboard over the refrigerator. After tearing the thin plastic, he grabs one cup and leaves the rest of them in their hiding place. He pours himself a cup and relishes the flavor. "Boy, I sure could have used this earlier," he thinks.
    At his favorite eatery, The Deli, he finds a seat in the back. After ordering ham and cheese on rye (everyone at the office thinks the breads here are the best) he grabs the local sports section of his paper and waits. He notices that his high school team is about to start a new season. The local school board did some redistricting a couple of years ago and his team hasn't been able to get on a winning streak since. His old coach is quoted, "Without the big men in front, we can't run the ball like we used to on the power plays. So, this year we're changing our strategy, we'll be running more option plays and throwing the ball more. We're going to challenge our competition in their end zones."
To Joe, it was just another way of saying that they're going to have another losing season.
In front of him is, by all accounts, a huge ham and cheese sandwich with just the right amount of mustard to tang each bite. To say it's delicious would be an insult.
    Joe digs in and savors every bite, a thing of beauty shouldn't be rushed.
Twenty minutes after lunch Joe is in the lobby of Carroll's Food and Beverage Wholesalers with fifteen minutes to spare. As he walks up to the receptionist, he smiles and pleasantly asks for Kelsey Opportern. The receptionist asks if he's from Acme Then she informs Joe that Ms. Opportern is expecting him and would he like to have a seat. Joe thanks her and walks toward the trophy case passing all of Carroll's Food and Beverage Warehouse's company information, which includes a brief history, the latest annual report, directory and catalogs. Joe looks for some names on the trophies for anyone he may know. "You never know maybe there's a contact in there somewhere," he thinks.
Joe whirls around when he hears the clicking of heels on the polished tile floor. Ms. Opportern is of medium build with a professional blue pinstriped suit on. She warmly extends her hand and introduces herself. "Hi, I am Kelsey Opportern. I'm glad you could make it."
    Joe enthusiastically shakes Kelsey's hand and responds, "Thanks for seeing me, Kelsey. You seem to have a nice place here."
    "Thank you. I hope it was no trouble getting here?" she inquires.
    "No, not at all. I actually live only a couple of miles from here. Do you know where Brier Homes are?" Joe continues to talk about his house and neighborhood until they reach the conference room. Kelsey seems very personable and Joe thinks he's established a rapport with her.
    Joe is seated at very large cherry conference table. Boy, this must have cost more than my salary he mindfully calculates. Just as Kelsey settles into the seat across from him, the door opens again and in stroll two men. They greet Kelsey and extend their hands to Joe. Joe is introduced to Michael and Preston. Michael takes a seat next to Kelsey. On the other side of the table Preston sits at the head of the table. The meeting begins.
    Joe has been in so many initial meetings that he could do it in his sleep. He starts, "Thanks for your time. My name is Joe and I am your Acme sales executive. Acme is an office equipment company that focuses on integrating the best copiers from our partners, to give you the solutions that you need. We compete very aggressively with the industry leaders."
    A short time later his inquisition begins, "What type of equipment do you use today? Is it on lease or do you prefer to buy it outright? Do you have any special requirements like - going digital? In my professional opinion," grouses Joe, "you'd be stupid NOT to go digital."
    After more than an hour of similar questions Joe has captured three pages of notes about their copiers and faxes. It seems to be a great first call. Joe's sitting in his car and its almost 2:30. He is mentally reviewing the call and calculating if he can ultimately win this one. He's sure he can. They hate their current vendor. Well, they didn't actually say they hated them. They said they were looking at alternatives. To Joe, that means that the other guy blew it and now it's his turn. Lets see I'm at the right level - Kelsey is in purchasing. Oh, I should ask her what Michael's and Preston's titles are. One of them asked that network question, "Do your products run on NT?" Joe assumes then that they must be network administrators or something.
    He felt he nailed his reply, "Our system support engineers are the best in the business. They can make our products work in virtually all environments. We can make your documents sing!"
Now what to do? He could go back to the office and then fight the traffic home or maybe he would do some cold calling in this part of town. Get some things going and then head home. He could walk in his front door at a reasonable hour. But, before he starts he needs to check voice mail one more time.
    "Joe, this is Rod Stoneworth. Our machine finally got here today, please give me a call."
The second message is from Bobbi, "Hey Joe, did you see that we made our EBITDA goals for the second quarter? Good news - huh? I'm really calling to confirm our P&R tomorrow at 3:00. Please give me a call. Oh, by the way I've got an idea that may help both of us."
    Joe rifles through the rest of his voice mail and then decides to call Bishop about the task force. He reaches in the back of his Sedan and retrieves his suit jacket. There in the breast pocket is his Palm. Within just a couple of seconds he has dialed the main number to the regional office. A pleasant recording apologizes for any inconvenience and assures him that a customer support staff member will help him shortly. The Muzak is interrupted a few moments later.
    "Hey Kevin, this is Joe. Is Bishop in today?" 
    Kevin says, "Sorry Joe, Bishop is out of the office."
    "Do you know where he is today? If he's at the district office I'd like to get that toll-free number. I'll call him from a land line. My cell bills are sky high."
    Kevin inquires, "I didn't know you had a cell phone. Let me update the regional directory, OK?"
"Uh, well, uh, Kevin I don't give it out. Uh, no one in Acme knows the number because it's just too expensive to talk on it all day long. I, uh, only use it in emergencies like now," Joe stammers.
    "Sure, Joe I understand. I just talked to Bishop a couple of minutes ago and he's in his car. Do you want me to connect you with his cell?" Kevin asks.
    "Sure, thanks."
    A couple of minutes later Bishop gets on the phone, "Hey Joe, I'm glad you called. How have you been?"
"You know me Bishop, busy, busy, busy."
"I just hope that you're selling profitable business, not those low margin deals that don't make us any money," Bishop states.
    Joe responds, "Bishop, I wish you were with me today, I just came from a great opportunity. I'll be putting it in the 'Forecaster' as soon as I can catch a minute." The "Forecaster" is a software program that resides on every salesperson's computer. It allows for suspects, prospects and current sales cycles to be added, so that managers above Joe could see what he was delivering. Joe had heard all the logic behind how important the software was at least a trillion times, but he could never really shake the feeling that BIG BROTHER was watching his every move. It never really used to bother him that THEY were watching, but because the last couple of quarters were dismal he has been very conscience of everything that he has typed into the "Forecaster." So the "Forecaster" is the tool that Acme uses to track the sales cycles of each individual. It should figuratively look like a pyramid with the wide base representing the prospect/suspects that a salesperson has and the point being the orders that will close for that month. On the one hand he doesn't want to put things down that aren't real, but on the other hand he has to put something down. It's the cardinal rule to forecast your budget every month or the head honchos go bonkers.
    "Good," Bishop comments and then changes gears with, "I'm excited to have you on this new taskforce. know you've been discussing with Bobbi our equipment delivery issues. We could sure use your, umm, uh, passion."
Joe chooses his words carefully, "Hey Bishop, I would really like to help, but I've got so much going on in my territory that I don't think I can break away. I'm your man who brings in the bacon. I'm not good at being a committee delegate. And besides, I've got a lot of things going on at home too. I just don't think I can give any more."
Bishop's disappointment is evident, "We could really use you Joe. Just do me a favor and give me a call next week after you've had some time to think about MY request."
    "Sure, sure, Bishop whatever you say. I'll see you later." Joe punches the end button and begins to feel trapped and a little teed-off that he's going to be forced into this. "What a jerk," he mutters.
    He shakes his head and thinks. I would like to see any manager or director do what I do. They're all just overhead. If it weren't for the sales force and people like me in the trenches this company wouldn't be anywhere! Maybe the next time Bishop would like me to kiss his ring. He starts to look for the phone number for All Square Construction.
"Rod, this is Joe from Acme. How's my favorite customer today?" Joe's old line sounds practiced and insincere.
    Rod Stoneworth has built his construction company from scratch. Twenty years earlier he was a new, bungling carpenter without a tool belt to hang his hammer on. Today, All Square Construction company builds residential and commercial properties and sells over $15 million of properties a year. But their real revenue comes from their ongoing real estate ventures. The profits from their annual leases are twice that from the construction side. If Joe had asked he would have learned that Rod recently bought one of the largest local real estate companies in the city. Joe never asked.
    Rod did not build a successful company by overreacting. He judges people on what they show him, not what they say. And at this rate Joe has two strikes against him. Strike one - no communication after his call on Friday. Strike two - no apology. He'll give Joe one more chance to redeem himself.
    Rod inquires, "Joe, I thought the machine for my Valley location was going to be delivered on Friday at
2:00. What happened?" "Rod, I never got the call from the warehouse until today and uh, you got it, though today, right?" Strike three. Joe did not take ownership of the problem or worse he had just lied.
"Joe, just keep in touch with Julie my administrative assistant will you? I've got to go. Thanks for everything." And with that Rod said good-bye for the last time. Rod has been around long enough to realize when someone is trying to cover himself from blame.
    Boy, that wasn't too difficult thinks Joe. That Rod is a nice guy. I'll surprise him in a couple of weeks and see if he wants to go to lunch, my treat.
    Wow, it's already 3:00. I guess I could go back to my house and return some calls. Where does the day go! I'm so busy, but I never get anything done. "What do I need to do to be more productive?" Joe thinks out loud.