Textbook Tommy

Have you ever worked for a Textbook Tommy? By definition, "the Textbook" is the proverbial VP of Sales, ahem excuse TSB, "the Executive VP of Sales" that comes into an organization and rather than attempt to absorb and digest, creates chaos and bedlam. Somewhere  along this type of individual career path, they started to believe everything that they read in some textbook rather than attempt to figure things out themselves.  Let's be frank, this industry has too many Textbook Tommy's running around, you know the kind that promise the world and quite frankly do not have a clue as to how they arrived at the fork in the road, hoping that somehow they'll take it. Too often, books can create an illusion rather than deal with reality.  Interestingly too many sales and management bibles discuss the ineffectiveness of sales people and sales teams.  TSB thought that it would be interesting to take a different perspective and discuss the ineffectiveness of people like the VP of Sales.

When authors recommend evaluating structural issues, what some Textbook Tommy's fail to understand is that the structural issue may not be the people, it may be the company, or more often than not, it may be the CEO.  So how do the Textbooks of the world fair in this type of environment?  Our experience is that they make irrational decisions to cover their own personal inadequacies.  If the structural problems run deeper than a problem that would be a personnel issue effecting a change may be difficult, and heaven knows many of us have seen too many heroes perish in a flash fire in this industry.  So let's talk about some of the scenarios.

What happens if the company that you work for doesn't provide its direct or independent sales people sales samples and marketing literature?  What happens if the company's rationale is that you can demo your product on your iPad, is this a good scenario?  What happens if your company doesn't have enough of inventory or instrument sets? What happens when the Textbooks of the world want you to forecast the number of surgical procedures your region will potentially deliver for the month, but, your business model is built upon an independent distribution network?  Contrary to what one learns in the Textbook, managing an independent distributor like a direct sales rep is a formula for disaster.  The fact remains that sales processes for independent distributors in comparison to direct sales people take on an entirely different set of management and communication skills. Some will not agree, but the fact is that you work for the distributor and not the other way around. A lack of action and responsiveness to an independent distributors needs will come back and haunt your organization.

Time is money.  And if you cannot provide you sales model with the necessary tools to get the sale, you yourself fail.  You fail at being a leader, a manager, and most of all you probably never sold in your life.  There is a distinction from being a life long manager versus a sales person.  But then most of the Textbook's in this industry allocate their resources to inefficient processes.  Ever work for a company that spends investors capital to build a lab only to find out that there burn rate exceeds their return on investment.  TSB is sure that some of you can identify to this scenario.

How many of you are subjected to sit in these senseless sales meeting that waste your time, only solidifying what you already know, that the Textbooks of the world do not understand the business. Recently, TSB  sat in a series of sales meetings wondering what the CEO and VP of Sales were smoking.  As someone so eloquently wrote in a textbook, these types of sales meetings bring no value and demotivate.  Motivation by intimidation is one of TSB's favorites.  If the company cannot provide you with the necessary tools, how do you build a house?  How does one get results?

Rather than asking whether the Regional Sales Manager knows the business, maybe its time that people start to question whether the VP of Sales knows the business.  If you've bounced around from company to company without ever getting real results, how do some of these companies actually hire the Textbooks of the world?  Rather than focus on the Regional Managers, maybe some CEO's and BOD's need to ask the VP of Sales to conduct some product training, and make some sales presentations themselves.  If the VP of Sales lacks those skill sets, how does anyone expect them to be able to evaluate their direct reports?  Management by intimidation worked well in the 50's and 60's, but that just doesn't play that well in Peoria any longer.  And if the VP of Sales themselves cannot execute a sales presentation or product training, how is that individual themselves committed to excellence?

What TSB has identified is that many Textbook Tommy's come into some of these companies and realize that they have created false expectations. So what do they do to buy time? Immediately they need to surround themselves with their own friends, the usual suspects, attempting to do things the same way that they did things in the 80's at Medtronic, or how they once were mentored by someone that was a dinosaur in management to begin with.  Ever wonder why a VP of Sales or CEO never administer a 360 evaluation?  The answer is because they are insecure and do not want to know what their employees really think about them.  Ruling by an iron fist only works so well and then failure sets in.  

The Textbooks of the world have a propensity to divide and conquer rather than create a guiding coalition.  This behavior justifies their existence.  The organization becomes their laboratory. Rather than creating balance and solidarity, they create chaos.  So their modus operandi is to play their employees off of one another, rather than unify the team.  This becomes a morale breaker only verifying that the Textbooks truly have no people skills.  The Textbooks fail to grasp that people are still an organizations most valuable product.  Don't believe it?  Try to sell some of your innovation via the internet, from a vending machine, or better yet from a lab that no one attends.

So in closing, TSB wants to know who are the Textbook Tommys of the Spine Industry?  Do they have the ability to adapt or are the just the poster children for Einstein's definition of insanity? You be the judge.