04/01/2024
Received an email from www.manaonline.org about fairy tales and reps.
The Brothers Grimm tell the story of a poor fisherman who lived with his wife in a hovel by the sea. He caught an enchanted flounder which begged him to set it free, so he did. When he later told his wife, she was furious. An enchanted flounder, she said, should have granted him a wish. So he returned to the sea to ask the flounder for a wish. A bad storm had begun, but the fisherman made himself heard over the surf and his wish for a new home was granted.
His wife was briefly satisfied, but later sent him back to ask for a castle instead of a home. The weather had worsened, so the fisherman shouted more loudly and when he returned to his wife his home had become a castle.
Soon after his wife reasoned that if they lived in a castle, they should be king and queen, and insisted that the fisherman go back to the flounder for another wish. It seemed greedy to the fisherman, but he dared not defy his wife, so he returned to the sea. He had to fight an even stronger storm, shouting his wish over the roaring surf, but when he returned to the castle he and his wife were king and queen.
What good was being king and queen, decided the wife, if their powers were less than a flounder’s? Mercilessly, she forced him to return and ask the flounder to make them all powerful. When he returned home all his riches were gone and his hovel had returned.
Anonymous tells the story of a struggling manufacturer whose low sales kept him impoverished. He went to the internet typed in “find sales rep.” He found a sales rep who had great contacts and excellent product knowledge. Soon he had profitable projects to manufacture, and he was able to refurbish some of his machines and keep his employees busy for a full eight-hour shift.
So the manufacturer went back to the internet and once again typed in “find sales rep.” He found another rep in an adjacent territory and got even more orders. With this new income he was able to buy some new machines and add a half shift to his factory, which now ran at capacity 12 hours a day.
As the reps brought in more and more projects, the manufacturer started to turn some profitable projects away, cherry picking the inquiries reps brought in and only accepting those with profit margins that far, far exceeded industry norms.
Then the manufacturer again went to the internet and typed in “find sales rep.” And he filled his plant with two shifts of extraordinarily profitable projects while turning away projects other manufacturers would gladly have accepted.
With his coffers bulging, the manufacturer asked himself, “Why should I pay full commission on customers the reps already have brought me?” So the manufacturer cut the reps’ commission.
Then, finally, he asked himself, “Why should I pay reps at all for customers I already have?” So he fired all his reps and serviced the accounts himself, mostly over the phone.
The reps, who had great customer contacts and excellent product knowledge, found other manufacturers to represent, and took away all the business they had brought to the manufacturer.
So the manufacturer went back to internet and typed in “find sales rep.” But the reps he found knew exactly how he’d treated his last group of reps, and would have nothing to do with him. And the manufacturer went back to scrabbling for low-margin projects and not being able to write enough business to keep even a single shift of workers busy.
Sounds Grimm, doesn’t it?
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