I’ve been analysing my sales performance recently and it is NOT what I am used to and not what my employer would expect.

Hopefully, the lifting of lockdown restrictions will make life easier, and we can all get back to what we do best……except that, performance change is not just a ‘Covid’ thing.

Over the last few years, the bean-counters have taken control of the print industry, to the point that ‘the bottom line’ is everything and ‘customer satisfaction’ isn’t important.

If you doubt this last point, then explain why it is so hard for some customers to get toner and service from some manufacturers. Too many service engineers on furlough and no back-office staff processing toner deliveries. Core requirements for customer being ignored!

Thank goodness that my employer has a strong service team and back-office people who care!

…..

Working at home, should have given me more time to focus on ‘sales-calls’ and customer support, but my recent analysis of activity suggests otherwise.

The image shows how my time was distributed pre-Covid and how it is distributed now.

For a salesperson to spend so much time chasing, chasing, chasing, what are administrative issues, created by suppliers with no consistency, is wasteful and counter-productive.

Maybe this is the new normal that I should get used to?

On the upside for customers…. it’s keeps me well away from them eh?