Managing a territory

Back in the day when I was manager of sales and service, I had three sales managers reporting to me. New England, East Coast and the Midwest. The rest of the United States and Cananda belongs to me. Each sales manager was responsible for the normal things such as sales, keeping their customers happy, and reporting how the wind was blowing in the market. They also represented us at trade shows and other big events in the HVAC market. Our guy’s Pete, Don, and Jim were all very qualified at their profession, and required little overseeing. Fortunately for me.

Once a year at least, the owner of our company would go out and spend a few days with each of them.
The expectations were to visit the major customer, product outlets and manufacturers who used our products. In addition, they would do a little wining and dining. Expectations were high on where they did this. Don was and had the reputation for knowing all the great restaurants in his territory.

Unfortunately, Don had a run of three years where his big event ended up a disaster. The first year they drove up to the restaurant where they had reservations right behind the fire trucks. The next year they arrived at a darkened place that had just had a power outage, The third year a kitchen fire spoiled their evening. The next year Milt asked me what burned out restaurant did Don have in mind for him this year.

Things got better for Don.