STAND

Oh weary soul, with such travail,
Why dost thou weep and mourn and wail?

For when thine earthly life is gone
His gilded voice shall say “Well done.”

This modern world is composed of several attitudes, one of which being instant gratification. In a world instantaneous indulgence, salespeople lose focus on what is important to the customer. I have learned from my experience as a part-time manager in sales that many of the younger salespeople dislike having to help customers that need large amounts of personal help or advice about certain products. One of the worst salespeople I have ever worked with, “Max”, is a perfect example of this attitude. Max was raised to shop online, or at stores that focused on self-service; breeding within him an attitude that only idiots needs good customer service, and he did not keep this opinion to himself. Almost every shift he would complain about customers that “still shop the old-fashioned way.” His most indulged in complaint was that these “idiots” did not shop on the internet. The majority of his complaint was that people do not utilize the services of mobile web, Wi-Fi® and ship-to-home services that online stores like eBay®, Amazon®, Walmart.com® offer. His problem was assuming that everyone was just like him, lazy; his understanding of retail is limited to X-Box Live® and his smart phone. I have found from my experience with Max, that many salespeople, including myself, were raised to shop at non-specialized like Wal-Mart®, Sam’s Club®, and Menard’s®. These variety stores are notorious for poor customer service, and at the same time for making it easy for you us shop on our own. When we are shopping on our own and having to tend to ourselves, many times all of us as salespeople forget what it means to stay focused on what the customer needs.

Another one of the core problems is failures in training. One of the managers that trained me was notorious for doing a poor job training new employees. Not a day would go by that either I or some other salesperson would catch her applying outdated product knowledge. One time I heard her telling a new salesperson about a product, and all I can remember is thinking, “Yeah! Back in the 80’s!” This was not the first time or last that I had this form of reaction; it was a constant struggle in our store. It came to the point where we no longer paid attention to her training, and replaced her training with online and on-the-job training. This manager is the embodiment of poor salesmanship and management. She had no values in sales and training, making our store the personification of failures in training. Failures in training result in an almost predictable, exponential growth of poor salesmanship that is beginning to dominate the world of retail today; resulting in the growth of encounters with inefficient salespeople. Unfortunately, more and more employers receive complaints from customers about salespeople in the larger retail establishments, causing discouragement to not only me, but also to employers and salespeople across the country alike. This often results in complacency and little motivation for salespeople in their lives in the workplace.

Complacency and a lack of motivation, I believe, are the two main factors contributing to poor salesmanship today. Whether it is a manager who at first does not fire a poor salesperson, or a supervisor that does not care about the performance of a sales representative, or a salesperson that fails care about sales; complacency takes a toll on all of us. Max was constantly in a mood of complacency. Not a day went by that I did not receive a complaint about his work. There was one time that Max made a duplicate of a key, and like with many of his duplicate keys, the customer brought it back because it did not work. Though this kind of event was not unusual, the customer’s reaction was. This customer, an elderly man, had tried several times to get his original key duplicated, and each time he was told that each new duplicate would work. Understandably, the customer was livid. Later that day I brought this situation up with both my managers and Max, and once again we received the typical Max response, “Oh, OK.” Max was the living breathing epitome of complacency and disconnectedness in a salesperson. Max was the kind of salesperson that never paid attention in training, or he had a look on his face that told you that what you were saying was not retained in his mind. But all this was not his fault. There was little incentive for him to do a good job. In a small town, mom-and-pop hardware store, it is difficult to find someone who will work for small town wages. Max was willing to do this because it guaranteed him a job. But in other stores there too can be little incentive, no incentive, or “so-called” incentives that have the opposite effect on employees. Sometimes this can be exactly what the salesperson wants, but if it is then he or she is like Max and is not currently fit for the world of retail sales.

In a high-speed electronics world of instant communication and satisfaction, salespeople find it hard to focus on a slower paced shopper. Politeness is fading to the background and we fail to see this happening. Even outside of the shopping arena we fail to heed Peter’s admonition in I Peter 3.8, “…be courteous:”, only proving our sin nature.

Thesis: When caught up in the modern world, salespeople tend to fall short of the expectations of many customers and employers, and fail to realize it.

Introduction
I. In a world instantaneous indulgence salespeople lose focus on what is important to the customer.
A. Online shopping plays an important role in shopping these days.
i. Websites like eBay, Amazon, and Craigslist have become commonplace shopping centers like malls.
ii. Ship-to-home and overnight shipping has taken the role of convenience in the shopping world.
B. Ease-of-access is the backbone of shopping.
i. Credit cards have become useable over the internet.
ii. Mobile web (e.g. 3G, 4G, and Mobile Wi-Fi) has permeated society allowing us to shop wherever, whenever.
C. A “Drive Through” mentality fuels this movement of instantaneous gratification.
i. Texting and similar practices helps maintain this mentality.
ii. Self-service has become the norm in modern, non-specialized stores like Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and Menard’s.
II. Failures in training have caused many employees to fail as salespeople.
A. Poor resources have contributed to this poor training.
i. The core values of being a salesperson have not been drilled into the trainee.
ii. A poor salesperson did the training.
B. A degeneration of salesmanship can be found in modern shopping centers.
i. A place that was once known for good customer service now has a bad record with customers.
ii. One poor salesman trains another; producing an almost predictable, exponential growth of poor salesmanship.
C. A poor image of salespeople causes some salespeople to not try hard enough to please a customer or boss.
i. Bad experiences with poor salespeople have caused many shoppers to have a poor outlook on all salespeople.
ii. Many times it is just because there is a lack of desire to please on the part of the salesperson.
iii. Complacency plays a large role in these salespersons’ lives.
III. A lack of motivation is the main reason for the majority of poor salesmanship.
A. One of the components this is that there is no self-motivation.
i. There is a no desire to excel.
ii. There is no desire to train or be trained.
iii. There is no challenge in the selling world.
a) A lack of competition drives this force.
b) Poor competition practices also energize the lack of challenge.
iv. A failure to challenge oneself (i.e. integrity, initiative) produces no motivation.
a) This can be due to a non-competitive nature.
b) There is no desire to “sell, sell, sell.”
B. There is little or no reward for doing a good job selling.
i. Some stores have no incentives to offer a salesperson.
ii. Some stores have non-appealing incentives.
iii. There is an unreachable incentive placed that offers no desire to achieve.
Conclusion

I I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all

Many seniors will get a summer job, or just get more hours at their current one; this takes time away from their schedule of fun, or from family time. Personally, I work 40 hours a week, and have through the last half of my senior year. I know how much effort is put into working a busy schedule, and maintaining family, personal, and spiritual relationships. It can be difficult for a social teen to have to sacrifice some of these fun times, and what they really need is for you to step in and get involved, because most times they do not have the energy for it. Get involved with your senior, he is probably only waiting for you to find something he likes and enjoy it too. Next, encourage him in his walk with God. Start reading your Bible on the same schedule as he is, and discuss with him what God in doing in both your lives. Or better yet, even get involved in his devotions. Spend personal time with him. Set times aside that fit his schedule, and do something fun together or with his friends. In the end it all boils down to being involved with your senior on any possible level. In the end they will greatly appreciate it.

Now to the seniors. Allow your parents to get involved in your life. More that likely they are just doing what is best for you, and are concerned for what you are going to be in college. Open up, or they will feel like they have failed. Relationships are always two-sided. There has never been a one-sided relationship that succeeded, because there is no real relationship. Yes, I know your parents are out of date and expired, it is up to you to bring them up to date. So get involved with them.

So to everyone out there that is a senior or has a senior, get involved in life; life depends on it.