Making Calls vs Taking Calls

We just hired a long time friend of mine to be a salesman. He’s been in our industry for a couple of decades, in another capacity, for a supplier of ours.

I got the task of changing how he looks at the big picture. The company he used to work for has a different race to run than we do.

The first thing I told him was now he has to make calls, not take calls.

As a product rep, he waited for the phone to ring, to rush to the needs of the distributor. Now, as the distributor, he takes calls from customers and makes calls, looking for more customers.

If he waits for the phone to ring, as he’s used to doing, he’ll starve.

If he makes calls, everytime he thinks of a way to help a current customer, he’ll do well.

It’s funny how different it is on the distributor side, versus the supplier side. One has a million incoming calls to their cellphones.

The other better make those million calls.