How do I make sense of losing a great salesperson?

Posted Wednesday, September 14, 2011, at 8:46 AM

It might seem strange with unemployment running high that finding a good employee is not easy. At least when it comes to sales, finding a person who is organized, thorough, persistent, professional, self-motivated and easy to like is much more difficult than it might seem.

So how do you make sense of having to part with someone like this when everything is screaming at you NOT to let them go? When business is down, you need to strengthen your sales, do more advertising, take an aggressive approach to make up for the lost sales, right?

Well, not in this case. We have a person who has done everything we asked, brought more to the equation than originally expected, doubled our customer count, tripled our sales, but Monday I had to give them notice that we could not continue. The expenses of operation and idiosyncrasies of the marketplace brought about a very undesired result.

Gut wrenching for them, and for me as well. I can only pray that this will open up an even greater opportunity for this person and we are trying to protect them with ample notice, but I do not know if they realize how much I will miss them too. It was not an easy decision by any stretch of the imagination.

Need a good salesperson? I happen to know one who is available. (No, I am not talking about myself, although I have been known to sell a thing or two)

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Don't need to hire anyone, but since you are talking about your business, what business are you in?

-- Posted by justwanaknow on Wed, Sep 14, 2011, at 10:43 PM

We do a number of things. Primarily we are in paper converting for printers, packaging plants, paper mills and merchants across North America and Europe.

We also sell equipment, etc. on the internet and have some local service companies, but since I am not supposed to use this space to advertise, I better leave it at that.

If you would like to know more, write to me at Steve@mybedfordcounty.com

-- Posted by stevemills on Wed, Sep 14, 2011, at 11:16 PM

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Steve Mills

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Steve Mills and his wife have one daughter and live on a farm outside of Bell Buckle. They previously owned two coffee/ice cream shops, currently operate an internet sales company and teach classes, but his primary job involves the paper industry worldwide. Hobbies and interests lie in gardening, photography, recorded music and of course, their pets.

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