Wrong Solution? Maybe It’s the Wrong Problem!

So your sales have been dwindling and you’re on your third sales manager and a couple of new salespeople and no matter how much you have pleaded and pressured or scolded and threatened, sales continues its frightening trend and lackluster range. You’ve racked your brains and worked your guts out and no matter what actions you have taken, sales just won’t turn back upward.

TIP: It may be very possible that you have been trying to solve THE WRONG PROBLEM.

“ANY PROBLEM THAT DOES NOT SOLVE IS NOT THE PROBLEM. There must be some other problem.”

(Excerpt taken from a 1971 article by L. Ron Hubbard called LINES AND HATS).

Example: I once was brought in to establish a national sales force for a multinational company that had spent five years trying to salvage poor sales of an automated refueling system that involved a high tech, electronic gadget installed on fleet trucks. I hired proven, top-flight salespeople, got them all trained and drilled and spent three months after that trying to sell this product. We dropped the price, we tried different sales pitches, we worked long hours – and no matter what we did, it had little to no effect on sales. So I took a walk one day. My mind was troubled with this problem. My reputation was on the line. I wondered if perhaps I had bitten off more than I could chew. And then it hit me like a thunderbolt: I had always been able to solve a sales problem. I remembered the above Hubbard Management System datum. And I realized that the problem couldn’t possibly be sales. Too much energy had been poured into its resolution by me and plenty of other people. So, I had the product independently tested in a lab and the results showed that the gadget was defective. Further, it could be fixed and it could be fixed easily and cheaply. Result: Once the product problem was identified and solved, the same salespeople sold more in the next six months than had been sold in the previous five years!

It pays to get some training in the Hubbard Management System. It enables you to “think your way” correctly through the myriad of problems that arise in running any kind of business. It enables you to accomplish your goals and purposes and without it one can end up with too many failed purposes, exhausted and stopped.

Bill Johonnesson