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  On Tuesday morning, Dan starts off with a small deal worth $3,380, for refinishing a table we built before the crash.

  My first task is to deal with the Eurofurn prototype. I take Nigel’s list of twenty-two changes to Andy Stahl. Leaving out my feelings of anger and humiliation, I tell him what happened on Saturday and ask him to make a revised set of shop drawings with all twenty-two changes. He completes them by mid-afternoon and sends them off.

  As soon as Milosz approves the new design, which is almost identical to the old one, I take the drawings out to Ron Dedrick and go over them. He greets me with a wry smile. “Didn’t go so smooth?” I sigh. He’ll start the new table in the morning.

  Later that day, Emma drops a thick envelope on my desk. It’s the results from the sales aptitude tests. The package contains two items: a slim folder and a very thick binder, titled “Impact Analysis: Paul Downs Cabinetmakers.” Inside the folder are two reports written by an outfit called Objective Management Group. The first is titled “Sales Manager’s Self-Assessment for Paul Downs”; the second is called “Extended DiSC Personal Analysis Report: Downs, Paul.” Thirty-nine pages devoted to sales management, and thirty-six pages all about me.

  I riffle through both. Lots of colorful charts and graphs, a fair amount of text. Then I pick up the binder. It’s divided into seven sections, totaling 284 pages. Charts, graphs, text, footnotes. I quickly page through it. My reaction is a mix of skepticism and fascination. Skepticism: this is just boilerplate ginned up to make a bulky pile that looks like it’s worth the eight grand I’ve spent. Fascination: this is about me. Paul Downs. Hopefully, this is all focused on my business and my problems. It will be different from the coaching I’ve been getting from Ed Curry and my Vistage group, because it’s objective, just based on our answers to the tests. My sessions with Ed are conversations, with all the limitations of any dialogue between two people. There’s lots of stuff I don’t want to talk about with him, and there’s probably a lot in his mind that he wouldn’t say to my face. This report is supposed to jump over those social boundaries and give me the truth.

  I start reading the sales manager booklet. Its opening is in the form of a letter, with a bold-faced heading: “The Dave Kurlan Sales Force Profile™.” “Dear Paul,” it begins. “Blah de blah de blah blah blah.” I read paragraphs of what purports to be a personal letter to me, complete with Dave’s signature. There’s a heaviness to the prose, an inclusion of extra words, sentences, and paragraphs that extend the size and length of the document without adding much extra useful actionable information of any worth or impact at this time. And he keeps referring to me as the “sales manager.” I’m not the sales manager. I’m the boss.

  After finishing this letter, I’m drooping inside. I have to wade through hundreds of pages of this sewage? Did I just shell out all that dough for boilerplate? I answer my own question: you’re in no position to reject advice. There’s got to be something of value in this report. Now plant your butt in a chair and find it.

  This doesn’t happen while I’m at work—my day is swallowed by picayune administrative tasks. So I take the reports home. By midnight, I’ve read it all.

  The first section, assessing my prowess as sales manager, bears bad news. I stink at this job. The long list of the things I’m doing wrong falls into two groups. First, we make a large number of tactical errors trying to close deals, beginning with my basic procedure of sending a proposal in response to every inquiry. And second, I don’t manage my sales staff the way I should. Here the deficiencies are many and troubling: I am not constantly looking for new sales staff. I don’t have a written sales plan. I don’t ask my guys to keep records on each prospect. I don’t make them document what they do all day, so I don’t really know if they are being productive. I accept their excuses when deals disappear. I don’t hold them accountable. I let them get away with failure, even though it’s slowly killing us. I need to set standards and enforce them, and get rid of the people who can’t cut it.

  The sales manager assessment does nothing to bolster my confidence. But rather than weep in my beer, I move on. The next section is my personality profile. The premise of the DiSC assessment is that every person’s personality is a mix of four different tendencies. “D” is for Dominance, a confident, competitive person who wants to get results and focuses on the bottom line in every situation. “I” is for Influence, a person who is concerned with persuading other people to go along with his plans, who values openness and maintains relationships well. “S” is for steadiness, a person who places emphasis on dependability, sincerity, and cooperation. And “C” is for Conscientiousness, a person who focuses on quality and accuracy, expertise and competence. It might as well be C for “Craftsman.” In every person, one tendency will be primary and the others subordinate to a greater or lesser degree.

  In each category, the report has given me a positive or negative score, ranging from +100 to -100. As you might expect, my Dominance score is highest, and I have positive Influence and Conscientiousness scores as well. My Steadiness score is negative 100. Yup, they pretty much nailed me. I do like to be in charge, and I don’t like to work alone. And look at the work that I have chosen: a woodworker, who cannot be anything but Conscientious. A Craftsman. The test is correct about my weakness as well. I am not Steady. I don’t enjoy routines or being part of a system. I am not a rule follower. I’d rather write them myself and get other people to follow my plan. And that is what being a boss is all about.

  There are lots of detail about how my personality plays out in my business life. Specifics about things that I will enjoy doing and things that I will find difficult, and warnings about how my interactions might be perceived. I should listen carefully and explain my decisions to people. I can be inspiring if I want to be, but I can also leave others frustrated if they don’t understand why I am doing what I am doing. Because I dislike routine, I might avoid creating systems for my business that will allow it to operate without my constant intervention.

  The executive summary shows how my company’s sales organization ranks compared to the typical company. Again, my sales management skills are non-existent and our selling skills are terrible. But I get a little encouragement—my salesmen have serious problems and it would be reasonable to fire them both, but they might also respond to training and succeed. The thing we do best is gathering leads. Our Internet efforts consistently bring in new inquiries. But the report is based, in part, on Dan’s and Nick’s perceptions of how our operation works, and I don’t think that they understand that our AdWords campaign has stopped functioning.

  The next section is stuffed with confusing charts and graphs, and points out Dan’s, Nick’s, and my failings in detail and at length. It boils down to: none of us knows what he is doing, and I don’t hold them accountable when they fail. The next three sections detail those assertions and close with a summary of our strengths and weaknesses. My profile tells me that I am a good decision maker, have a strong self-image, control my emotions, don’t give up, want to succeed, and have a realistic attitude toward money and buying. My weaknesses fall under two headings, my failures as a salesman and as a manager. As a manager, I accept mediocrity from my salespeople, I don’t know how to hire, I don’t replace my worst performers, I don’t spend any time managing them, I jump in to salvage a sale instead of letting them learn from their mistakes, I don’t have any idea what motivates them, I don’t have any regular meetings to track progress, I don’t coach them, and I don’t do follow-ups to find out what happened when they fail. I’m still spending a lot of my day as a salesman, and here’s how I’m screwing up that job: I don’t follow any consistent sales process; I don’t have any idea who I’m dealing with and whether they have the power to make a decision; I talk too much and listen too little; I’m vulnerable to lies my customers tell me; I don’t know why my prospects want to buy; I don’t try to get the prospects to agree to make a decision; I don’t try to form a rela
tionship with my prospects; I send proposals too soon; and even when I make a sale, I don’t follow up or ask for referrals.

  Dan and Nick have similar lists, but with a surprising twist. Dan is the most likely to succeed as a salesperson. Apparently Nick lacks motivation and isn’t interested in money. I’m not sure I believe that, but I have to admit the report has painted an accurate picture of me; maybe it’s uncovered hidden truths about Dan and Nick as well.

  When I finish, I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. My cavalier dismissal of the report has given way to a recognition that we have big problems and a long, long way to go to fix all of them. So now what? We’ll do the training and give it all we’ve got. But will we survive long enough to complete the training if I don’t make changes immediately?

  What can I do, what can I do, what can I do? I’m riding my bike into work the next morning, and the question loops in time to my pedal strokes. About halfway through the ride, an answer appears: cut commissions, commissions, commissions. I can send Dan and Nick a strong message by keeping their portion of incoming payments. It’s not a huge amount of dough—just 2 percent of the money that we get from sales—and they will still have their salary to live on.

  By the time I arrive at the shop, I’m convinced that this is a great plan. But just in case I’m wrong, I review the numbers. I can see on my bank’s Web site how much yesterday’s payroll will cost: $23,606. We’ve received three payments this week, totaling just $14,234. I have $78,035 left in the bank. The payment on our credit card, $20,585, goes out tomorrow. After that, I’ll have just $57,450. And I have another pile of bills to send out on Friday, totaling $8,255. Once that’s gone, I’ll have $49,195. I look back at how much we’ve been spending per week since April 1: $38,086. So now I have less than two weeks of funds, unless I simply stop paying my bills.

  My spreadsheet shows four incoming payments this week, totaling $18,077. Three of those four are final payments from jobs we shipped in May. The other is a deposit from a state university that placed an order in April. We’ll probably get the first three, but the deposit payment might be delayed in the university’s bureaucratic processes. Theoretically, no deposit should make me put the job on hold, but if I do that, the shop will run out of work sooner. After that, there’s very little on the horizon. My total cash-to-come amount is just $50,751. But we won’t see any of that until we finish those jobs, and that will take more than two weeks.

  I check to see how much I have paid Dan and Nick in commission. Lately, it hasn’t been much. In yesterday’s paycheck, they each got $2,384 in base pay, pretax. Nick also received commissions totaling $464, again before taxes. Dan’s commissions added just $97. These commissions aren’t much compared to what they have already received this year. Nick’s commissions total $9,145; Dan’s sum up to $4,544. I paid myself commissions totaling $4,612 in the first quarter, but I haven’t taken base pay or commissions since April. It’s time for them to feel some of my pain.

  I know from experience that announcing a pay cut is no fun. And this time, the pay reductions are not being shared equally by all workers. I just want to do something to put a little fear into the sales guys. Taking away their commission won’t save much money; but every little bit counts when we have only two weeks of operating cash on hand. So I decide to emphasize the financial case for this action.

  It’s eight-thirty in the morning. Nick and Dan are working on projects. I ask them to stop for a moment and start with a question: “Anything coming in today?” Dan and Nick look at each other and shrug. Nope. I keep going. “OK, that sucks. Because we have a big problem. We’re running out of cash. We’re going to be down to fifty thousand dollars by the end of the week, and that’s just enough to run for two weeks. I need to cut our expenses, right now.” Nick is staring at me. Dan is frozen, and he’s starting to turn red. He probably thinks I’m going to can him. I see his reaction and think to myself, No, Dan, I’m not going to fire you. When you see me set up a camera, and ask your permission to film the meeting, then you have reason for fear. But not today.

  I announce my plan: “I’ve decided to cut out the commissions. As of right now. I need every penny of the incoming cash, so I’m stopping the two percent payments.” Now Nick looks angry, and Dan sags with relief. I continue, “I haven’t taken a paycheck or a commission payment since the beginning of April. And I just committed to spend thirty-seven thousand dollars to make us all better salesman. And”—now I tell a big lie—“I’m absolutely sure that the training is going to work, and we’re going to come out of this. But I don’t know how long it will take. Probably a couple of months. And I need to keep the doors open until then.”

  Nick asks a sensible question: “You’re cutting commissions forever? How long are you going to keep doing this?” I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it, because it seems more likely that we’ll be out of business before I have to deal with that question. “I can’t say. Until things get better. Until we make some sales. Until I can afford it.” Dan asks, “What about our salaries? Are you going to cut that, too?” I tell them that I would prefer to avoid this, but if things get worse, it might happen. “So let’s not let things get worse. Sell something. And when the training starts, put some effort into it. I’m committed to the program. Remember, it worked for Sam Saxton. I’m sure it’s going to work for us.” If we have anybody to pitch to. I’ve put the fear of God into the sales guys. But I haven’t figured out where the customers have gone.

  —

  WE ALL SIT and start working again. There’s an e-mail from Shiva in Dubai. Finally, the drawings from BigOil are here. I can see that the table is big enough to accommodate thirty-eight chairs. But there’s no indication of the materials, the base, or even where the wires coming from the floor (or ceiling?) will go. I can’t do anything with them. I have one other drawing that I was given at the first meeting. It purports to show the structure of the table. Like many drawings from architects, it shows something unbuildable, and the design doesn’t even make sense. The base is far too small to support the top, and it’s in the wrong position—nobody would be able to pull up to the table without hitting their knees. So I have two drawings from BigOil, but not what I need to make a proposal. Do they still want this table in Dubai by the end of August? If so, we have to build it by the middle of July. I e-mail Shiva, asking for the missing information. I’d love to get this job—it will be worth at least forty thousand dollars—but I’m stuck.

  The next day there’s a small reprieve. Hiding in the junk mail I find a check for $1,556. Whoopee! Enough money to run the shop for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, I just sent out bills totaling $8,255. I log in to AdWords again and stare at the same mess of links and data. The Web site won’t even allow me to directly compare two time periods in the configuration I want to see them in. Should I stop the campaigns to save money? On the face of it, the $650 I’m chucking at Google every day is a waste. It’s not producing anything for me. On the other hand, in all my other years in business, spending money on advertising has been a good investment. My sales have gone up every year except for 2009. I haven’t made many changes to the campaign in the past two years, and we’ve seen steady growth in sales until very recently. But maybe this is the moment to stop spending money on the Internet, and let my organic search results do the heavy lifting. Am I wasting precious cash? The only way to find out would be to pause the campaigns and see what happens. But last July I got a call from a bank in Washington that led to a quarter million dollars in business before the end of 2013. One call. A quarter million. Did they pick up the phone because they saw my ad, or because they clicked the free link? And if I hadn’t been running the ad? Would Google still give me good free results? They claim that there’s no connection between the ads and the organic links, but that hardly seems credible. They’re a business. If I were them, I’d give a boost to the Web sites that pay me money. I’m afraid that if I stop paying, my free links will drift
down the page to obscurity, and then I’m out of business. I can’t take the risk of losing a single customer right now. Cutting the ad spend will be the last thing I do.

  —

  WHILE I’M STARING at my screen, I think of a way to show what might have changed in the campaign over the past two months. With our wide-format printer, I print out screen shots showing the performance of all fifty-five ad groups on one piece of paper. Finally, I’ve found a way to see all the numbers at once. I print the six-month period from August 1, 2011, to February 29, 2012, when the AdWords campaign worked well, and the report from March 1 to June 20, when it’s been failing. I tack them up on the wall outside my office. Each report is two feet wide and more than four feet long, and shows my fifty-five ad groups, each with fourteen associated data points. I start marking up the printouts, dividing one data point into another, and then comparing that to the same calculation from the earlier time period. Nothing jumps out at me. Finally, alone in the office at six p.m., I give up and go home.

  Early the next morning, when I look again at the printouts, only two facts seem important: the Boardroom Table ad group, which was producing the most e-mails, has dropped off, and the Modular Tables group has had a big bump in traffic, but produces very few e-mails. Overall, more people see our ads, but the number of people who call has gone down. That fact isn’t on these pages, but I have other records that document the decline. Is there something going on that isn’t in any of my records?

  When Dan and Nick arrive, I give them a brief summary of the numbers and argue that it makes no sense that more views should lead to fewer calls. Have they seen anything happening in the past three months? Dan says, “It seems like a lot of the calls lately have just been crap. A lot of people from schools and local government offices who don’t have any money to spend. And I end up with some secretary who doesn’t even know what’s going on.” Nick adds, “And we aren’t getting so many calls from bosses, so it’s harder to get a quick deal done.” I’ve noticed that, too. Fewer company owners are placing an order after a twenty-minute chat.