Chapter 22: A Mistake in the Numbers

On the third business day of every month, DDS Systems Consulting held their executive review meeting (ERM). It was a high profile, high pressure meeting where branch office executives presented the month’s activities to the Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. At the top of the ERM agenda were the sales result and sales outlook by branch office – the part of the meeting that sent even the most audacious and successful sales executives into distress.

Branch offices all had similar structures: heading up each of the eight offices was a branch vice president who was in charge of sales and service for a defined region of the country. Reporting directly to the branch vice president were the sales executives and an office manager. Each sales executive had a team of customer service consultants (CSCs) reporting to him or her. While the sales executive dealt with decision makers at client companies, her CSC staff dealt with counterparts at the operational or working level. The CSCs were responsible for ensuring that DDS products were being used properly, along with trouble-shooting any problems clients might be experiencing. CSCs also put together most of the internal reports at DDS such as sales figures, forecasting, and risk analyses. The company believed in promoting from within and a typical career path was to be hired into DDS as a junior CSC. Service consultants were then ranked during annual branch reviews and the best of them were eventually given the chance to become sales executives.