Selling our product is a cake walk for anyone with half a brain

Feedback and Cipralex

Comrade Carl Marks , our chief nerd, came into my office this afternoon. He was listening to the clip "Beat me with your Rhythm Stick on his mobile phone speaker. The Comrade sat down on the floor with his legs crossed and blurted out, "I want to give you some feedback, Gloria".

Feedback is a great tool, and as a matter of fact I am pretty hooked on positive re-enforcement, from an HR perspective. But the Comrade did not have HR in mind.

"Gloria, our Sales team are a bunch of losers. They can't sell cold lemonade on a hot beach. You may ask why this is the case , Gloria, and I"ll tell you why. 
Btw, my reasoning  has nothing to do with the fact that I wash down my daily dose of 20 mg Cipralex with brandy! 

Sales people need to be forward looking. Sales people need to focus on explaining to clients what they need, and not cater to their whims or user experience. Kibinimat Gloria, Sales need to sell, not invent excuses about product shortcomings".

Comrade Carl then looked at the picture of my Dad, Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom, hanging on the wall. "You don't look like him at all Gloria. Are you sure he was your father?"

Then Carl continued. "In the end Gloria, either you recruit some competent sales people, or I will suggest you take over as Head of Sales. You can move mountains, Gloria. Selling our product is a cake walk for anyone with half a brain."

Part of my personal road map includes travelling to exotic lands like Denmark, Chad and Ireland, mastering German, and enhancing my salary. Sales, however, interests me as much as rereading Herta Muller's book The Land of Green Plums. 

In order to build a lobby to counter Comrade Carl's intentions, I walked into our German CFO's office. Herr Krebs was having kaffee und kuchen and reading about Trump's view of crime in Germany. I undated the eccentric Herr Krebs who said "zis is a wery intarezting dewelopment, Fraulien Gloria".