1960s WORK
0175 Cussons Sales Force
As in most companies, sales-force management at Cussons was much more traditional than marketing management. But by then it had developed two sides. Thus the business from the multiples was developing in such a way that it now justified a large account manager -- who was rather more forward thinking -- as well as the manager of the general sales-force: selling to ordinary outlets and in particular wholesalers. The latter was a much more of a traditional sales manager, and you could easily imagine him out on the golf course with his banker friends.
The retail and wholesale sales-force was very much like the ones I had experienced previously at Gallahers; with salesmen and merchandisers. I caused chaos, and alienated the sales manager, by going out with the team of merchandisers who were selling out of a wholesaler -- in order to get wider distribution. I discovered that they were also being paid by the wholesaler. This caused a massive investigation, and the whole sales team was fired!
We had an annual presentation to the sales force, and this too was quite traditional. In particular, sales management used a little local printer and designer to build the set. It was in the days when people used local suppliers for everything. I still remember the resulting set-up. It was quite oddball, with roller blinds used to provide the background for each presenter. It was crude, but even so was effective -- in that it was all the sales-force had ever been exposed to.
The presentation itself was done, as usual, on slides. I wasn't particularly nervous, since I had done a number of presentations before; but of course my style was nothing compared with that which I was taught IBM later. Having said all that, I was conscious that there was a degree of apprehension, almost excitement, in the audience as I stepped up to the podium. Everything went well, but I was told afterwards that the precedents had not been good. Two years before one of my predecessors had, to enliven the presentation, slipped in a slide of semi-naked girl. When this got a good response he had departed for the script and got much more specific. Eventually Marjorie Goodwin, the president, had signalled her senior managers and they had bodily carried him off the stage! The year before, my immediate predecessor had understandably been even more nervous and had fortified himself with several drinks. The net result was that, whilst indicating something on the screen ,with a long pointer, he had stepped backwards and fallen off the stage into the arms of the audience. Accordingly, my audience were expecting a similar cabaret to be provided by myself. Fortunately I did not provide this.
As I have said, the other side of the sales-force was a recent development. This was the large account management. There were relatively few salesmen in this, but they were much more high-powered. Typically they had only one account each. This reflected the rapidly increasing importance of the large multiples and in particular the supermarket chains. I well remember going out with one of the account executives to visit Tesco, to see one of the buyers. As we were going along the corridor to the buyer's office, we were rather late and were rushing to get there. I was astounded when our account executive stopped and talked to someone who I took to be a cleaner; since he was small and dishevelled and didn't look at all impressive. When I asked the salesmen why we had stopped, as were rushing even faster on our way to the buyer, he explained to me that it was in fact was Jack Cohen; the owner of Tesco!
The highlight of the year, with these accounts, was the annual presentation. This was conducted by the sales managers but also -- most importantly -- by myself and the other marketing manager. We finished the evening with a very good dinner, in which we were interspersed with their staff and essentially carried on our sales pitch. Before that, though, we made our presentations. Mine, again, was on slides and was quite extensive -- though the professionally produced slides did an excellent job of simplifying all the concepts. I carefully had two projectors, Kodak carousel projectors which professionals used that time, in case one failed. As I was in full flood at the front, the light dimmed and I realised that one of projectors had failed. I thanked my lucky stars that I still had the second. I carried a extemporising, without the slides, expecting the other projector to take over almost immediately. To my horror nothing happened, the other one had failed as well. Fortunately I had produced copies of all slides, and the participants each had a copy of these. Accordingly I switched to these and said “...would you please turn your page...” and carried on using the copies they had their hands. Afterwards my boss said to me “...it went very well, congratulations. But I do think it will be better if you actually use a slide projector more in the second half!” He hadn't even realised that we nearly had had a disaster on our hands.
All these presentations were to the boards of the supermarkets and other multiples. You could look around a room and recognise that they were directors of large public companies. The one exception, the fascinating exception, was Tesco. If you looked around the room with their board that time and asked what was the common factor between them, you might have said that they were the members of some pigeon fanciers’ club. These were people who had come up with Jack Cohen himself. He had promoted the people who had been with him over the years. Many experts would look askance at such a group of management and tell you that they couldn't possibly manage something as large as Tesco -- which was then the leader in the supermarket field. Indeed McKinsey did just that later and, as a result, they had several years of poor results. The reality, though, was that these had been incredibly successful managers -- and it graphically demonstrated (to me at least) that management skills are not necessarily those that business schools teach.
I was sitting with Daisy Hyams, who was managing director at that time. Daisy had been Jack's secretary, but now she was running the whole operation. In the absence of Jack, who had another engagement, I spent a lot of time making a sales pitch to Daisy. I suddenly got worried that I shouldn't be talking about business, it was a dinner after all. So I apologised. In reply she told me a story. The previous week Jack (Cohen) and she were entertained in a similar way by one of the leading soap manufacturers. After the presentation, which was very short, they put on the superb dinner -- even having cabaret. As Daisy went home in the taxi with Jack she realised he was almost shaking with anger; so she asked him what was wrong. “How dare they!” said Jack “How dare they waste a whole evening of my time. They didn't talk business once over the dinner, and never even mentioned the business we are doing together. Do they think that I can give them several hours of my time to entertain them to a dinner!” Thus, Jack taught me the basic rule, which I remembered over the years, that the relationship with customers is about business and not social niceties!
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