Business is about the numbers but character is about success. And success is all about how you get to those numbers, right or wrong.
Today, I am going to show you that while numbers are necessary for running a sales organization, or any organization for that matter, including our family budget and personal lives-the lack of good character in achieving those numbers is false success. It also leads to a heartless soul organizationally and personally speaking through wrongly, ill-gained profit. On the other hand, godly character leads to God-dependent success. That success must be coupled with our obedience to work hard, smart and ethically-moral.
I was in outside sales for many years and can attest to the fact that marketplace success is based on numbers. In sales, success is measured and driven by the NUMBER of cold calls, appointments, presentations and closed deals. In the end, the value of a sales-person is based on how much money a salesperson bring as defined by closed sales at the end of each month.
To be blunt, compensating people on performance is the best way to reward sales people, but selling based on one’s character is the right and best model. If a person is honest, hard working, driven, fair, thinks of the other person first, that salesperson will in most cases perform more highly than if strictly driven by numbers. To be fair, there are many lazy and dishonest sales people (and people in general) in the marketplace and world in general. Laziness is slothfulness, and that goes back to character. If doing business and closing sales with a foundation of good character sounds like a pipe dream, it’s not. It’s the way that Americans business used operate and in some cases, still is. While character driven business has never been perfectly executed in America or in any culture, it was executed with a high level of success up until the 1990’s.
When a company judges a person strictly by their sales numbers, they create an environment based on a lack of character and a lack of moral values. More specifically, a lack of Christian values which used to be the values of the United States in particular. It’s important to understand that nothing acts or operates in a vacuum. If Christian values such as “do not steal, murder, lie, honor other people as you would want to be honored”, etc. are no longer the cultural foundation of business ethics, what is? The two main choices are as follows: ATHEISM: (Communism or Socialism-every man and woman for him or herself with the government running the economy). Or ISLAM: (which is communism under a theocracy). These two worldviews have already taken over much of the world’s economic philosophies, but Christian values based on character still exist and can make a come back! Indonesia has the highest number of Muslims in the world of any country. They never sent a missionary or religious people to accomplish that. They sent business people to start businesses.
GOALS:
Sales is not for everybody, but everybody sells and should have goals. We should all have goals, including stay at home moms, teenagers, the president of companies and the president and leaders of countries, as well as sales managers, sales people and sales teams. But one’s value system ought never be attached to a number, and one’s character ought never be judged by their numerical success. I agree that if your numbers aren’t met after a specific time, perhaps that person ought to look for another job-probably outside of sales. This goes back to character and ego. I
In our next episode, I am going to tie this into the Bible through 2 Samuel whereby we read about David’s taking a CENSUS in numbering of the people, which was usually done for the purposes of taxation or military draft. David’s sin was in putting his faith in NUMBERS rather than in God. This is the danger of measuring success strictly by numbers without biblical character. To be fair, numbers are necessary in living out our lives, including how organizations run their sales organization. With that in mind, God is today with out us today as He was with king David in 2 Samuel that there are occasions whereby we are not to use numbers. In David’s case, he was not to measure the numbers of citizens due to the fact that it would puff up David’s ego and give him a false sense of his own worth, power and success as opposed to depending on God and giving him the glory, honor and credit. This will be the subject of part two!
CONCLUSION:
In the end, building a business and a successful sales team must be by numbers. That being said, they must also be driven by character and personal development and understanding, based on biblical character. The final determiner of true success in God’s eyes boils down to how the person, manager or organization gets to those numbers. While numbers are necessary for running an organization, our family budgets and personal lives, the lack of good character in achieving those numbers leads only to a heartless organization and wrongly driven profits. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In our next episode we are going to look at what happens through the biblical story of king David’s ordering of a numerical census for personal ego and trying to achieve numbers apart from God.
