October 27; What Did the Boss Tell You To Do?
What Is The Rate of Return?
MANAGEMENT BY THE BOOK:
365 Daily Bible Verse &
One-Minute Management Lessons For The Busy Faithful

Chapter Ten: Deciding 27 October

Then he said to the man,

“Stretch out your hand.”

So he stretched it out

and it was completely restored,

just as sound as the other.

Matthew 12:13

Priority

Bobby took the paper with the name and address and threw it out the window. “Don’t bother trying to sell to those people,” he said. “That’s in [N–] town—there’s no money there.” Bobby was my sales trainer who was often at odds with our manager.

Your (very young) Business Professor had a problem. Our boss had a simple sales priority-echoing actor Woody Allen. My manager said to, “just show up and give the pitch to whomever would listen—anyone can be a customer or a referral.”

But Bobby, my mentor-counselor, trashed my lead mumbling something about recent studies on eligible market segmentation and time management theories.

So whom do I listen to? My boss or my mentor?

***

Your Business Professor is often invited to speak on “new” methods of teaching managers how and what to manage. Ethics! Logic! Emotion!

Is everything new an improvement?

“The Renaissance mind,” says Bible scholar Randy Yeager, “sees the need for faith, reason and experience in proper balance. “ (Randolph O. Yeager 1983) And this will help produce a firm foundation; good beginning. However, business Professor Peter Drucker adds,

The best plan is only a plan, that is, good intentions, unless it degenerates into work. The distinction that marks a plan capable of producing results is the commitment of key people to work on specific tasks.

The test of a plan is whether management actually commits resources to action which will bring results in the future. Unless such commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes, but no plan. (Drucker 1973)

So what, then, is the work, the plan of any business?

Peter Drucker goes on to say that, “Because it is its purpose to create a customer, any business enterprise has two—and only these two—basic functions: marketing and innovation. They are the entrepreneurial functions.” (Drucker 1954)

So: I was a sales guy whose job was to create a customer.

The answer was simple: My boss gave me the direction and I should go to work.

Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. Matthew 12:13. Jesus could have cured in any way He wanted. But He issued a simple command, “Stretch out your hand,” and the man faithfully obeyed first and then was completely healed.

***

The address on the paper was gone out the car window but our office secretary had the original. I didn’t know what to do. So in the absence of knowing I was reduced to doing what the boss said to do and to ignore what my mentor said. I got the address.

So without telling my sales trainer, I visited the young couple. The Baker’s had a well-appointed apartment and they purchased my company’s offering. They were well-qualified buyers.

We talked a bit about cars and repairs and mechanics. We were fellow gear-heads, which, as is well known, transcends any racial divide.

Mr. Baker was the sole proprietor of Baker’s Service Center. My boss was right; my mentor not so much.

When in doubt, follow your manager’s direction. Do the behavior and the numbers will follow.

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