In the world of sales, there are often no right answers. What would you do in this tough sales situation? Make the call below, and see instantly how your judgment compares. Final results will appear in LBM Journal. Be sure to check back next month for a fresh Tough Call.

Tough Call - Smart Enough

The two salespeople (who need it the most) refuse mandatory sales training.

In the 14 years since you first joined Smart Lumber, you continue to be impressed with the wisdom and business savvy of owner Bob Smart. Granted, many of those years—which included month after month of record-breaking housing starts—didn’t pose enormous business challenges. In fact, there were times that you swore that the ability to fog a mirror was the sole prerequisite for sales success.

Clearly, those days are over. Sales are down, new housing permits are few and far between, and employee morale is in the tank. As Bob Smart likes to say, “Anyone can succeed when times are good. It’s tough times that separate the pros from the Joes.”

As expected, your leader has a plan: He wants to use the current downtime to sharpen everyone’s skills, so that when the good times return, the people of Smart Lumber will be prepared to succeed. Everyone from forklift drivers to outside sales will undergo intensive training that would be impossible in busier times.

If Bob Smart’s goal was to energize his people, then mission accomplished. Everyone from yard workers to management is excited to learn and get better at what they do. Make that almost everyone.

Stu Know and Larry Itall are outside salespeople who have had periods of offthe- chart sales, but for the past two years, they have been consistently last and second- to-last. Stu has been with the company since long before you joined. No one really knows how old he is, but you’re pretty sure he’s nearing retirement. Larry, on the other hand, struck you as a real gogetter when he joined the company in 2003. These two spotty performers have one thing in common: They think they know all there is to know. In their view, either you can sell or you can’t—and in their minds, they’re as good as it gets and they’re digging in their heels on this new training initiative.

You saw this once before. Last year, when your lumber association brought Bill Lee in to talk about selling, you and the other top producers were in the front row. Meanwhile, Stu and Larry were as far back as they could get. (Bob Smart commented that the people who need training the most are the least open to it, and those who seem to need it the least soak up every word.)

So far, there have been no layoffs at Smart Lumber, and Bob has told the staff numerous times that he’d like to keep it that way. Unfortunately, the defiant attitude of these two salespeople toward the training initiative has drawn a line in the sand.

If you were Bob Smart, what would you do?

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