Pot-belly and Sales

Since last one month I am a worried man. The cause of worry is simple. My waistline is increasingly showing an inclination to break the 32" benchmark. Though I am in sales management, these days my work keeps me full time in office. There is hardly any market visits. So my cozy chair provides good fuel to inflate my tummy. Earlier, market visits used to keep me on my toes for 10 hours a day and that was good enough of physical exercise to keep me fit. Being a market oriented manager at heart, I often feel guilt pangs on seeing the growing bulge on my tummy. Sales managers and pot-bellies don't make great bed fellows. A genuine cause of worry.

But a few days back there seemed to be some relief on this front. A recent sales conference saw the confluence of sales team from all the corners of India. And to my utter surprise I noticed that I was not the only sales guy who was on verge of developing a pot-belly. Out of curiosity I just counted the number of sales guys who had moderate to severe bulge on their stomach. To my astonishment approximately 30% qualified. This startling revelation has ensured that I don't feel too guilty on biting one more cube of Milk Cake.

Jokes apart, I am wondering what the future of an organization holds which is plagued with obesity of its key resource - the sales team? Sales team of any organization is the face of the organization. It is the sales team that interacts with customers and trade on a day-to-day basis. They act as the catalyst which shapes up an organization's image in the minds of customers and trade members. Is it hard to guess what the impression of a company or its products will be if majority of the sales team is obese? Nothing is truer in sales than the cliché "First impression is the last impression". And obese sales people don't make a good first impression despite all the charm and talent they might have.

Secondly, obesity directly affects individual productivity, effectiveness and efficiency. This is especially true in a physically demanding and stressful profession like sales. It is very likely that obese sales people might not be giving a company what it deserves in terms of sales growth.

So isn't it the right time for organizations to build awareness among its human resources to shed those extra pounds. So many systems and policies are made everyday in organizations. Business leaders are always busy removing organizational obesity. Shouldn't they focus on removing obesity of their people as well?

Or will they move into action only after some management guru writes a fancy book on "Correlation between organizational growth and obesity of its human resources"?