Robert J Samples Loc: Round Rock, Texas

For more than four years, I was the district manager for a pharmaceutical company and was responsible for the sales force in the state of Louisiana. I was and still am extremely proud of my men and what they could produce.

Sometime around 1980 I got a call from my regional manager and asked me to come to Dallas
for meeting to discuss a possible new line from a different subsidiary of our corporation. When I arrived, there was also the district manager from Jackson, Mississippi in attendance. We were asked if we thought our men could take on a line of thermometers and other items that make up admit kits for hospitals.

Let me explain, the best thing that pharmaceutical salesmen can have happen is to get a new product to promote. Sometimes, because of the many regulations and rules, a new drug might
take years to reach the market. Therefore, it sometimes stretches the capabilities of even the best to continue to make sales calls with nothing new to promote.

However, while thermometers and admit kits were not our focus, it was still something new and different, and I believed it would capture the imagination of my men. So, the next step was for both the Mississippi manager and me to fly to Atlanta to learn more about the manufacture of the thermometers.

Now this company was like a second cousin, a part of the corporate structure and they were eager to have our salesmen to take a shot at selling their line of goods. As a part of the whole, in those days often hospitals would sign an annual contracts to keep them supplied with admit kits. In fact, this company’s management was so anxious for us to represent them, they offer many sales awards. The only one I remember was if a salesman hit his budget, he would be given a color T.V.

Well, my guys jumped on this with a vengeance, I don’t know whether there was little competition, the opposition was asleep at the wheel, or what. But I was getting reports of almost every guy in my district was signing up major hospitals in their territory with annual contracts
and raking in significant dollar volume per district. It has been too long ago to remember the exact amount, but the test was a raging success. In fact, I wasn’t included in the T.V. awards, but the company sent me one anyway.

About six months later we hear that this division had been spun off and sold. All we had done
was ‘salt the gold mine’ and since our efforts had been so positive, it must have made that
company much more desirable to the buyer. The opportunity was always there, it just required having a aggressive sales force to push their product line.

I don’t know just why I felt betrayed, but I did. Nothing was ever mentioned about selling, their management only presented their line and wanted our marketing muscle to see what could be accomplished. You never know what the young MBAs in the corporate headquarters are thinking, it seldom includes any concern for the men in the trenches. Just Sayin…RJS

Billycrap2 Loc: Mason county,W(BY GOD) Virginia, 🇺🇸🦅

Totally agree there RJS it a common way of the corporation downside and throw you out to the sidewalk ☹️☹️

nutz4fish Loc: Colchester, CT

But in the process, there are lots of happy investors. Is this a good or a bad thing? Who knows , but it's the way our system functions, and one way or another, that money filters its way back to a new group of our domestic workers, provided the new jobs are not performed offshore. Even the very wealthy are ultimately consumers, just not for the same products and services as the middle and "lower" classes. Just thinkin'.

plumbob Loc: New Windsor Maryland

" I don’t know just why I felt betrayed,"

As a tech in the electronics profession that was nearly a daily feeling when the results would filter back from the application of a product was used.

An engineer worth his weight would share the recognition with the one that got the product working was a rare breed. Day in and day out techs know what will work and what doesn't after working with or for multiple engineers. The tech doesn't always have that piece of paper that says he put in 4 years of book smarts. Just many years of experience which is only profitable if overtime pay is accounted for.

But yet we move on knowing what we did mattered and it isn't always about the recognition.

FixorFish Loc: SW Oregon

Read your post.....3 times, RJ.....looked for the "backstabbing", can't say that from what facts you laid out, I saw any.

Not sure if I just don't comprehend YOUR concept of the act, or what "slight" offended you.
(didn't consult you before selling division ?)
You are salesmen. Your higher-ups offered you (your staff) an additional product to promote, you did so, had success and were rewarded. The division was then off-loaded, as corporations tend to do, the corporation moved to the next hurdle, & all the while, your team still had its original mission.
Your time spent learning about the manufacture of a component (thermometers) in the additional product, may have given you a sense of "investment", but it hardly gave you more than "guide status", certainly not ownership nor power to make corporate decisions.

Interesting anecdote, but unless you've left something out, I'm afraid I only see "business as usual in the corporate world"..... it's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and juggling assets is simply a survival technique, not the malfeasance you characterize as backstabbing.

But hey, reminiscing about events that shaped your life, and choices made by others that directed the path, is always a good way to analyze how you got to where you are today. Introspection is how we qualify & quantify our existence, right ?

Keep 'em coming, RJS....we can always count on you to offer a perspective that is unknown to a majority of us, thanks.

Robert J Samples Loc: Round Rock, Texas

FixorFish: I guess I wasn't clear. When we had the meeting in Atlanta with the top managers of the thermometer company the idea they presented was to grow big enough to allow all our 60 different districts to carry this as a line, including the pharmaceuticals. We already had a side line of reagents and lab products, so it wasn't the first time our guys had products that weren't exactly pharmaceuticals. Both the Jackson D.M. and I felt like we had been engaged in a 'bait and switch'! Yes they had every right to sell the company, I just resent the slight of hand and the misrepresentation that occurred. Just Sayin...RJS

FixorFish Loc: SW Oregon

I see. You were of the impression that you were just the alpha stage, expecting the beta phase to spread throughout.
Quite possibly there were extenuating circumstances that you, at your level, were not privy to know..... happens all the time in the corporate world's management levels.
Sounds somewhat likely that you were tasked with boosting the division's worth through its diversity-capable visibility..... just didn't make YOU aware of the strategy.
Feeling misled, maybe even duped, never feels good... ever. Unfortunately, the takeaway from this is kind of a sad/sketchy..... & not always a positive-progression....lesson. The kind that, again, unfortunately, tends to make us unnecessarily wary, next time you are offered a way to increase your team's compensation and the corporation's bottom-line.....bait and switch , sleight of hand, manipulation.....tricks of the trade taught in business management courses at every university, honed to an art by some, once applied out in the real world.
Incidents such as yours, are the very reasoning behind why my ex-wife and I abandoned "the fast lane to success" in KC at age 30, and moved to Oregon to pursue a less stressful life through our art. Not to mention raising a child in a community that was into sharing, rather than defending and staving off any usurpers of your "territories". Don't have a fine pension or even a 401K, to rely on in my retirement, but I'm comfortable enough for wants and needs......and WAAAY healthier (mentally AND physically) than I would have been, had I stayed and aimed for "the top of the ladder status".
Zero regrets.

And the incident inspired you to post this thread, giving others a "cautionary tale" to take with them that, while not meant as a testimony of "corporations are jerks, too"..... can be helpful in instilling the CORRECT amount of wariness, a good thing... thanks.

Robert J Samples Loc: Round Rock, Texas

FixorFish: You were probably correct in your first take.

The way I was raised, I hate deviousness, shell games, and such. That deal was anything but straight up and honest in its purpose. I suspected there was a game being played all along. We were just pawns. Just Sayin...RJS