In a story that is by now almost apocryphal, a guy by the name of Ewing Kaufman, and upon his discharge from the United States Navy following World War II, went to work for a pharmaceutical company in Kansas City.

The name of this company escapes me right now, but in those days regulations weren’t what they are today and so just about anyone could develop a compound, put it in a gelatin-type capsule, and then mark it up and sell it to hospitals, doctors, and pharmacists.

Pretty clean, pretty simple.

Well, Ewing Kaufman must have been pretty good at selling this stuff, because year in and year out, he would break his own previous year’s sales records. In fact, and by about the third record-breaking year, the management of his company decided that “something had to be done” regarding the amount of money he was earning in commissions, because dear old Ewing was now making even more money than the company President.

You savvy readers already know what happened next --- this company cut Kaufman’s territory in half. With less targets, they figured, he’d likely not break the bank. (Hey, I’m only recounting history --- I’m not saying I agree with any of this.) But when he again registered record sales commissions and they again cut his earning power, he did what any of us would do … he quit and started up his own business.

(I never cease to be amazed by corporate politics.)

Ewing had heard that calcium was really good for pregnant women, and it was the beginning of the baby-boom. So, and replete with medical evidence of the benefits of calcium supplements, he would generate orders for his pills from the medical community during the day, and then physically produce the actual supplements in his basement each night. Each morning, he helped open the post office by shipping the freshly-manufactured supplements.

Sleep, and as is the case with most entrepreneurs, became the odd man out.

This company grew and grew and ultimately became Marion Laboratories, a BILLION dollar enterprise that Kaufman ultimately sold to Merrill Dow for almost six billion dollars in 1989.

Recently, I had lunch with a local salesman. This guy is in his early 40’s, but could easily pass for thirty. He’s an ex-jock with megawatts of energy and personality. Plus, he’s driven. I’m thinking, “Which of my companies can I put this guy in charge of?”

While we’re eating, he tells me the story of how he has just set an all-time record for sales for his enterprise. We happened to meet on the last day of his fiscal year, and it was already clear that his organization’s revenues would blow past an increase of 30% from the next-best prior year.

And then he says, “And you know what just happened? I blasted by my boss because I was two minutes late for a staff meeting. I was late because I was on the phone closing business. My boss gave me grief because the big boss had to wait for me so that he could start his staff meeting.”

(He didn’t say this, but I’ll be that same big boss probably talked for the majority of that meeting.)

My man is just warming up. “What’s more, they insist that I fill out all of these forms. Forms that in no way relate to bringing in revenues. So here I am, wasting precious selling time so that I can fill out obtuse reports that I know no one in the history of our organization has ever even read!”

“Welcome to bureaucracy, my friend”, is about all I can think, “Say hello to the world of tripping over dollars to pick up nickels.”

Whitey Herzog, the great manager of the St. Louis Cardinals (among other teams) once said, “I can take a lot of (crap) from a guy who hits .350.” Whitey, unfortunately, was and is in the minority of managers, so far as I can see.

So what is it that makes otherwise rational people become virtual fools when it comes to managing sales people? Fear? Ego? Control? All of the above?

I really can’t say for certain, but what I do know is that this condition has persisted for as long as I’ve been in business, which is now north of 35 years.

Take a look at your organization. If your salespeople are doing just about anything besides what their title implies --- selling --- then I suggest that it’s time for your organization to start seriously thinking about downsizing.

Because, and frankly, that process has already begun.