Have you heard the news about LESCO? The Cleveland-based provider of turf products is going back to its old way of doing business. It must -- to survive.
LESCO announced late last week that it expected a $4 million net loss for 2006. The company’s news caused its stock price (Nasdaq) to plunge 36 percent to a 52-week low.
Last year, former LESCO CEO Michael DiMino, who resigned last fall, dissolved its direct sales force and increased its mobile Stores On Wheels units to sell turf products to superintendents. The move backfired on the company. Superintendents and the company's other customers missed the face-to-face contact that LESCO's sales people provided.
The good news is that Jeffrey Rutherford, LESCO's president and chief executive officer, is reinstituting the company's direct sales force. Rutherford says he was against the decision to ditch it in the first place.
Hopefully, LESCO's business will rebound. It will take time, however.
I guess this ordeal articulates loudly of the importance of the human being in the sales process. Chalk one up for the human touch.
-- Larry Aylward, Editor in Chief
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