Close the Doors on the Sales Prevention Department

A lot of companies have a more active Sales Prevention Department than do a sales operation-overrun with sales killing policies, rules, laws, forms. Often this happens if the lawyers and bean-counters gain excess power back at the home office. I do not envy those of you working for worst of these. I was able to circumvent the home office and invent my own streamlined, simplified sales process. maybe you can too. But if you mus try dragging the powers-that-be above you out of the sales prevention mode, here's a story that may help you sell your ideas. Feel free to use it as your own.

In our neighborhood, there is mom and pop coffee shop near my home. There on the counter next to the cash register sit three different receptacles for charitable donations of coins-one for Kiwanis, one for some organization for blind, one for disabled veterans. One morning, as I  dropped my change into one of the receptacles, it registered with me that I always plunked my change into the same one. Why? I stood there for a few minutes, pondering my own behavior.
Then it hit me. The reason I always put my change into the disabled veterans jar was;

• Not because I had any preference for that charity over the others.
• Not because of any reasoned decision to support it instead of the others.
• Not because of the graphic design or appearance of the different containers.
• Not because of any sales copy on the containers.
• Not because of their arrangement on the counter.
• Not because for any thoughtful or logical or admirable reason.

The reason, and the only reason, I put all my change into only one of these charity jars, each and every time, is because the hole in the top of my favored jar is bigger than the holes in the lids on the other two jars.