Dear Stephen,
I survived my company being acquired a couple of years ago, but after our new owner bought a bigger name in the furniture industry, I lost my field sales job this week. When we were first acquired, the message was that our brand, our people, and our relationships mattered. We believed we would remain largely intact—and for a couple of years, we did. We continued selling, supporting our dealers, and doing the work that had made our company worth buying in the first place.
Then our parent acquired a much larger, better-known competitor, and now people on our side are being let go, including me. My understanding is that more than 100 people have been affected so far, with concern that more cuts are coming, while the bigger brand’s field sales organization appears to be mostly staying in place. I understand that acquisitions create overlapping positions, especially in departments such as marketing and HR, but I’m having a harder time understanding why the field salespeople at our brand seem to be paying the price.
We have dealer relationships, A&D relationships, and customers who trust us, so does the more prestigious name on someone else’s business card suddenly make those relationships more valuable? Two people representing different manufacturers in the same territory are not necessarily bringing in the same business, yet the overlap seems to have become our problem. It feels as though we were worth keeping until our parent found something it liked better.
I remember another major merger in this industry and don’t recall the same impact on salespeople, although perhaps I simply wasn’t close enough to see it. Are people at the smaller brands being sacrificed to protect the bigger one, and how do I explain what happened in my next interview without sounding bitter? I’m still proud of the company I represented, which makes it especially hard to feel that we were so easy to let go.
Acquired, Now Unemployed
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Dear ANU,
Yes, I suspect I know which brands you mean, because we are getting calls at The Viscusi Group, and other recruiters tell me they are hearing similar concerns. The impression from those conversations is much as you describe: salespeople at one brand are losing their jobs while their counterparts at the bigger name appear to be less affected. I cannot independently confirm your number or say that one group is being dismissed specifically to protect another, but I understand why you see preferential treatment. Companies enjoy describing their brands as one big family, although apparently some family members get a better bedroom.
The brand you represent can absolutely influence how you are treated under a shared corporate owner. Management may want to invest more heavily in one business, protect a particular dealer network, or preserve the sales organization it believes offers the greatest opportunity. You may be comparing your contribution with another salesperson’s while management is comparing its plans for two brands. Those are different calculations, and the result can leave a capable person unemployed without establishing that the person who kept a job was better at selling furniture.
There is another consideration, however, and I would be remiss as a headhunter if I ignored it: I know nothing about your sales performance. In my experience, companies are generally reluctant to lose salespeople who consistently exceed goal and generate profitable business, while someone with a high base salary or substantial guaranteed compensation and disappointing results is more vulnerable when expenses come under review. Relationships matter, but they must produce business; knowing every designer in town is wonderful, although without orders it can become a very active social life on the company’s expense account.
That is not an assumption about you, and being let go does not prove someone was an underperformer. It means two things can be true: management can favor one brand while also using a reorganization to address weak performance, and both can influence the same round of decisions. Strong results usually give a salesperson a better argument for being retained, but they do not make anyone immune to a change in strategy. I would not automatically blame every departure on the acquisition, just as I would not assume everyone who lost a job deserved to lose it.
You are right that two field salespeople do not become interchangeable simply because they cover the same territory.
They may work with different dealers, influence different specifications, and generate business the other person would never have reached. Anyone who has carried a bag in this industry knows that handing someone an account list does not mean the customers on it will suddenly return that person’s calls. Management can see the salary savings immediately, while the cost of losing those relationships may take a little longer to show up.
What makes your letter especially relevant is that you had already survived an acquisition and had a couple of years of evidence that the arrangement was working. Your brand remained, your job continued, and you had reason to believe you had a future with the new owner. Then the parent bought somebody else, and your circumstances changed. The acquisition that affects
your career most may be the next one, even when your company is not the business being purchased.
For the salespeople reading this from the relative comfort of the bigger brand, I would keep one eye open while continuing to do my job. Today, management may consider your organization the one it wants to preserve, but the next purchase could bring another dealer network, another leadership team, and another set of priorities. Being the favorite is pleasant until the parent company goes shopping again, and I would not build my career around the assumption that it has finished shopping.
My advice to salespeople across these brands is to start exploring their options while they still have choices.
Get your résumé and LinkedIn profile in order, know your numbers, reconnect with industry contacts, and return a recruiter’s call when the opportunity is relevant. If another company wants to meet you, take the meeting and find out what it has to offer. Your
employer considered its options before buying another business, and you are entitled to consider yours before the next decision affects your paycheck.
You may interview and conclude that your current position is still the best opportunity available, which is a perfectly good reason to stay. What concerns me is the person who refuses every conversation because the company is large, the brand is respected, and the boss says everything is fine. None of those things guarantees what happens after the next acquisition or budget review, and the opportunity you declined to discuss may be filled by the time you need it. Keep selling and earning your commissions, but know what else is available before looking becomes urgent.
As for the other merger you remember, I would not assume fewer salespeople were affected simply because you heard less about the departures. Without comparable numbers, particularly for field sales, I cannot tell you that one integration was handled more gently than another. Your larger point stands without that comparison: brands under the same owner can receive different treatment, and employees benefiting from today’s priorities should pay attention to how quickly those priorities can change.
When you interview, explain your departure accurately and then turn the conversation toward what you can contribute.
If your position was eliminated during a reorganization, say so and follow that with the business you developed, the territory you managed, and the results you delivered. You can discuss what happened without apologizing for being unemployed or turning the interview into a complaint about your former company. The person across the table needs to understand why hiring you would be a good decision, and your accomplishments will make that case more effectively than your disappointment.
You are allowed to be hurt, especially when you cared about the company and believed the feeling was mutual. Your experience did not disappear when the job ended, and you can remain proud of your work while being unhappy about how it finished. Take that experience into your next conversation with confidence, because you do not need your former employer to reconsider its decision before you can make a good one of your own.
For everyone still employed, there is always another brand to buy, another executive with a plan, and another discussion about where the money should go. Give your employer results worth keeping, but give your own career at least as much attention as you give your sales territory. If your parent company is keeping an eye out for its next opportunity, I suggest you do the same.
Stephen
Stephen P. Viscusi is the principal of The Viscusi Group, an executive search firm specializing in the furnishings and interiors industries, and the author of the Ask Stephen column. Have a workplace, career or hiring question for Ask Stephen? Email stephen@viscusigroup.com with ASK STEPHEN in the subject line, or learn more about The Viscusi Group at www.viscusigroup.com.