Barack Obama & John McCain - Who's the Better Sales Manager?

A Blogger on BNET wanted to know who the better Sales Manager is – Barack Obama or John McCain. He thinks McCain would be a fine Sales Manager because the man has family connections in the form of a father and a grandfather who were four-star admirals. And also because he is “flush with connections in the beer industry” which means he “has some strings to pull when something needs to get done.”

His second point is that McCain is nowhere near being bright. He “graduated 894th in a class of 899 at the Navel Academy, thinks Iraq and Afghanistan share a border, thinks Al Qaeda is a Shiite organization, and doesn’t know how many houses he owns. And that’s fine with me. The last thing I want is a Sales Manager who is smarter than I am and thinks he knows my job better than I do.”

The third point is that McCain “knows when to kiss up.” McCain, in his 2000 campaigned, had an opponent who defeated him by applying racial slurs. But a few years later McCain “was hugging the man who laid the low blows. I want a Sales Manager who doesn’t hold a grudge and will kiss major tuchus (even Marketing tuchus) when it’s for the good of the team.”

Fourth, playing ball is McCain’s turf. Why? “In 1989, the Senate Ethics committee criticized McCain for exercising 'poor judgment' in regard to the Savings and Loan scandal, which ended up costing taxpayers around $125 billion dollars. That sounds like a bad thing, but I want a Sales Manager who’s not afraid to make sure the home team gets paid.”

The fifth point awards him the medal of being utterly ruthless. “He dropped his wheelchair-bound first wife for a hot, young, rich blond who could help his political career. Personally, I think his decision was a bit harsh, but… truth to tell, I want a Sales Manager who’s not afraid to give a non-performer the boot as soon as someone better comes along.”


Barack Obama on the other hand would be a lousy Sales Manager because:

He’s a wordy chap. If you ask him a question in a debate you’re going to “get a long and thoughtful answer. That would be boring during a sales meeting and deadly during a customer call.” The Blogger has “the feeling that making a sales call with Obama might end up being a “death by powerpoint” moment.”

Obama also “thinks in nuances” and clients dislike “complicated solutions to complex problems. They want simple solutions to complex problems. When you pin Obama down on specific issues, you get a complicated answer, free of jingoism. He’s more like an engineer or economist than a sales professional.”

“When he speaks, he speechifies” is Obama’s next unsuitability as a Sales Manager "Obama’s stump speech sounds like it ought to be on a (sic) office poster with a (sic) eagle and a sunset in the background. I don’t want a Sales Manager to inspire me; I want one who’ll get the job done.”

Obama is also “way too charismatic” because: “Getting massive crowds of people excited may be fine on the campaign trail, but I don’t want a Sales Manager who is a hundred times more charismatic than I am. I want the client to see me as the superhero and my Sales Manager as my sidekick, not the other way round.”

Barack Obama doesn’t close soon enough. “The democratic primary season dragged on and on and on. I kept expecting Obama to close the deal, but there was Hillary, popping up her pantsuit, every time he was on the edge of winning. If a Sales Manager comes on a sales call to help me close, I want somebody who can close that deal, and fast.”

The Blogger would rather have McCain than Obama at the sales manager’s desk. While not knowing which one of the two would be the better president, he concludes that George W Bush ”would have made an excellent Sales Manager.”