Creating your destiny: a renowned sales trainer says managers often rest on their laurels. The key to growth, he says, is constant change

Pool & Spa News, July 26, 2002 by Bob Dumas

Steve Hasenmueller wants executives in the pool and spa industry to set goals, take charge and take responsibility.

"No matter what the subject matter is, it comes down to personnel development," Hasenmueller says. "You grow yourself and you will grow the people around you."

He serves as director of training for Independence, Ore.-based Marquis Spas and is founder of Performance Training Group, a sales training and professional speaking firm. He will be one of four speakers featured at the upcoming National Spa & Pool Institute's Leadership Conference slated for Aug. 14-16 in Washington, D.C.

In Hasenmueller's talk, "The Problem With Success," he warns companies that while setting goals is fine, resting on their laurels once those goals are reached can have disastrous results.

"You have to make changes willfully," he says. "But once you get there, the strong desire to change is not there anymore. Then you start to rot because you think you've already achieved [everything]. If you're not continually changing the way you do business, growing the business, then you'll go into a tailspin."

Hasenmueller has been involved in sales for the pool and spa industry since 1983. A local entrepreneur recruited him to do sales for a new pool and spa business during his senior year at Memphis State University in Tennessee. He helped make the business quite successful.

He joined Marquis in 1993 to help develop a training program for regional managers, dealers and their sales forces. Since then, according to Hasemueller, Marquis has grown at a pace three times the industry average and it has quadrupled its business over the past five years.

In 1998, he partnered with Marquis and Kevin Wright, his original employer from 1983, to launch Your Back Yard, a retail store devoted entirely to outdoor products within the leisure industry, such as patio furniture, barbecues and toys.

Your Back Yard, located in Memphis, continues to serve as the national training center for Marquis and has significantly affected how dozens of Marquis dealers do business, based on Hasenmueller's "take charge and be responsible" philosophy.

"If you are a salesman in the field or on the showroom floor, the bottom line is that you understand that it is all really up to you," he says. "You are entitled to nothing and obligated to everything. Once you understand that, then the sky's the limit."