Although you are responsible for your employees’ output, productivity, and results, you are responsible to people and not for them.
The mistake of being responsible for people is like having sympathy for them. You feel that if they fail, you have failed. Sympathy keeps people dependant. Being responsible to people requires empathy: You understand what they are going through, but it is their stuff, not yours. You are there to help them, support them, and give them the tools and training they need to be effective. But if they fail to perform, it is clearly their choice. Now, if you haven’t done your part, then you should feel responsible for them.
How can managers be responsible for their employees rather than to them?
1.Make no excuses for poor employee performance.
2.Apply empathy when employees have personal issues that may get in the way of their
effectiveness.
3.Permit no negative attitudes from top performers.
4.Permit no employees to break the rules that others must follow.
5.Play no favorites with certain likeable employees.
Personal responsibility is an absolute requirement if people are to succeed and contribute their share to the overall success of your department or organization. Tolerating less than the acceptable standards from certain employees, for whatever reason, sends a message to other employees that the rules and expectations vary, depending on who you are, your age, gender, race, experience, personal challenges, tenure, performance, or relationship with the manager.
Everything you do as a manager sends subtle signals to everyone. Be vigilant to ensure that the signals you are sending are uniform and consistent. Sure, there may be situations when exceptions can and should be made, due to personal issues or challenges. Just be careful that these don’t set precedents that you are unwilling to apply organization-wide.
Do you treat all employees the same yet differently?
This topic, at first glance, might seem to contradict the previous one we just discussed. But if you will carefully observe, you will see some very subtle differences.
Every employee has special needs and desires that are uniquely theirs. They have dreams and hopes and the desire to feel valuable. Some may express them openly, while others may keep them hidden in the safety zone of their own minds. Or they may communicate them to their peers rather than to the higher-ups. But each employee is uniquely individual.
Treating employees without regard for these personal needs sends a clear message that they are not special, but just another employee, a cog in the machine. If you want the labor of a person’s heart and not just their hands or mind, it is critical that you treat people with respect. This would seem to be a simple task, but you would be amazed at how frequently managers show disrespect for their employees in subtle as well as blatant ways. For example:
· Disciplining an employee in front of their peers
· Interrupting them while they are sharing an idea or solution to a problem
· Being late for a meeting with an employee
· Not copying them in correspondence or emails that impact their position
· Ignoring their suggestions
· Not listening to them
It is impossible to know every employee’s needs and desires from moment to moment. But you can learn to see every employee as special and unique in their own way. This takes time, willingness, letting go of prejudices and judgments, and learning to see each and every employee as a valuable contributor to the organization’s success, well-being, and future growth – and to invest in them accordingly.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
On the Job Training: How to say "Keep up the Good Work!"
Don’t wait until the holidays or retirement offers you the occasion, take the time to recognize your employees’ diligent work ethic today! Whether you’re a corporate CEO or a small business entrepreneur with a staff of three, showing day to day employee appreciation will be worth your time and effort: such recognition serves to reinforce employee accountability as well as enhance work-place motivation overall. Here are some surefire methods for both showing your employees that you appreciate their hard work and improving work-place motivation:
1) Recognize your Employees with Fruit or Wine Baskets
Giving industrious employees gift baskets sends them the message that you recognize and appreciate their hard work. Due to the great variety of gift baskets available online, gift baskets are also a very convenient and time-efficient way of showing your appreciation. Some generous employers arrange for the regular delivery of fresh fruit baskets to the work place or their employees’ homes. In addition, a wine and cheese basket is a wonderful way to say to your staff, “job well done!”
2) Offer Health Club Memberships to Your Employees
A productive work place is dependent upon happy, healthy employees. Daily exercise not only provides great stress release, but also boosts the immune system. In providing your employees with health club memberships, you will not only be increasing their on the job satisfaction and productivity, but also reducing the number of employee sick days your business must pay for each month.
3) Create an “Employee of the Month” Program
The best way to develop an Employee of the Month program is to ask all levels of staff to work together to choose the monthly awardee. This important measure will prevent the Employee of the Month Club from becoming a way of selecting “favorites” and will keep it from becoming a point of ridicule by employees. In fact, Employee of the Month selection can be a valuable collaborative exercise for your employees as they work together to select the most worthy recipient; it will also add an element of social pressure for high work performance. Employees are often eager to recognize colleagues who are sincerely doing their part to make the work place run efficiently and productively, and such recognition will be a source of reinforcement and motivation for the recipient and others. You might produce a certificate to present to the awardee and also display the employee’s name, photo, and a brief bio in a prominent place in the workplace.
1) Recognize your Employees with Fruit or Wine Baskets
Giving industrious employees gift baskets sends them the message that you recognize and appreciate their hard work. Due to the great variety of gift baskets available online, gift baskets are also a very convenient and time-efficient way of showing your appreciation. Some generous employers arrange for the regular delivery of fresh fruit baskets to the work place or their employees’ homes. In addition, a wine and cheese basket is a wonderful way to say to your staff, “job well done!”
2) Offer Health Club Memberships to Your Employees
A productive work place is dependent upon happy, healthy employees. Daily exercise not only provides great stress release, but also boosts the immune system. In providing your employees with health club memberships, you will not only be increasing their on the job satisfaction and productivity, but also reducing the number of employee sick days your business must pay for each month.
3) Create an “Employee of the Month” Program
The best way to develop an Employee of the Month program is to ask all levels of staff to work together to choose the monthly awardee. This important measure will prevent the Employee of the Month Club from becoming a way of selecting “favorites” and will keep it from becoming a point of ridicule by employees. In fact, Employee of the Month selection can be a valuable collaborative exercise for your employees as they work together to select the most worthy recipient; it will also add an element of social pressure for high work performance. Employees are often eager to recognize colleagues who are sincerely doing their part to make the work place run efficiently and productively, and such recognition will be a source of reinforcement and motivation for the recipient and others. You might produce a certificate to present to the awardee and also display the employee’s name, photo, and a brief bio in a prominent place in the workplace.
Reaching Star Status in Sales
Being number one on your sales team just isn’t that difficult. Salesmanship is a learned skill. You can perfect that skill. Yes, it does help to have an outgoing personality, high self-esteem and an ego. But, these attributes alone won’t make you successful. Confidence in yourself, confidence in your products and confidence in your company is a key ingredient. The only way to gain this kind of ultimate confidence is by attaining knowledge. Study your products, understand your value propositions and understand what your competitive advantage is.
Value Propositions
Don’t blow this concept off as some sales training jargon. Value propositions are extremely important. You have one, your company has one and your products have them. What is it about you that creates value for your customer? What is it about your company that creates value for your customer? What is it about your product that creates value for your customer? It’s not features and benefits.
“Perceived Value drives customer expectations” “Performance value drives customer satisfaction”
Understanding is the Key
Understand yourself first. Determine your strengths. Recognize your weaknesses. Make a vow to work on improving those areas where you are weak. To excel at anything you must have confidence and confidence comes from experience and knowledge. Recognizing your weakness puts you in a position of strength because you become familiar with your limitations and what you need to do to overcome them. Personal understanding is critical to understanding your customers. And, if you don’t understand your customers it is extremely difficult to discover their pain.
Be Honest with Yourself
The road to success in sales requires a kind of personal honesty that not everyone is capable of exercising. That specifically is why we all can’t be superstars. Part of becoming a superstar in sales is understanding people so well that building relationship equity is almost automatic. A skill that becomes inherent to your personification. This can’t happen unless you understand yourself first. People grow and change, you grow and change so this concept of knowing yourself and really knowing your customers is a living changing thing that you must always be conscious of. The more your customers change, the more you must change and adjust. This requires a certain amount of intuitive judgment and a perspective on helping the customer solve their problems to such an extent that you can see the forest in spite of the trees.
You Can Change Yourself but You Can’t Change Your Customer
Selling is all about understanding your customers. Accepting your customers as they are while understanding their specific wants, needs and desires for what they are and not what you would like them to be. This puts you in a position of strength in building a personal relationship with the customer. Don’t succumb to the common trait called impatience if your customer has trouble identifying his real pain. Often times it is up to you to help him discover that pain and in turn recognize the value you and your company provide by eliminating that pain.
Sales is a Profession to be Proud Of
Learning your product, making a clear presentation to qualified prospects, and closing more sales will take a lot less time once you know your own capabilities and failings, and understand and care about the prospects you are calling upon. You must become a total solution provider regardless of the circumstance or situation. Sometimes solving a customer’s problem will have nothing to do with your product or your company. That doesn’t matter. Solving the problem builds relationship equity and relationships are still extremely important even in this century when a relationship is required to even get into the game. Selling occurs all around us all day long. Our mere existence is predicated upon selling something all the time. That something can be anything from a product to an idea, a concept or even a philosophy.
Anybody can sell to some degree and we all do it without exception. However, to be a professional sales person that reaches star status, accepting these concepts as truths is the starting point. Accepting the concepts described in this article will enable you to understand that salesmanship is not a born trait. Agreed, there are some personality traits that may help you create success quicker but true professional sales skills are learned.
An old sales buddy of mine once said;
“You can send a gorilla out on the road and if he calls on enough people, if he doesn’t give up, sooner or later someone will pin an order to his chest and send him home.” --------Brian Williamson
Maybe you know some sales people like that. If you do rest assured they aren’t the professionals we are talking about. Sales is a profession that requires professionals. It’s a profession to be proud of. It requires persistence, tenacity, confidence and understanding. Study yourself, study people, do your homework and never forget the basics. Targeting, goal setting, action planning and follow-up never go out of fashion no matter how much of a star you become. Never forget where you came from and how you created the success you create.
Getting up out of bed in the morning; doing what has to be done to excel in sales; keeping records, updating your materials; planning the direction of further sales efforts; and all the while increasing your own knowledge – all this definitely requires personal motivation, discipline, and energy. Being a professional sales person is not easy. It demands creativity and innovative thinking.
So when you become a superstar in sales, use this list of basic reminders to help coach and mentor some of your peers so you can create the most dynamic sales team in your industry.
Sales Basics
• Meet and qualify all the accounts in your territory before you begin to focus on a few.
• Do your homework. Know your company first; the strong points, the weak points. Know who and what your internal resources are. What is your company’s sweet spot?
• Do your homework. Know your customers. What do they buy? How do they buy? Who are their five largest customers? Research your customer and their industry on the web. Become an industry expert for your customer. Meet people and cultivate relationships beyond your customers purchasing department.
• Create a call plan prior to every call. The objective can be as simple as getting an appointment with someone higher up in management to meet with your management on a subject as complex as a full-blown PowerPoint presentation designed to secure a contract.
• Keep a data record on every buyer at your major accounts. Get to know him as well as his family knows him.
• Create an itinerary for each week. Know what you are going to do. Set at least two base appointments in the morning and afternoon with major accounts. Fill in around these appointments as appropriate.
• Know your customers’ personality. People buy from people so develop a relationship with each of your customers. PIMS (Personal Information Managers) or sales programs such as TeleMagic and Goldmine have a place for this information. Use it, or put it in your spiral binder. Nothing is more important to Jennifer than her daughter’s ballet or to Bill than his golf or his son’s little league, BUT do not waste your time or theirs. Some people will reject you as a time waster if you talk about this, others will keep you on the phone for hours with trivia. Know your customer and control the conversation. Your job is to sell and move on but do it in the most productive and effective manner and only you know what that is for your customer.
• Create a territory plan. Establish goals, identify milestones, create a time line and engage all your resources including upper management.
• Create an action plan for every major account. Know your customers’ “Rules of Engagement.” What keeps them up at night? Create a strategy that involves your entire team including the President of your company if appropriate.
• Set specific goals and objectives. Write them down.
• Maintain a positive attitude. Don’t procrastinate on anything.
• Keep your promises. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
• Sell yourself first. Develop a trusted relationship, and then sell your company.
• Know your competitive advantages and your company’s core competencies.
• Think creatively. Think outside the box.
• If voicemail is blocking your contact, call someone else’s extension as if by mistake and ask them to transfer you. Voicemail has become the “gate keeper.” Call early before business hours or later after business hours.
• Listen more – speak less. Get your customer to talk about himself/herself. If your customer spends most of the time in a sales call talking about them, they can’t help but like you. Apply the 80/20 rule – listen 80% of the time.
Value Propositions
Don’t blow this concept off as some sales training jargon. Value propositions are extremely important. You have one, your company has one and your products have them. What is it about you that creates value for your customer? What is it about your company that creates value for your customer? What is it about your product that creates value for your customer? It’s not features and benefits.
“Perceived Value drives customer expectations” “Performance value drives customer satisfaction”
Understanding is the Key
Understand yourself first. Determine your strengths. Recognize your weaknesses. Make a vow to work on improving those areas where you are weak. To excel at anything you must have confidence and confidence comes from experience and knowledge. Recognizing your weakness puts you in a position of strength because you become familiar with your limitations and what you need to do to overcome them. Personal understanding is critical to understanding your customers. And, if you don’t understand your customers it is extremely difficult to discover their pain.
Be Honest with Yourself
The road to success in sales requires a kind of personal honesty that not everyone is capable of exercising. That specifically is why we all can’t be superstars. Part of becoming a superstar in sales is understanding people so well that building relationship equity is almost automatic. A skill that becomes inherent to your personification. This can’t happen unless you understand yourself first. People grow and change, you grow and change so this concept of knowing yourself and really knowing your customers is a living changing thing that you must always be conscious of. The more your customers change, the more you must change and adjust. This requires a certain amount of intuitive judgment and a perspective on helping the customer solve their problems to such an extent that you can see the forest in spite of the trees.
You Can Change Yourself but You Can’t Change Your Customer
Selling is all about understanding your customers. Accepting your customers as they are while understanding their specific wants, needs and desires for what they are and not what you would like them to be. This puts you in a position of strength in building a personal relationship with the customer. Don’t succumb to the common trait called impatience if your customer has trouble identifying his real pain. Often times it is up to you to help him discover that pain and in turn recognize the value you and your company provide by eliminating that pain.
Sales is a Profession to be Proud Of
Learning your product, making a clear presentation to qualified prospects, and closing more sales will take a lot less time once you know your own capabilities and failings, and understand and care about the prospects you are calling upon. You must become a total solution provider regardless of the circumstance or situation. Sometimes solving a customer’s problem will have nothing to do with your product or your company. That doesn’t matter. Solving the problem builds relationship equity and relationships are still extremely important even in this century when a relationship is required to even get into the game. Selling occurs all around us all day long. Our mere existence is predicated upon selling something all the time. That something can be anything from a product to an idea, a concept or even a philosophy.
Anybody can sell to some degree and we all do it without exception. However, to be a professional sales person that reaches star status, accepting these concepts as truths is the starting point. Accepting the concepts described in this article will enable you to understand that salesmanship is not a born trait. Agreed, there are some personality traits that may help you create success quicker but true professional sales skills are learned.
An old sales buddy of mine once said;
“You can send a gorilla out on the road and if he calls on enough people, if he doesn’t give up, sooner or later someone will pin an order to his chest and send him home.” --------Brian Williamson
Maybe you know some sales people like that. If you do rest assured they aren’t the professionals we are talking about. Sales is a profession that requires professionals. It’s a profession to be proud of. It requires persistence, tenacity, confidence and understanding. Study yourself, study people, do your homework and never forget the basics. Targeting, goal setting, action planning and follow-up never go out of fashion no matter how much of a star you become. Never forget where you came from and how you created the success you create.
Getting up out of bed in the morning; doing what has to be done to excel in sales; keeping records, updating your materials; planning the direction of further sales efforts; and all the while increasing your own knowledge – all this definitely requires personal motivation, discipline, and energy. Being a professional sales person is not easy. It demands creativity and innovative thinking.
So when you become a superstar in sales, use this list of basic reminders to help coach and mentor some of your peers so you can create the most dynamic sales team in your industry.
Sales Basics
• Meet and qualify all the accounts in your territory before you begin to focus on a few.
• Do your homework. Know your company first; the strong points, the weak points. Know who and what your internal resources are. What is your company’s sweet spot?
• Do your homework. Know your customers. What do they buy? How do they buy? Who are their five largest customers? Research your customer and their industry on the web. Become an industry expert for your customer. Meet people and cultivate relationships beyond your customers purchasing department.
• Create a call plan prior to every call. The objective can be as simple as getting an appointment with someone higher up in management to meet with your management on a subject as complex as a full-blown PowerPoint presentation designed to secure a contract.
• Keep a data record on every buyer at your major accounts. Get to know him as well as his family knows him.
• Create an itinerary for each week. Know what you are going to do. Set at least two base appointments in the morning and afternoon with major accounts. Fill in around these appointments as appropriate.
• Know your customers’ personality. People buy from people so develop a relationship with each of your customers. PIMS (Personal Information Managers) or sales programs such as TeleMagic and Goldmine have a place for this information. Use it, or put it in your spiral binder. Nothing is more important to Jennifer than her daughter’s ballet or to Bill than his golf or his son’s little league, BUT do not waste your time or theirs. Some people will reject you as a time waster if you talk about this, others will keep you on the phone for hours with trivia. Know your customer and control the conversation. Your job is to sell and move on but do it in the most productive and effective manner and only you know what that is for your customer.
• Create a territory plan. Establish goals, identify milestones, create a time line and engage all your resources including upper management.
• Create an action plan for every major account. Know your customers’ “Rules of Engagement.” What keeps them up at night? Create a strategy that involves your entire team including the President of your company if appropriate.
• Set specific goals and objectives. Write them down.
• Maintain a positive attitude. Don’t procrastinate on anything.
• Keep your promises. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
• Sell yourself first. Develop a trusted relationship, and then sell your company.
• Know your competitive advantages and your company’s core competencies.
• Think creatively. Think outside the box.
• If voicemail is blocking your contact, call someone else’s extension as if by mistake and ask them to transfer you. Voicemail has become the “gate keeper.” Call early before business hours or later after business hours.
• Listen more – speak less. Get your customer to talk about himself/herself. If your customer spends most of the time in a sales call talking about them, they can’t help but like you. Apply the 80/20 rule – listen 80% of the time.
Does Anyone Really Manage Sales
In my humble opinion, the term sales manager is extremely misleading yet most companies continue to use this description for one of their most important positions. Let's think for a moment how sales are actually made. Do we as sales people create the sale through our dynamic personalities and outgoing demeanor. Hardly; we make the sale through our continued activity with the client. I will go out on a limb and boldly say we never manager sales, rather we manage activity. Should you disagree with this please read on.
Nothing happens until a sale is made! The truth in this age old comment sometimes amazes those new to the filed of sales. In a prior life I would always begin a sales meeting with this statement and always begin my interviews with potential employees with the same comment.
So, if we have to manage activity and nothing happens until a sale is made, how do we accomplish both tasks in order to be successful at the science of sales? The answer is rather simple. As the "Sales Manager" one must put into place some very simple but effective methods of managing activity. Some very successful and seasoned professionals will disagree with my suggestions and that is OK. If you are satisfied with the performance of your sales team and are making as much money as you want to make then stop reading now. Otherwise read on for some proven tactics.
The plan is very simple as one activity leads to another and eventually to a sale. Regardless of the amount of money being spent on the sale, the steps to making the sale are always the same and must be orchestrated if you are to be successful. We will discuss sales training another day so let's concentrate on the activity required and how to track it properly.
As elementary as it may seem, you must require each salesperson to make a predetermined number of sales calls per day or week but this number must be specific and rigid.
Second you should set a goal each week for number of demonstrations or proposals or both. Naturally the product will determine if you need demonstrations or presentations prior to the actual proposal. A good rule of thumb is to expect 5 personal contacts before a presentation can be expected and possibly more for the proposal. This varies from industry to industry.
Third, you should determine a closing ratio for each member of the sales team. Naturally you can use one of your successful salespeople as a benchmark but each salesperson has to have their own closing ratio. This an excellent method for forecasting sales and for modifying commission plans.
Fourth, each sales person has to keep a list of their top prospects and the sales dollars forecasted for the account.
Fifth, where is the account in the process? i.e. are they ready to make a decision or are they still kicking tires?
And sixth, every salesperson should keep a record, either electronically or written regarding personal information of every person involved in the process from maintenance person to executive Vice President.
There are always more steps that may be added or perhaps you might reduce some step but the key is to keep sales people from wasting time on non-productive accounts or individuals.
We all spend money on countless items each day and in my case I like to purchase costly items from someone I know. The individual who has sold me over 100K in automobiles during the last two years realizes the value of everything listed above especially step six. He knows a lot about my and my wife because he took time to ask the questions and was rewarded with us purchasing another vehicle from him recently.
Nothing happens until a sale is made! The truth in this age old comment sometimes amazes those new to the filed of sales. In a prior life I would always begin a sales meeting with this statement and always begin my interviews with potential employees with the same comment.
So, if we have to manage activity and nothing happens until a sale is made, how do we accomplish both tasks in order to be successful at the science of sales? The answer is rather simple. As the "Sales Manager" one must put into place some very simple but effective methods of managing activity. Some very successful and seasoned professionals will disagree with my suggestions and that is OK. If you are satisfied with the performance of your sales team and are making as much money as you want to make then stop reading now. Otherwise read on for some proven tactics.
The plan is very simple as one activity leads to another and eventually to a sale. Regardless of the amount of money being spent on the sale, the steps to making the sale are always the same and must be orchestrated if you are to be successful. We will discuss sales training another day so let's concentrate on the activity required and how to track it properly.
As elementary as it may seem, you must require each salesperson to make a predetermined number of sales calls per day or week but this number must be specific and rigid.
Second you should set a goal each week for number of demonstrations or proposals or both. Naturally the product will determine if you need demonstrations or presentations prior to the actual proposal. A good rule of thumb is to expect 5 personal contacts before a presentation can be expected and possibly more for the proposal. This varies from industry to industry.
Third, you should determine a closing ratio for each member of the sales team. Naturally you can use one of your successful salespeople as a benchmark but each salesperson has to have their own closing ratio. This an excellent method for forecasting sales and for modifying commission plans.
Fourth, each sales person has to keep a list of their top prospects and the sales dollars forecasted for the account.
Fifth, where is the account in the process? i.e. are they ready to make a decision or are they still kicking tires?
And sixth, every salesperson should keep a record, either electronically or written regarding personal information of every person involved in the process from maintenance person to executive Vice President.
There are always more steps that may be added or perhaps you might reduce some step but the key is to keep sales people from wasting time on non-productive accounts or individuals.
We all spend money on countless items each day and in my case I like to purchase costly items from someone I know. The individual who has sold me over 100K in automobiles during the last two years realizes the value of everything listed above especially step six. He knows a lot about my and my wife because he took time to ask the questions and was rewarded with us purchasing another vehicle from him recently.
Friday, August 10, 2007
New Trade Globalization
Old globalization was marked by the quest of colonial powers such as France and the Netherlands for more raw materials, cheap labor and new markets, conditions that translate into an ultimate objective for more profits. Countries such as Malaya and Vietnam were transformed into markets and suppliers of people and products via combinations of military conquest and cultural subjugation. The old globalization was carried out through direct colonial rule or a government composed of compliant local elite ultimately responsible and accountable to the colonial power. After World War II a concerted effort was made to revive international trade and investment.
Liberalization of international trade and liberalization of international investment are the objectives of globalization advocates. Liberalization is considered as the answer to the marked decrease in the rate of corporate profits particularly in the US in the past two decades.
Neo-liberals have praised free trade as the way to promote the interest of small agricultural and industrial producers. Through free trade, the logic goes, these people will be able to offer their products to a wider market, increase their sales and therefore their income, and help wipe out global poverty.
Unfortunately, in real life, liberalization seems to work more for multinational corporations than small agricultural producers and workers. The problem is today’s free trade is really not free trade. There is no level playing field when their governments give subsidies to multinational corporations, enabling the latter to sell their products below cost of production in the international market, a practice aptly called dumping. It is understandable, in this context, why globalization and liberalization have become increasingly unpopular concepts and programs among the global poor.
Liberalization of international trade and liberalization of international investment are the objectives of globalization advocates. Liberalization is considered as the answer to the marked decrease in the rate of corporate profits particularly in the US in the past two decades.
Neo-liberals have praised free trade as the way to promote the interest of small agricultural and industrial producers. Through free trade, the logic goes, these people will be able to offer their products to a wider market, increase their sales and therefore their income, and help wipe out global poverty.
Unfortunately, in real life, liberalization seems to work more for multinational corporations than small agricultural producers and workers. The problem is today’s free trade is really not free trade. There is no level playing field when their governments give subsidies to multinational corporations, enabling the latter to sell their products below cost of production in the international market, a practice aptly called dumping. It is understandable, in this context, why globalization and liberalization have become increasingly unpopular concepts and programs among the global poor.
Hiring and Training of New Sales Staff
How do you train your sales personnel? Perhaps a better question would be…Do you train your sales personnel? As silly as this may sound a lot of organizations hire a salesperson and tell them to go get it. I have personally dealt with such an organization and this was considered the norm. Why? Because they have always done it this way! I suspect a lot of individuals have heard this comment from other organizations.
Past experience has shown me that the normal way a lot of small companies hire salespeople is by word of mouth or recommendation from a friend or customer. More times than not this method is flawed from the beginning. Depending upon your industry or product offering you may have experienced something like the following dialogue.
Question: “Do you know anyone you would recommend for a job”?
Answer: “Yeah, Joe has been with me forever and he needs to make more money and I cannot afford to pay him. He would be great for your job. OR
Question: I need to hire a new salesperson to call on your account and several others in this area. Do you know anyone who would be a good fit?
Answer: Why yes, my son (Daughter) is looking for a job and they know this business well. They will make a great salesperson.(Watch out for this landmine)
There are many more examples but hopefully, you get the picture. Why do we as business owners or managers spend so little time hiring the individuals who will represent us in the marketplace? Keep in mind I am not speaking of Fortune 500 organizations because companies in this arena spend a lot of money and hours interviewing and investigating. Small or medium sized businesses sometimes do not believe they have the time or money to recruit and hire properly. This is a tragic mistake.
The mistake is compounded when after hiring a warm body for the position the owner, sales manager or whoever is available may train the new employee for at least 2 days. Sometimes this training takes place in a distribution center where the new employee may be subjected to negative comments from various individuals. Perhaps if the new employee is lucky he will be placed with a marginal salesperson and told to ride around with him or her for a few days. The marginal salesperson is chosen because the top performers do not want to be bothered nor do they want to give away any “secrets.” The marginal salesperson knows all of the right language to use on a sales call and he will be everyone’s best friend. A lot of coffee may be consumed and a lot of the world’s problems may be solved but your products will not be sold and the new employee will learn quickly how to perform bad habits.
Should the new employee be astute enough to ask he or she may inquire as to sales manuals, product sheets, account information sheets etc. A typical organization will have some of these items but not all. New employees may receive all manner of explanations as to why the territory has not much available information. The employee may even be told that the lack of information and performance is the reason he was hired. He has to turn this train wreck around. Not wanting to appear timid the new salesperson will gather up as much bravado as possible and shout to the rooftops how he will be the savior for whom the company has been looking. All the while he may be thinking, what kind of mess have I gotten myself into?
The owner or sales manager most likely will sit back and wait for the rain to fall from the sky because this new salesperson told everyone he is the best thing since sliced bread and he will show the existing sales force how to make hay when the sun shines. ( Pardon the use of metaphors.) Reality will set in around the 60th day of employment when the new salesperson has done very little to earn his keep (with good reason) and the owner or manager will begin to get a little nervous. At this point the owner of my old company used to tell me to “put them on the get well program.” Translated this meant to reduce their draw from a living wage to starvation wages. This move usually achieved the desired result. The new salesperson quit and the process began anew. By the way, at this juncture the adage defining madness as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, needs to be stamped on a decision maker’s forehead.
During the recruitment and hiring phase I strongly recommend the owner and sales manager be left out of the initial interviews. This is important because the easiest person to sell is another salesperson and in the case of a lot of small companies, the owner and sales manager have usually carried most of the water with which to prime the pump of prosperity. Con artists and hucksters know exactly what buttons to push when dealing with this type of personality. More on recruiting and interviewing in the next installment.
Past experience has shown me that the normal way a lot of small companies hire salespeople is by word of mouth or recommendation from a friend or customer. More times than not this method is flawed from the beginning. Depending upon your industry or product offering you may have experienced something like the following dialogue.
Question: “Do you know anyone you would recommend for a job”?
Answer: “Yeah, Joe has been with me forever and he needs to make more money and I cannot afford to pay him. He would be great for your job. OR
Question: I need to hire a new salesperson to call on your account and several others in this area. Do you know anyone who would be a good fit?
Answer: Why yes, my son (Daughter) is looking for a job and they know this business well. They will make a great salesperson.(Watch out for this landmine)
There are many more examples but hopefully, you get the picture. Why do we as business owners or managers spend so little time hiring the individuals who will represent us in the marketplace? Keep in mind I am not speaking of Fortune 500 organizations because companies in this arena spend a lot of money and hours interviewing and investigating. Small or medium sized businesses sometimes do not believe they have the time or money to recruit and hire properly. This is a tragic mistake.
The mistake is compounded when after hiring a warm body for the position the owner, sales manager or whoever is available may train the new employee for at least 2 days. Sometimes this training takes place in a distribution center where the new employee may be subjected to negative comments from various individuals. Perhaps if the new employee is lucky he will be placed with a marginal salesperson and told to ride around with him or her for a few days. The marginal salesperson is chosen because the top performers do not want to be bothered nor do they want to give away any “secrets.” The marginal salesperson knows all of the right language to use on a sales call and he will be everyone’s best friend. A lot of coffee may be consumed and a lot of the world’s problems may be solved but your products will not be sold and the new employee will learn quickly how to perform bad habits.
Should the new employee be astute enough to ask he or she may inquire as to sales manuals, product sheets, account information sheets etc. A typical organization will have some of these items but not all. New employees may receive all manner of explanations as to why the territory has not much available information. The employee may even be told that the lack of information and performance is the reason he was hired. He has to turn this train wreck around. Not wanting to appear timid the new salesperson will gather up as much bravado as possible and shout to the rooftops how he will be the savior for whom the company has been looking. All the while he may be thinking, what kind of mess have I gotten myself into?
The owner or sales manager most likely will sit back and wait for the rain to fall from the sky because this new salesperson told everyone he is the best thing since sliced bread and he will show the existing sales force how to make hay when the sun shines. ( Pardon the use of metaphors.) Reality will set in around the 60th day of employment when the new salesperson has done very little to earn his keep (with good reason) and the owner or manager will begin to get a little nervous. At this point the owner of my old company used to tell me to “put them on the get well program.” Translated this meant to reduce their draw from a living wage to starvation wages. This move usually achieved the desired result. The new salesperson quit and the process began anew. By the way, at this juncture the adage defining madness as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, needs to be stamped on a decision maker’s forehead.
During the recruitment and hiring phase I strongly recommend the owner and sales manager be left out of the initial interviews. This is important because the easiest person to sell is another salesperson and in the case of a lot of small companies, the owner and sales manager have usually carried most of the water with which to prime the pump of prosperity. Con artists and hucksters know exactly what buttons to push when dealing with this type of personality. More on recruiting and interviewing in the next installment.
Xerox Business Systems
Xerox is known all over the world as being the # 1 photocopier manufacturer. The Xerox Corporation is a company that has definitely proved thought its practice that the “right management” and the ability to be flexible can lead to a great success no matter how stiff the competition is. The history of its outstanding management starts in the 1980’s, when the company changed its market strategy and introduced a new kind of management that lately transformed into their fantastic quality management practice.
Their program “Leadership through quality” against the Japanese competitors set new quality standards for the market and opened their way to success. The program established the manage-for-results as the primary goal for all of the operations within the company. The expected results were improved productivity and increased revenue growth achieved through the quality-oriented strategy. After experiencing difficulties on market before the company opened a new era in management and created a model that will lately be followed by almost every single one company.
The quality philosophy of the company- the customer-demands orientation- is one of the most remarkable traits that makes Xerox an upstart company. The customer-based orientation was the first one at that time, due to the major orientation of the companies on the quantity, not quality of manufacturing. This philosophy is completely based on the quality of every aspect of the company’s activity, including the final product. It starts with the employee’s management and ends up in the final result of their work – Xerox products. This final result started being evaluated from the objective point of view of a customer. The three factors that are taken into account the most are: the customer, the process and the people. The goal of the company was, is and will be “Total customer satisfaction”.
Basically saying the customer was to become the “quality controlling team” of the company. This philosophy is reflected in their introduction of Total Quality Management (TQM). The main change that this management philosophy brought to the Xerox Corporation was moving from a production-based over to a customer-based company. The Total Quality Management of the Xerox Corporation includes principles that are used by the company’s employees and directors: strong customer focus, entrepreneurial spirit of the employees, integrations through market focus and quality control. Nowadays, owing to this philosophy the company is eager and able to meet all the requirements that the customer has. The satisfaction of the customers became the criterion of evaluation of the company’s work.
Their program “Leadership through quality” against the Japanese competitors set new quality standards for the market and opened their way to success. The program established the manage-for-results as the primary goal for all of the operations within the company. The expected results were improved productivity and increased revenue growth achieved through the quality-oriented strategy. After experiencing difficulties on market before the company opened a new era in management and created a model that will lately be followed by almost every single one company.
The quality philosophy of the company- the customer-demands orientation- is one of the most remarkable traits that makes Xerox an upstart company. The customer-based orientation was the first one at that time, due to the major orientation of the companies on the quantity, not quality of manufacturing. This philosophy is completely based on the quality of every aspect of the company’s activity, including the final product. It starts with the employee’s management and ends up in the final result of their work – Xerox products. This final result started being evaluated from the objective point of view of a customer. The three factors that are taken into account the most are: the customer, the process and the people. The goal of the company was, is and will be “Total customer satisfaction”.
Basically saying the customer was to become the “quality controlling team” of the company. This philosophy is reflected in their introduction of Total Quality Management (TQM). The main change that this management philosophy brought to the Xerox Corporation was moving from a production-based over to a customer-based company. The Total Quality Management of the Xerox Corporation includes principles that are used by the company’s employees and directors: strong customer focus, entrepreneurial spirit of the employees, integrations through market focus and quality control. Nowadays, owing to this philosophy the company is eager and able to meet all the requirements that the customer has. The satisfaction of the customers became the criterion of evaluation of the company’s work.
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