Time was, a buyer was a person who was an expert at the product he or she purchased for their company, website or store…and the salesman or saleswoman (sales rep) was someone who offered what was available from their company, possibly whittling down the selections to the best fit for the sale, and using persuasive tactics to drive the sale home.
Is that still the case? Not necessarily….
These attributes are still important for buyers and sellers to possess, but in today’s world it goes beyond that. In some cases the roles have reversed a little so that the buyer must also know how to “sell” the rest of his or her company on the way to move the product to their accounts, or consumers on the street. The sales rep has to know how to select the products the buyer is eventually going to cut a purchase order for…in other words, the rep becomes the buyer.
But with more large corporations adapting sophisticated systems that integrate purchasing, warehousing, distributing, re-stocking, and eventual sales on the floor or on a website, the buyer has to be an expert on all that. Therefore, the buyer delegates the “purchasing” part to the sales rep.
The buyer has to be familiar with
· Warehousing—should the items purchased be stocked in a distribution center or are they better candidates to be drop shipped to the point of sale? If warehoused, they should be packaged in a way that makes it cost effective for their order pullers to process.
· Distribution—one distribution center or more?
· Re-stocking—what are the minimums for reorders, and what’s the turn time they can expect in order to avoid empty shelves anywhere in the pipeline.
· How is the product packaged for sale? Does it conform to the buyer’s retail planogram or merchandising layout? If it is an online web-based sale, can the sales rep get his or her vendor to drop ship it directly to the customer who bought the item on the buyer’s company’s website?
Things like UPC codes and EDI (electronic data interchange) could tie all this together. This is where the computer systems from the buyer’s company and the rep’s company “talk” to each other and coordinate purchasing, distribution, re-orders, shipping notification, invoicing and payment.
You might notice how some companies will shift purchasing professionals within their company from one department to another. Some buyer who specializes in young men’s apparel may be transferred over to purchasing stationery and gift items for a few years, and then from there to purchasing shoes. Reason? Training for eventual upper management within the company is a likely explanation. Preventing too much of an “old boy network” may be another, albeit cynical, reason.
The purchasing professional, if they are smart, may take advantage this variety of experience and education and use it if they ever have to find work with another company…or perhaps leaving their job to do be a sales rep him- or herself!
One unfortunate outcome of this “rep becomes buyer” trend is that it is harder to enable a new innovative product to be offered first time to a large account’s buyer. The buyers don’t want to take chances unless the sale can be guaranteed somehow…and even that presents logistical challenges if the rep suggests the account send all the unsold items back to the vendor. Try coordinating that with multitudes of store personnel!
However, more progressive buyers (and companies they work for) may suggest a certain innovation to a company that can carry it off. But, these companies are few and far between on both sides of the equation.
Smaller independent accounts may be the ones willing to take risks on untried products…but don’t be surprised if they start adapting a more cautious stance like their bigger counterparts going into the future.
So if you, as a sales rep, think that the buyer will easily sort through information and pick winning items like a pro, think again. That could very well be your job. If you have enough smaller accounts, or even other big ones, that have given you a good picture of what items sell for your line, that is important knowledge that the buyer may not have. He or she, as a buyer, wants you to be the buyer so he or she can do all the other stuff they are expected to do.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Looking For New Markets To Sell? Go Shopping!
Economies change and a rep might find entire customer bases disappearing. The last 20 years have seen more changes in retail, buying traditions and markets than anything that had been seen in the previous 100 years.
Home computing and the internet is the reason, of course—consumers able to buy stuff at home via their desktop…but also because technology so radically changed the way things are consumed. Listening to music and taking snapshots are two examples where retailers set up to handle those activities—CD/Record stores and Film Processing centers, are no longer needed.
It’s important for a rep to constantly be adding lines, making relationships with new vendors. Even if the product a new vendor carries is not especially attractive to the rep right now, it may very well be in a year or so. This will enable the rep to morph into similar industries to those that he or she has now, but that are a bit more stable and will last longer than the markets threatened by change.
Make a point of shopping around…look at other retailers and think how they may use products you sell. Look online too—can that website add to their product offerings with any of your lines?
Shop beyond your immediate industry, or learn from other industries you sell to, to prepare yourself for the pitfalls you may encounter with that new category of wholesale customer you may be trying to win over. An example of this follows…
The licensed products industry, particularly in music related licenses, has lost a tremendous amount of account base in the last decade due to the decline in sales of CDs and other forms of recorded music. Listeners download or rely upon Amazon.com for their needs. So, where to turn?
Musical Instrument retail seems to be a good choice. The community constantly cries out they are in need of better margins, which licensed apparel, printed goods, accessories, collectibles provide. The problem is this: most of these retailers are not well-schooled in boutique-type merchandising techniques. So the challenge to the rep is not just to sell them some line or a few lines, that will sit there wasting away among a mass of guitars, amps, keyboards, cables and effects boxes…the challenge is to educate them as well on techniques in setting up a boutique area in their stores.
There is no better way to do this than the rep to share success stories with these musical instrument retailers. Look at some of your other retail accounts—the good ones. What do they do right? What have they tried that turned out to be wrong? What fixtures were most effective? What kind of employee are they looking for who can take care of that department? How labor intensive is it, and what are some ways to make it as little labor intensive as possible?
Luckily most of us in the licensing industry will come across a product sporting a tried and true brand or logo, and in my own case, this would be Harley Davidson. This is the perfect role model for musical instrument stores to follow; indeed I had one particular musical instrument retailer even tell me as much.
Thirty or forty years ago, the typical Harley Dealer sold motorcycles, did repairs, had a shop with some custom parts like exhaust pipes, gas caps, mirrors. Their motorclothes offerings may have just been a few leather jackets. In other words, the customer base was limited to riders and owners of Harley Davidson motorcycles.
Now, look at the typical HD Dealer today. The motorclothes department is a huge boutique that appeals to many beyond that biker customer base. It’s also, by the way, where the dealership makes the best margins of any product sold under its roof. There are apparel items and gifts for men, women and kids who may never ride a Harley their entire lives. What started out as leather jackets, then tee shirts, developed into an entire new variety of industries just to supply these motorclothes departments.
Many musical instrument retail stores today resemble the Harley dealer from 1970…there is little product in the store that will appeal to anyone beyond the musician. And the product that is there is low-margin by their own admission! The rep should share with the musical instrument dealer the things that a good Harley dealership does.
This musical instrument retailer is losing, and will continue to lose, customers in several ways if they continue just doing what they always have done by only courting musicians. Even if "musicians" is a category that grows among the population, that does not ensure this retailer's sales will grow along with it, and besides, he's leaving it to chance if or if not that category grows.
First of all, the starter musician—that 12 year old kid buying his first guitar—is likely to buy at Wal-Mart or Best Buy now. His mom is going to do the shopping and odds are she'll go the least expensive route. Or mom may buy it online, but point is, there are a lot more places to buy than there was years ago.
Another customer the dealer is losing or seeing less of is the collector. Time was that local musical instrument retailer could take in used guitars for trade and resale, and his local store was the place to look for vintage instruments. Ebay has outperformed that task. Not only that, but there may be other retailers thousands of miles away with kickass websites that compete for the same customer.
So to re-grow his customer base it makes sense for the musical instrument dealer to boutique his store with apparel, gifts, accessories and so on…to become a music related overall destination instead of just an instrument store for musicians. That girl who comes in with her rocker boyfriend and sits on a speaker cabinet filing her nails while her weekend warrior tests some new axe should be made into a customer. Offer her some cute shirts, jewelry items, whatever, but quit being a lounge for her!
Who knows? The new boutique customer just may decide to take up an instrument due to their experience in the store boutique…but they may never have visited the store to begin with had the new boutique area not been there. Or they may've come away with a negative impression like "Oh yeah the place I file my nails while Johnny Rockstar ignores me".
So get out and shop, and encourage your customers and prospects to do same. You’ll learn a lot as an independent sales rep…and you’ll be able to teach others. Ask anyone who their favorite teachers were and you’re likely to get a long list….ask anyone who their favorite salesman was and it will be a short list….
Home computing and the internet is the reason, of course—consumers able to buy stuff at home via their desktop…but also because technology so radically changed the way things are consumed. Listening to music and taking snapshots are two examples where retailers set up to handle those activities—CD/Record stores and Film Processing centers, are no longer needed.
It’s important for a rep to constantly be adding lines, making relationships with new vendors. Even if the product a new vendor carries is not especially attractive to the rep right now, it may very well be in a year or so. This will enable the rep to morph into similar industries to those that he or she has now, but that are a bit more stable and will last longer than the markets threatened by change.
Make a point of shopping around…look at other retailers and think how they may use products you sell. Look online too—can that website add to their product offerings with any of your lines?
Shop beyond your immediate industry, or learn from other industries you sell to, to prepare yourself for the pitfalls you may encounter with that new category of wholesale customer you may be trying to win over. An example of this follows…
The licensed products industry, particularly in music related licenses, has lost a tremendous amount of account base in the last decade due to the decline in sales of CDs and other forms of recorded music. Listeners download or rely upon Amazon.com for their needs. So, where to turn?
Musical Instrument retail seems to be a good choice. The community constantly cries out they are in need of better margins, which licensed apparel, printed goods, accessories, collectibles provide. The problem is this: most of these retailers are not well-schooled in boutique-type merchandising techniques. So the challenge to the rep is not just to sell them some line or a few lines, that will sit there wasting away among a mass of guitars, amps, keyboards, cables and effects boxes…the challenge is to educate them as well on techniques in setting up a boutique area in their stores.
There is no better way to do this than the rep to share success stories with these musical instrument retailers. Look at some of your other retail accounts—the good ones. What do they do right? What have they tried that turned out to be wrong? What fixtures were most effective? What kind of employee are they looking for who can take care of that department? How labor intensive is it, and what are some ways to make it as little labor intensive as possible?
Luckily most of us in the licensing industry will come across a product sporting a tried and true brand or logo, and in my own case, this would be Harley Davidson. This is the perfect role model for musical instrument stores to follow; indeed I had one particular musical instrument retailer even tell me as much.
Thirty or forty years ago, the typical Harley Dealer sold motorcycles, did repairs, had a shop with some custom parts like exhaust pipes, gas caps, mirrors. Their motorclothes offerings may have just been a few leather jackets. In other words, the customer base was limited to riders and owners of Harley Davidson motorcycles.
Now, look at the typical HD Dealer today. The motorclothes department is a huge boutique that appeals to many beyond that biker customer base. It’s also, by the way, where the dealership makes the best margins of any product sold under its roof. There are apparel items and gifts for men, women and kids who may never ride a Harley their entire lives. What started out as leather jackets, then tee shirts, developed into an entire new variety of industries just to supply these motorclothes departments.
Many musical instrument retail stores today resemble the Harley dealer from 1970…there is little product in the store that will appeal to anyone beyond the musician. And the product that is there is low-margin by their own admission! The rep should share with the musical instrument dealer the things that a good Harley dealership does.
This musical instrument retailer is losing, and will continue to lose, customers in several ways if they continue just doing what they always have done by only courting musicians. Even if "musicians" is a category that grows among the population, that does not ensure this retailer's sales will grow along with it, and besides, he's leaving it to chance if or if not that category grows.
First of all, the starter musician—that 12 year old kid buying his first guitar—is likely to buy at Wal-Mart or Best Buy now. His mom is going to do the shopping and odds are she'll go the least expensive route. Or mom may buy it online, but point is, there are a lot more places to buy than there was years ago.
Another customer the dealer is losing or seeing less of is the collector. Time was that local musical instrument retailer could take in used guitars for trade and resale, and his local store was the place to look for vintage instruments. Ebay has outperformed that task. Not only that, but there may be other retailers thousands of miles away with kickass websites that compete for the same customer.
So to re-grow his customer base it makes sense for the musical instrument dealer to boutique his store with apparel, gifts, accessories and so on…to become a music related overall destination instead of just an instrument store for musicians. That girl who comes in with her rocker boyfriend and sits on a speaker cabinet filing her nails while her weekend warrior tests some new axe should be made into a customer. Offer her some cute shirts, jewelry items, whatever, but quit being a lounge for her!
Who knows? The new boutique customer just may decide to take up an instrument due to their experience in the store boutique…but they may never have visited the store to begin with had the new boutique area not been there. Or they may've come away with a negative impression like "Oh yeah the place I file my nails while Johnny Rockstar ignores me".
So get out and shop, and encourage your customers and prospects to do same. You’ll learn a lot as an independent sales rep…and you’ll be able to teach others. Ask anyone who their favorite teachers were and you’re likely to get a long list….ask anyone who their favorite salesman was and it will be a short list….
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Innovating During A Tough Economy
What can a company or independent sales rep do during a tough economy to help build customer loyalty, or to stand apart from the pack to help bring in more new business via reputation or other word-of-mouth means?
When manufacturing new products can be too dicey in uncertain times, what else is there to do?
Well, it may surprise many, but what some company sells or what some rep may offer may not be as important to an account as how. This is where service comes into play.
We’re fortunate to live in an age when technology has made certain aspects of service easier to handle and to introduce innovations.
Many companies may still use the USPS mindset when it comes to invoicing their shipments. The typical scenario that’s worked for years is this:
· Purchase order comes into the company, they enter and pull/pick the order
· An invoice is generated which shows what’s on the order, how much each item costs, and what the total is including freight costs and any other fees or credits. This will be the bill of sale, so to speak. It gets mailed to the account’s bookkeeping department, where the accounts payable crew sets it up for payment.
· A non-priced version of the invoice is thrown into the box with the goods to use as a packing slip.
Notice your mailbox lately? Read about how much in the red the USPS continues to be? USPS solutions are passe. Several companies of mine have started using a more innovative, Fed-Ex or UPS inspired approach:
· Purchase order comes in as above, and invoice is generated as above, however,
· Invoice gets emailed to the account, along with tracking information, as the product leaves the dock
· If the customer still wants one, a copy of invoice is mailed as before.
· Packing slip is included, but chances are the account will find the previously emailed invoice of more use since all the pricing info can be derived from that document.
Now, which method would you prefer? If you said the first, you are worse off than the professor that gave the future founder of Fed Ex a failing grade when he presented the Fed Ex business model as a term paper in a business course. That professor was at least a product of his times--the '70s. Obviously the second choice is more forward-thinking.
And the neat thing is: this is a small investment that will reap big dividends in customer loyalty. Assuming you’d prefer the second of the two methods above, we’d have to assume everyone else (customers included) would as well! So this is innovation that is less chancy than introducing, or even testing, a new product line.
A business should always look for ways to innovate. Wasn’t it Peter Drucker that said, “Marketing and Innovation are the lifeblood of any company? Everything else is an expense?” And Lee Iacocca helped turn Chrysler around in the ‘80s with the idea that “If you’re not #1 in your business, you have to innovate”. One would add: If you are #1 and you want to stay there, you must keep innovating.
This is just one inexpensive way a company can innovate. How about others? How about those means a rep can also use to innovate?
· Conference calls are becoming far more popular than in years past and there are companies out there like freeconference.com that offer free or very reasonably- priced solutions to this activity.
· Web conferences are another solution offered by technology. Gotomeeting.com or GoToWebinar.com allow far flung parties to view presentations on the host’s computer—without traveling, spending money renting a facility, saving time and expense, but serving customer’s needs in the way these methods can inform.
· Here’s one that sounds contradictory as it means an out-of-pocket solution for a rep, but could save time and keep a customer happy over the long run. If there is any sort of shortage/damage/credit issue that does not get resolved for some reason between a customer and an account, the rep simply writes a personal check and sends it to the account. Incidents like this may not involve too much, and they should not for the rep’s sake! But you know the situation: two or three widgets were left out of the order or arrived broken for the fourth time in the past year. These incidents are an annoyance that gum up the works at the account’s warehouse or store. Rep asks who to send a check to in order to even out the bill…and if the account gives him/her a contact name, the rep does so. This is good PR, it solves the problem, and the rep can go back to the repeat offending vendor and tell them to send any sort of credit to the rep himself instead of the company. Believe me, incidents like this rarely happen again because of the lesson learned: justice delayed is justice denied.
When times get better these types of service issues will stand out and cement loyalty. That will mean more consistent business when it counts!
When manufacturing new products can be too dicey in uncertain times, what else is there to do?
Well, it may surprise many, but what some company sells or what some rep may offer may not be as important to an account as how. This is where service comes into play.
We’re fortunate to live in an age when technology has made certain aspects of service easier to handle and to introduce innovations.
Many companies may still use the USPS mindset when it comes to invoicing their shipments. The typical scenario that’s worked for years is this:
· Purchase order comes into the company, they enter and pull/pick the order
· An invoice is generated which shows what’s on the order, how much each item costs, and what the total is including freight costs and any other fees or credits. This will be the bill of sale, so to speak. It gets mailed to the account’s bookkeeping department, where the accounts payable crew sets it up for payment.
· A non-priced version of the invoice is thrown into the box with the goods to use as a packing slip.
Notice your mailbox lately? Read about how much in the red the USPS continues to be? USPS solutions are passe. Several companies of mine have started using a more innovative, Fed-Ex or UPS inspired approach:
· Purchase order comes in as above, and invoice is generated as above, however,
· Invoice gets emailed to the account, along with tracking information, as the product leaves the dock
· If the customer still wants one, a copy of invoice is mailed as before.
· Packing slip is included, but chances are the account will find the previously emailed invoice of more use since all the pricing info can be derived from that document.
Now, which method would you prefer? If you said the first, you are worse off than the professor that gave the future founder of Fed Ex a failing grade when he presented the Fed Ex business model as a term paper in a business course. That professor was at least a product of his times--the '70s. Obviously the second choice is more forward-thinking.
And the neat thing is: this is a small investment that will reap big dividends in customer loyalty. Assuming you’d prefer the second of the two methods above, we’d have to assume everyone else (customers included) would as well! So this is innovation that is less chancy than introducing, or even testing, a new product line.
A business should always look for ways to innovate. Wasn’t it Peter Drucker that said, “Marketing and Innovation are the lifeblood of any company? Everything else is an expense?” And Lee Iacocca helped turn Chrysler around in the ‘80s with the idea that “If you’re not #1 in your business, you have to innovate”. One would add: If you are #1 and you want to stay there, you must keep innovating.
This is just one inexpensive way a company can innovate. How about others? How about those means a rep can also use to innovate?
· Conference calls are becoming far more popular than in years past and there are companies out there like freeconference.com that offer free or very reasonably- priced solutions to this activity.
· Web conferences are another solution offered by technology. Gotomeeting.com or GoToWebinar.com allow far flung parties to view presentations on the host’s computer—without traveling, spending money renting a facility, saving time and expense, but serving customer’s needs in the way these methods can inform.
· Here’s one that sounds contradictory as it means an out-of-pocket solution for a rep, but could save time and keep a customer happy over the long run. If there is any sort of shortage/damage/credit issue that does not get resolved for some reason between a customer and an account, the rep simply writes a personal check and sends it to the account. Incidents like this may not involve too much, and they should not for the rep’s sake! But you know the situation: two or three widgets were left out of the order or arrived broken for the fourth time in the past year. These incidents are an annoyance that gum up the works at the account’s warehouse or store. Rep asks who to send a check to in order to even out the bill…and if the account gives him/her a contact name, the rep does so. This is good PR, it solves the problem, and the rep can go back to the repeat offending vendor and tell them to send any sort of credit to the rep himself instead of the company. Believe me, incidents like this rarely happen again because of the lesson learned: justice delayed is justice denied.
When times get better these types of service issues will stand out and cement loyalty. That will mean more consistent business when it counts!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Your Leads--Where (And How) To Find Customers
One criticism of my book says it should have covered more on how and where to find customers. Good point. Let’s explore that a bit more here.
The book may be slightly biased toward a supplier-to-retailer point of view, but finding and acting upon leads (discussed in Chapter 7 under the subheading “Leads”) should be similar in any business. Whether you are repping from a raw materials source to a manufacturer, from manufacturer to distributor, or distributor to retailer, or even in a direct to consumer situation, finding new customers is something that should almost be second nature.
Whatever industry you choose to be a rep in, you should be familiar and experienced in that industry to begin with mainly so you will be credible to your customers and targeted accounts. Increasingly, the way to scope out new leads in whatever field you are in is: online—the web, internet, whatever you want to call it. It used to be Yellow Pages or industry guides. Even if you can still utilize these kinds of print materials, you can easily find out what they are and where to obtain them online. (Note: one of the books appearing on Amazon alongside mine is The National Register of Independent Reps, a long-popular guide for the apparel industry).
I mention leads lists in the book; from my experience these can be OK at best and a thorough rip-off at worst. Twenty years ago it was not unusual to buy such industry-specific lists from a company that had developed some program that basically searched out leads from the worldwide web, phone directories (that were uploaded to a data base), and other similar sources. Why bother buying such a list now, when with a bit of detective work on your own computer, you may have access to the same list for free?
Travel can yield new leads—just getting in another town and looking around, or chatting up locals can help you discover possible candidates for you to sell to. Zoning laws usually lump similar businesses in the same areas, or types of areas--ever notice that? This is particularly useful if some new business has popped up since you last visited that area. But again, you can also find such info online via Yellow Pages or new phone listings under that specific classification.
If you are selling to non-retail, in other words to manufacturers or distributors, your target listing will not be quite as large as if you are focusing in on the retailers of your industry. The commissions might be just as good, if not better, since the order size may be typically bigger. In Pharmaceuticals, for example, you might sell for several companies dealing in raw materials used to make drugs, and you sell to about two dozen drug manufacturers. This is the same industry where you might take a different route and sell for a few drug manufacturers to more than 100 doctors and a handful of pharmacies.
In either situation, finding your possible customers should be something you already know how to do. There must be publications in the medical industry that are chock full of ads that can give you a clue. Word of mouth from several doctors or pharmacies might help. Trade shows and other events within the industry will be a source. These last two are still important if you sell direct to consumer; think of “Avon Calling”, Tupperware parties, the dreaded insurance salesman who asks for referrals, or Amway distributors and other multi-level marketers.
Whatever situations you encounter, always study your industry and its players online using multiple search methods and phrases. "Pharmacies-N.Carolina" or "Doctors, OBGyn, N.Carolina", "Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, SE USA" will give you results in many forms.
You may find your business drifting back and forth into a certain sub-culture of your industry. In my case, this recently involved motorcycle-related apparel. Much of the licensed apparel industry I’ve dealt with has been in music and entertainment licenses. A few years ago several of the “Choppers”-related TV licenses yielded huge sales in various products—apparel was just one of them. As that fad died down, I kept a bit of contact with the motorcycle dealers I had sold until the next possible opportunity came along.
It did when one of my lines was awarded a Harley-Davidson® license. So in this case, I did not have to go looking for many new leads. In most cases, I was merely dusting off and refreshing a sales rep/buyer relationship. Morale here: keep those Rolodex cards because you never know when you’ll use them again. As for other motorcycle accounts I was not familiar with from a few years before, well, it’s pretty easy to hunt down a website to get a list of official Harley-Davidson dealers in whatever region you want to explore.
It’s important to realize that growing your business via new customers is just one way to do it. Other methods involve selling more products to existing customers (you being an independent rep should be able to handle multiple lines) and getting customers to come back more often to order from you (sales, incentives, promotions, seasonal opportunities, etc.). It’s also important that once you have found a new set of leads, you convert them, in other words, get them to place that first order!!! Not all leads will buy from you the first time you contact them. Keep after them, listen to them, and alter your sales pitch accordingly.
“A good rep sells solutions” is as true as it ever was, and this gives a clue to another way to see your business increase. Look for flaws in your accounts, listen to their frustrations. From there, see how you and your products, or better ways to merchandise and display your products, can help. As much as 33% of my present six-figure income is attributed to such “solution-selling”.
These other subjects will be covered in the future…for now, though, try to schedule yourself to find new sources of leads at least once monthly using any of the methods discussed above.
The book may be slightly biased toward a supplier-to-retailer point of view, but finding and acting upon leads (discussed in Chapter 7 under the subheading “Leads”) should be similar in any business. Whether you are repping from a raw materials source to a manufacturer, from manufacturer to distributor, or distributor to retailer, or even in a direct to consumer situation, finding new customers is something that should almost be second nature.
Whatever industry you choose to be a rep in, you should be familiar and experienced in that industry to begin with mainly so you will be credible to your customers and targeted accounts. Increasingly, the way to scope out new leads in whatever field you are in is: online—the web, internet, whatever you want to call it. It used to be Yellow Pages or industry guides. Even if you can still utilize these kinds of print materials, you can easily find out what they are and where to obtain them online. (Note: one of the books appearing on Amazon alongside mine is The National Register of Independent Reps, a long-popular guide for the apparel industry).
I mention leads lists in the book; from my experience these can be OK at best and a thorough rip-off at worst. Twenty years ago it was not unusual to buy such industry-specific lists from a company that had developed some program that basically searched out leads from the worldwide web, phone directories (that were uploaded to a data base), and other similar sources. Why bother buying such a list now, when with a bit of detective work on your own computer, you may have access to the same list for free?
Travel can yield new leads—just getting in another town and looking around, or chatting up locals can help you discover possible candidates for you to sell to. Zoning laws usually lump similar businesses in the same areas, or types of areas--ever notice that? This is particularly useful if some new business has popped up since you last visited that area. But again, you can also find such info online via Yellow Pages or new phone listings under that specific classification.
If you are selling to non-retail, in other words to manufacturers or distributors, your target listing will not be quite as large as if you are focusing in on the retailers of your industry. The commissions might be just as good, if not better, since the order size may be typically bigger. In Pharmaceuticals, for example, you might sell for several companies dealing in raw materials used to make drugs, and you sell to about two dozen drug manufacturers. This is the same industry where you might take a different route and sell for a few drug manufacturers to more than 100 doctors and a handful of pharmacies.
In either situation, finding your possible customers should be something you already know how to do. There must be publications in the medical industry that are chock full of ads that can give you a clue. Word of mouth from several doctors or pharmacies might help. Trade shows and other events within the industry will be a source. These last two are still important if you sell direct to consumer; think of “Avon Calling”, Tupperware parties, the dreaded insurance salesman who asks for referrals, or Amway distributors and other multi-level marketers.
Whatever situations you encounter, always study your industry and its players online using multiple search methods and phrases. "Pharmacies-N.Carolina" or "Doctors, OBGyn, N.Carolina", "Pharmaceutical Manufacturers, SE USA" will give you results in many forms.
You may find your business drifting back and forth into a certain sub-culture of your industry. In my case, this recently involved motorcycle-related apparel. Much of the licensed apparel industry I’ve dealt with has been in music and entertainment licenses. A few years ago several of the “Choppers”-related TV licenses yielded huge sales in various products—apparel was just one of them. As that fad died down, I kept a bit of contact with the motorcycle dealers I had sold until the next possible opportunity came along.
It did when one of my lines was awarded a Harley-Davidson® license. So in this case, I did not have to go looking for many new leads. In most cases, I was merely dusting off and refreshing a sales rep/buyer relationship. Morale here: keep those Rolodex cards because you never know when you’ll use them again. As for other motorcycle accounts I was not familiar with from a few years before, well, it’s pretty easy to hunt down a website to get a list of official Harley-Davidson dealers in whatever region you want to explore.
It’s important to realize that growing your business via new customers is just one way to do it. Other methods involve selling more products to existing customers (you being an independent rep should be able to handle multiple lines) and getting customers to come back more often to order from you (sales, incentives, promotions, seasonal opportunities, etc.). It’s also important that once you have found a new set of leads, you convert them, in other words, get them to place that first order!!! Not all leads will buy from you the first time you contact them. Keep after them, listen to them, and alter your sales pitch accordingly.
“A good rep sells solutions” is as true as it ever was, and this gives a clue to another way to see your business increase. Look for flaws in your accounts, listen to their frustrations. From there, see how you and your products, or better ways to merchandise and display your products, can help. As much as 33% of my present six-figure income is attributed to such “solution-selling”.
These other subjects will be covered in the future…for now, though, try to schedule yourself to find new sources of leads at least once monthly using any of the methods discussed above.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
What Time--Have We Forgotten How To Figure This Out?
This will not be a treatise on “time management”; even though there are many folks out there that need time management skills, and there are plenty of books and articles already on that subject. Rather, this article will be about the fundamental basics on how to tell time. Does it seem like nobody knows how to do that anymore?
It goes way beyond hassling your kids to wake up, be ready, arrange to be dropped off or picked up—at a certain specific hour, anymore. It happens in business a lot too, and it may be one of the reasons why it seems like it’s hard to get things done these days.
Here’s a typical exchange:
“Hello, this is Mr. Smith, and I’m returning Mr. Jones’ call, is he in?”
The receptionist, if a company has one (as opposed to a phone tree from Hell, but that’s another story), says
“No I’m sorry he’s not. May I ask what this is regarding?”
“Gee, I don’t know, he called me.”
“Well would you like to leave a message?”
(What does one say to this?!?!?!)
“Um, no thanks…tell you what…do you know about when he will be back?”
(Here it comes!):
“Oh, I imagine it will be later”.
“What time (emphasis added) later?”
“Probably this afternoon”.
Afternoon, as defined by just about any dictionary, covers at least a six-hour period from 12.00 noon up to closing time, so this answer is insufficient. Most of us will start to feel like we’re getting the brush-off at this point, but remember: Jones called Smith in the first place! And since hardly anyone is courteous enough to return calls anymore, why should the courteous Mr. Smith get this kind of aggravation?
Smith will continue:
“OK, what is a good time to call him back this afternoon?”
Receptionist says “How about after lunch?”
Oh, does everyone eat lunch at the same time, regardless of time zone?
“What time is that?”
Smith asked this question a few minutes ago, you’ll recall, and has now asked it three times.
Finally, the receptionist says:
“From 1.00 to 2.00 pm”.
Well, at least that gives Smith a 60-minute window of opportunity. He should now ask,
“What is a good time during that hour when you think he’ll be catching up on his calls?”
…But chances are good this will lead to more frustration.
Whether communicating or setting meetings, appointments, whatever… the ability for anyone to tell anyone else what the big hand and little hand should look like when they want to get something done—well, it seems to be a lost skill. And digital clocks should have made it easier, but they didn’t.
Is Technology the culprit to blame here? After all, cell phones have time on them now, and it’s automatically 100% correct time, no matter the time zone you’re in! It gets set and changes for you automatically—how cool is that? Your PC has the time, complete and accurate, all the time, down in the corner. These devices also have functions that notify you when an important time is coming up, or you can use the good old fashioned appointment diary found in any stationary or office supply store. So…What’s the problem?
We don’t need as many watches or clocks all over the place like we used to, our devices have kind of solved that problem. But we still need to know: WHAT TIME?
I would be real curious to see results of any study that investigated how much wasted communication and wasted time results with needless back and forth phone banter, emails, whatever-form-of-dialog by someone’s inability to simply name a specific time on the clock. Communication of this nature should involve only a few lines of dialog, or two e-mails—one to and one from. Why then, does it seem like it takes ten times that amount to answer the question “What time?”
The clock still has either a face with 1 through 12 going around it, or it is a digital clock reading out the current time in easy-to-read numerals. Has anyone invented a clock (that was not a joke) that reads “After Lunch”, “Later”, “This afternoon” or “Sometime tomorrow”? No, they haven’t. Clocks are pretty much standard all over the world.
Save everyone you do business with some time. Be aware how to schedule time, tell time as well as use time.
It goes way beyond hassling your kids to wake up, be ready, arrange to be dropped off or picked up—at a certain specific hour, anymore. It happens in business a lot too, and it may be one of the reasons why it seems like it’s hard to get things done these days.
Here’s a typical exchange:
“Hello, this is Mr. Smith, and I’m returning Mr. Jones’ call, is he in?”
The receptionist, if a company has one (as opposed to a phone tree from Hell, but that’s another story), says
“No I’m sorry he’s not. May I ask what this is regarding?”
“Gee, I don’t know, he called me.”
“Well would you like to leave a message?”
(What does one say to this?!?!?!)
“Um, no thanks…tell you what…do you know about when he will be back?”
(Here it comes!):
“Oh, I imagine it will be later”.
“What time (emphasis added) later?”
“Probably this afternoon”.
Afternoon, as defined by just about any dictionary, covers at least a six-hour period from 12.00 noon up to closing time, so this answer is insufficient. Most of us will start to feel like we’re getting the brush-off at this point, but remember: Jones called Smith in the first place! And since hardly anyone is courteous enough to return calls anymore, why should the courteous Mr. Smith get this kind of aggravation?
Smith will continue:
“OK, what is a good time to call him back this afternoon?”
Receptionist says “How about after lunch?”
Oh, does everyone eat lunch at the same time, regardless of time zone?
“What time is that?”
Smith asked this question a few minutes ago, you’ll recall, and has now asked it three times.
Finally, the receptionist says:
“From 1.00 to 2.00 pm”.
Well, at least that gives Smith a 60-minute window of opportunity. He should now ask,
“What is a good time during that hour when you think he’ll be catching up on his calls?”
…But chances are good this will lead to more frustration.
Whether communicating or setting meetings, appointments, whatever… the ability for anyone to tell anyone else what the big hand and little hand should look like when they want to get something done—well, it seems to be a lost skill. And digital clocks should have made it easier, but they didn’t.
Is Technology the culprit to blame here? After all, cell phones have time on them now, and it’s automatically 100% correct time, no matter the time zone you’re in! It gets set and changes for you automatically—how cool is that? Your PC has the time, complete and accurate, all the time, down in the corner. These devices also have functions that notify you when an important time is coming up, or you can use the good old fashioned appointment diary found in any stationary or office supply store. So…What’s the problem?
We don’t need as many watches or clocks all over the place like we used to, our devices have kind of solved that problem. But we still need to know: WHAT TIME?
I would be real curious to see results of any study that investigated how much wasted communication and wasted time results with needless back and forth phone banter, emails, whatever-form-of-dialog by someone’s inability to simply name a specific time on the clock. Communication of this nature should involve only a few lines of dialog, or two e-mails—one to and one from. Why then, does it seem like it takes ten times that amount to answer the question “What time?”
The clock still has either a face with 1 through 12 going around it, or it is a digital clock reading out the current time in easy-to-read numerals. Has anyone invented a clock (that was not a joke) that reads “After Lunch”, “Later”, “This afternoon” or “Sometime tomorrow”? No, they haven’t. Clocks are pretty much standard all over the world.
Save everyone you do business with some time. Be aware how to schedule time, tell time as well as use time.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Is Your Wholesale Business Down 20-30%? Remember 80-20…
In tough economic times like these, it is common to see companies cut back on important functions of their business like service and marketing, as well as other aspects. While understandable, it may not be forgivable and could wind up being fatal.
If the old adage of “80% of your business is created by 20%” is true (it is, believe me), concentrate on that 20% wherever it may be. Now it may actually be 70-30, 90-10, but you get the idea: Most of your income is commanded by a smaller percent of another aspect of your business. So we’ll use 80-20 for convenience sake…. 20% of what you might ask? Well, it could be several things:
· 20% of your accounts make up 80% of your income
· 20% of your product offering—in other words, if you have 100 skus to sell, 20 of them make up 80% of your business
· 20% of your sales force write 80% of your sales.
In matters regarding service, from a rep’s standpoint, it’s recommended you don’t sacrifice any aspect of getting orders to whatever customers you have left and whatever new customers you can get. If you can sustain the same level of service, with fewer staff working an extra hour or so, great. If turn time winds up being an extra amount of days, but is still within reason for your industry, try for it but at least notify your account base up front with an open letter expressing apology and regret, but with the promise to strive for the same level as you have had. Whatever you do, avoid surprises and disappointments falling into the customer’s lap.
There can be competitors of yours who will figure ways to tighten up their service during an economic downturn, and if they can, they will. And guess whose business they will try to win over to their side?
When you think about it, “other aspects” mentioned in the first paragraph above could very easily fall into service topics. Things like streamlining your bookkeeping or production, while maybe not as visible to your customers, will increase your efficiency and save you money and time, both of which will make it easier to deal with you from the customer’s standpoint. Making your bookkeeping completely online can allow your company easier notification of shipping and billing to your accounts…and eliminate mailing costs when it comes time to send an invoice to an account. So look for 20% of your service aspects to improve, and it can affect the remaining 80%, yielding greater efficiency.
Now let’s look at your marketing and sales efforts. Any scrimping here is also potentially fatal as marketing is your lifeblood. If you have to adjust the amount of expenditure you allocate for your marketing, so be it, but be careful.
If you have print brochures, catalogs, pamphlets or flyers, why not concentrate on the 20% of goods that bring you your 80% of sales? Be sure to prominently mention your website, which should be a portal to all that you sell, so that if a customer or prospect is reading this marketing material, they understand you have much more to offer. If you’re worried about that huge catalog you have to publish every year and this year it will be expensive to compile, think about how much you can save by whittling it down to 20% of its normal length.
If the expense of contacting your customer base is too high for today’s economy, concentrate on that 20% of your account base. By this, what is recommended is to call on that 20% as if nothing has happened…as if the economy is still roaring. But don’t neglect the remaining 80% of your accounts--treat them to email blasts, calls every other month (instead of monthly) or whatever it takes to keep them informed. You should still try to find new accounts whenever and wherever you can. Never quit here….and if you can still keep in touch with all of your existing accounts regularly, do so…this step described here is only if the actual contact of your accounts is expensive in a way that puts a dent in your budget during tough times.
What about your sales force—whether internal or external, as in using independent sales reps? Here, cutting out 80% in favoring your top 20% producers, is NOT recommended. However, in your honing of your marketing, you may find that the top producers will work more effectively anyway. All of your sales force should be communicated to regularly during good times or bad. And the best thing to communicate to them is by telling them what exactly you are doing during this downturn. Tell them about your truncated release schedule, but that you still have new releases. Tell them about any service changes so they can, in turn, tell your customers. Stress you are available for any sort of input as to how you and the sales professional can best get results together. For example: If you’ve streamlined your print marketing and stressed use of your website…and your salespeople find your website difficult to deal with, that needs to be taken care of.
Once business gets back to normal, hopefully these cost cutting and efficiency measures will help your business emerge stronger than your competition's. These ideas can also help transform your marketing and service aspects to the point that not only will you have kept and added more customers than your competitor, but that you have done so more profitably by eliminating waste and overhead. And profitability never goes out of style, in good times or bad.
In tough economic times like these, it is common to see companies cut back on important functions of their business like service and marketing, as well as other aspects. While understandable, it may not be forgivable and could wind up being fatal.
If the old adage of “80% of your business is created by 20%” is true (it is, believe me), concentrate on that 20% wherever it may be. Now it may actually be 70-30, 90-10, but you get the idea: Most of your income is commanded by a smaller percent of another aspect of your business. So we’ll use 80-20 for convenience sake…. 20% of what you might ask? Well, it could be several things:
· 20% of your accounts make up 80% of your income
· 20% of your product offering—in other words, if you have 100 skus to sell, 20 of them make up 80% of your business
· 20% of your sales force write 80% of your sales.
In matters regarding service, from a rep’s standpoint, it’s recommended you don’t sacrifice any aspect of getting orders to whatever customers you have left and whatever new customers you can get. If you can sustain the same level of service, with fewer staff working an extra hour or so, great. If turn time winds up being an extra amount of days, but is still within reason for your industry, try for it but at least notify your account base up front with an open letter expressing apology and regret, but with the promise to strive for the same level as you have had. Whatever you do, avoid surprises and disappointments falling into the customer’s lap.
There can be competitors of yours who will figure ways to tighten up their service during an economic downturn, and if they can, they will. And guess whose business they will try to win over to their side?
When you think about it, “other aspects” mentioned in the first paragraph above could very easily fall into service topics. Things like streamlining your bookkeeping or production, while maybe not as visible to your customers, will increase your efficiency and save you money and time, both of which will make it easier to deal with you from the customer’s standpoint. Making your bookkeeping completely online can allow your company easier notification of shipping and billing to your accounts…and eliminate mailing costs when it comes time to send an invoice to an account. So look for 20% of your service aspects to improve, and it can affect the remaining 80%, yielding greater efficiency.
Now let’s look at your marketing and sales efforts. Any scrimping here is also potentially fatal as marketing is your lifeblood. If you have to adjust the amount of expenditure you allocate for your marketing, so be it, but be careful.
If you have print brochures, catalogs, pamphlets or flyers, why not concentrate on the 20% of goods that bring you your 80% of sales? Be sure to prominently mention your website, which should be a portal to all that you sell, so that if a customer or prospect is reading this marketing material, they understand you have much more to offer. If you’re worried about that huge catalog you have to publish every year and this year it will be expensive to compile, think about how much you can save by whittling it down to 20% of its normal length.
If the expense of contacting your customer base is too high for today’s economy, concentrate on that 20% of your account base. By this, what is recommended is to call on that 20% as if nothing has happened…as if the economy is still roaring. But don’t neglect the remaining 80% of your accounts--treat them to email blasts, calls every other month (instead of monthly) or whatever it takes to keep them informed. You should still try to find new accounts whenever and wherever you can. Never quit here….and if you can still keep in touch with all of your existing accounts regularly, do so…this step described here is only if the actual contact of your accounts is expensive in a way that puts a dent in your budget during tough times.
What about your sales force—whether internal or external, as in using independent sales reps? Here, cutting out 80% in favoring your top 20% producers, is NOT recommended. However, in your honing of your marketing, you may find that the top producers will work more effectively anyway. All of your sales force should be communicated to regularly during good times or bad. And the best thing to communicate to them is by telling them what exactly you are doing during this downturn. Tell them about your truncated release schedule, but that you still have new releases. Tell them about any service changes so they can, in turn, tell your customers. Stress you are available for any sort of input as to how you and the sales professional can best get results together. For example: If you’ve streamlined your print marketing and stressed use of your website…and your salespeople find your website difficult to deal with, that needs to be taken care of.
Once business gets back to normal, hopefully these cost cutting and efficiency measures will help your business emerge stronger than your competition's. These ideas can also help transform your marketing and service aspects to the point that not only will you have kept and added more customers than your competitor, but that you have done so more profitably by eliminating waste and overhead. And profitability never goes out of style, in good times or bad.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Have You Noticed It's Getting Harder To Get Things Done?
The present economy has forced a lot of us to cut back staff and give those who remain working more stuff to do. This may very well backfire and leave a company or business hurting just as they need to be getting stronger in spite of the effort to get lean and mean.
Has this happened to you? Whether you're a customer or supplier, you contact someone, agree to have a project done or at least underway by a certain date, you call back and they haven't even started. Or, worse, you're on the other end of that situation: they call you back and you're embarrassed to say you haven't had time to get the work done.
It doesn't need to be this way and for the sake of your future in any business, it shouldn't be; it better not be. Recessions and Depressions have a cleansing effect--they weed out the, um, well, weeds. The rotten tomatoes, the bad eggs, the old, lame and unfit. With lousy time management skills, lousy management skills overall, you will be weeded out. Now is the time to get fit when it comes to these vital skills and if you do, when times get better, you will reap the benefits.
Here's a few observations and ways to avoid common mistakes. Are you falling prey to these?:
1. Have a detailed checklist of what you need to do today, tomorrow, next week, next month--and stick to it as best as possible. Outlook has a scheduling function, if you like it, use it. If you want to use a daytimer, legal pad, another computer program, great. But USE them. Add detail daily--in other words, if you've scheduled yourself to call XYZ Corp once a month just to touch base, add particular details like followup on the last order you shipped them...telling them about some new product coming next month that suits them perfectly...those kinds of things.
2. As you do things on your checklist, check them off, and if you don't get to accomplish them, schedule them tomorrow, or next best day--don't let something slip through the cracks. Examine your "to do" list often during the day to make sure you're doing these things at the best time. Examine at the end of the day...did you get it all done, or re-schedule? I still use a sheet of paper with a list of things to do and I have a pencil in hand all the time.
3. When you're on the phone have a pencil in your hand and paper ready...always--if I had a dime for every phone conversation that lasted several minutes, then I asked the guy on the other end if he'd written it down only to hear "oh wait a minute, lemme get a pencil", I'd be a millionaire. But at least he's getting the pencil. Don't waste our time by not being ready when you ought to be. Have a pencil handy from the start of the call....or be at your computer so you can document what needs to be done. If you tell yourself "I'll have to remember this when I get off the call" something can and will come up, and there is a good chance you'll forget.
When you email or tell someone "OK, I'll do this" cc yourself if you have do, but do it, don't forget it.
4. Lunch-- what an absolute timewaste. I'm spoiled, I work out of my home. If I'm hungry, I just get a quick sandwich or snack and I'm back at work immediately. However, I guess we have to avoid being accused of being slave drivers, so a lunch break is something we have give employees. However, here's my major gripe: does everyone in an office have to take their lunch break at the same time? Why not stagger it a bit? The whole AP department is out and you need an invoice number now? The USA has 4+ time zones. It would be extremely effective and efficient, to leave at least one or two back at the office who can answer calls if need be--because not everyone from coast to coast is taking lunch at the same time you are. This leads to the next few points...
5. Vacation--try to have vacations staggered a bit too. Offer an extra day to employees that may take vacation during an off period. Vacations occur a lot during crucial build-up times to sales peaks too, for certain industries. Companies should not grind to a halt because some staff are on vacation. Effective management and time management means things are designed to go smoothly even when someone takes time off.
6. The Secret Key will anger your customer--by "secret key" I mean this: so and so is the only one in the office that can answer a particular question or find a particular document. If that person is at lunch, on maternity leave or on vacation, and you have a customer who wants to know....you've got a good chance of thoroughly lousing up the customer's day. Remember this too: we all die sometime. What if someone, God forbid, passes away? Get your staff to familiarize others around them with what they do and give briefings on where things are in case they happen to be gone. Football teams always have a backup quarterback they pay decent money for. Take a hint.
7. Technology can help--if you want to have staff come in earlier or stay later, that's fine. But try subscribing them to a system of access to their work computer from home or when they have to travel. Supply them with Blackberries so they can keep on top of their email. This may prevent things from piling up and allowing them to be more efficient. Use conference calls or web conferences, which eliminate the need to spend the whole day travelling.
8. Allow for the unexpected--if you keep on top of everything using some of the suggestions above, you'll have the great little gaps in your work day that allow for spending more time on research, competitive shopping, etc. And, in the event that something happens and you suddenly get busy, now you are prepared and you don't have a pile of unfinished stuff that gets even bigger. Think of the last two minutes in a football game. Teams prepare that "two minute drill" for good reason. It's hoped in most games it won't be needed, but when they find themselves in a close game and they have only two minutes or less to take the lead and hold that lead, time management is crucial. And it is not just in the last two minutes that managing the game and the clock become important--a team that is still capable of winning will have managed well the entire game leading up to that point. Customers will remember the company that could keep its head when all around them were losing theirs, just as we remember those games when Joe Montana took his team all the way down the field to take the lead and win the game.
Many I talk to in various businesses are remarking on this same subject that I used as the title of this piece. If you can avoid having the same thing said about your business think of how much further ahead you will be when times get better as they inevitably will.
Has this happened to you? Whether you're a customer or supplier, you contact someone, agree to have a project done or at least underway by a certain date, you call back and they haven't even started. Or, worse, you're on the other end of that situation: they call you back and you're embarrassed to say you haven't had time to get the work done.
It doesn't need to be this way and for the sake of your future in any business, it shouldn't be; it better not be. Recessions and Depressions have a cleansing effect--they weed out the, um, well, weeds. The rotten tomatoes, the bad eggs, the old, lame and unfit. With lousy time management skills, lousy management skills overall, you will be weeded out. Now is the time to get fit when it comes to these vital skills and if you do, when times get better, you will reap the benefits.
Here's a few observations and ways to avoid common mistakes. Are you falling prey to these?:
1. Have a detailed checklist of what you need to do today, tomorrow, next week, next month--and stick to it as best as possible. Outlook has a scheduling function, if you like it, use it. If you want to use a daytimer, legal pad, another computer program, great. But USE them. Add detail daily--in other words, if you've scheduled yourself to call XYZ Corp once a month just to touch base, add particular details like followup on the last order you shipped them...telling them about some new product coming next month that suits them perfectly...those kinds of things.
2. As you do things on your checklist, check them off, and if you don't get to accomplish them, schedule them tomorrow, or next best day--don't let something slip through the cracks. Examine your "to do" list often during the day to make sure you're doing these things at the best time. Examine at the end of the day...did you get it all done, or re-schedule? I still use a sheet of paper with a list of things to do and I have a pencil in hand all the time.
3. When you're on the phone have a pencil in your hand and paper ready...always--if I had a dime for every phone conversation that lasted several minutes, then I asked the guy on the other end if he'd written it down only to hear "oh wait a minute, lemme get a pencil", I'd be a millionaire. But at least he's getting the pencil. Don't waste our time by not being ready when you ought to be. Have a pencil handy from the start of the call....or be at your computer so you can document what needs to be done. If you tell yourself "I'll have to remember this when I get off the call" something can and will come up, and there is a good chance you'll forget.
When you email or tell someone "OK, I'll do this" cc yourself if you have do, but do it, don't forget it.
4. Lunch-- what an absolute timewaste. I'm spoiled, I work out of my home. If I'm hungry, I just get a quick sandwich or snack and I'm back at work immediately. However, I guess we have to avoid being accused of being slave drivers, so a lunch break is something we have give employees. However, here's my major gripe: does everyone in an office have to take their lunch break at the same time? Why not stagger it a bit? The whole AP department is out and you need an invoice number now? The USA has 4+ time zones. It would be extremely effective and efficient, to leave at least one or two back at the office who can answer calls if need be--because not everyone from coast to coast is taking lunch at the same time you are. This leads to the next few points...
5. Vacation--try to have vacations staggered a bit too. Offer an extra day to employees that may take vacation during an off period. Vacations occur a lot during crucial build-up times to sales peaks too, for certain industries. Companies should not grind to a halt because some staff are on vacation. Effective management and time management means things are designed to go smoothly even when someone takes time off.
6. The Secret Key will anger your customer--by "secret key" I mean this: so and so is the only one in the office that can answer a particular question or find a particular document. If that person is at lunch, on maternity leave or on vacation, and you have a customer who wants to know....you've got a good chance of thoroughly lousing up the customer's day. Remember this too: we all die sometime. What if someone, God forbid, passes away? Get your staff to familiarize others around them with what they do and give briefings on where things are in case they happen to be gone. Football teams always have a backup quarterback they pay decent money for. Take a hint.
7. Technology can help--if you want to have staff come in earlier or stay later, that's fine. But try subscribing them to a system of access to their work computer from home or when they have to travel. Supply them with Blackberries so they can keep on top of their email. This may prevent things from piling up and allowing them to be more efficient. Use conference calls or web conferences, which eliminate the need to spend the whole day travelling.
8. Allow for the unexpected--if you keep on top of everything using some of the suggestions above, you'll have the great little gaps in your work day that allow for spending more time on research, competitive shopping, etc. And, in the event that something happens and you suddenly get busy, now you are prepared and you don't have a pile of unfinished stuff that gets even bigger. Think of the last two minutes in a football game. Teams prepare that "two minute drill" for good reason. It's hoped in most games it won't be needed, but when they find themselves in a close game and they have only two minutes or less to take the lead and hold that lead, time management is crucial. And it is not just in the last two minutes that managing the game and the clock become important--a team that is still capable of winning will have managed well the entire game leading up to that point. Customers will remember the company that could keep its head when all around them were losing theirs, just as we remember those games when Joe Montana took his team all the way down the field to take the lead and win the game.
Many I talk to in various businesses are remarking on this same subject that I used as the title of this piece. If you can avoid having the same thing said about your business think of how much further ahead you will be when times get better as they inevitably will.
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