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.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
You’ve Been In The Auto Industry For Years…And You’re Unemployed…What Do You Do?
Whether working for GM, Ford or Chrysler, dealerships, assembly plants, white collar or blue collar…if you haven’t figured out your industry is changing and will not (repeat not) go back to being the way it was ever again, you are in far more trouble than just being threatened with job loss. The ways things have been done by Detroit are about to change drastically, forever.
It’s sad when an industry simply won’t face facts. The music industry is another case study. Those that adjusted and could deal with the changing market survived and moved on. The rest had to settle for whatever live dealt them…like selling insurance instead of tunes. But if you love the auto industry and that’s all you want to dedicate your working life to, what do you do?
What follows, I hope, will be a way that perhaps 30% of those laid off from the auto industry can keep a foot in the door and eventually get back into it full time, working for themselves, making a decent living. Forget about a union lording over you. Forget about entitlements—that no one is going to be able to fulfill anyway. This 30% could amount to as many as 100,000 new jobs, if estimates to the total jobs being currently lost are correct.
In the June 2009 issue of Wired, Charles Mann discusses “Beyond Detroit”. The top down model the big three automakers is dead, he says. He theorizes that, like computer companies did in the 1980s, where many small firms contributed to the overall advancement, innovation, and development of the business, the American auto industry will have to do that as well. The new economy in many industries, including the automobile industry, will favor the small. Detroit will have to incorporate ideas from outsiders as never before.
All the myriad parts of what makes up a typical car—like the AC system, transmission, safety devices, electrical, etc. have been traditionally made and developed internally for the most part, from each auto manufacturer. What is starting to change now is that there are small companies popping up that specialize in niches for the automobile manufacturers. Mann gives example in Transonic Combustion of Camarillo CA, who are working on a whole new breed of fuel injection systems that will enable cars to get as much as 100 miles per gallon.
Rumors of such possibilities have floated around for years, even decades. But now the market is changing. Automakers are going to have to start looking at small companies that can pull this kind of innovation off. Particularly when we have Washington DC dictating what goes on in more aspects of our lives and businesses.
Now, back to the job opportunities this suggests. Sure, you can go to work for one of those small firms. No telling how long the firm will be around, but at least it’s a job opportunity and besides, welcome to the real world where a lot of us have had to deal with such frequent turnover no matter what industry we may have worked for. You may have the technical expertise to be one of those innovative small manufacturing companies... but what if you can’t afford the risk? What about being an independent sales rep in this growing field?
The day may come when the average automobile trade show will be still dominated by big booths featuring new car models, but then more, possibly a lot more smaller booths housing vendors who specialize in the niches, like Transonic Combustion. And if they are like many other industries, these smaller booths will have a sign out front saying “Reps Wanted”. Independent sales reps, that is.
Picture the possibilities for a guy or gal who kicked around for 20 years with GM or Chrysler. He or she knows the industry cold, and knows people who are still working for those firms and in other parts of the industry. He or she can represent several lines of small, innovative new firm specializing in specific parts or systems to sell to these large auto makers. If this rep can land one or two deals a year that mean millions for these companies, and make a percentage of the deal in commissions, this rep is doing pretty well financially. Well enough that he or she can buy their own health insurance and start funding their own pension.
Executive recruiter and radio host Martin Birnbach says that 70% of people out there need to work for someone else, need mentoring, supervision, to be led in their work environment. That leaves 30% who are self-starters, that prefer to “be the only SOB they want to work for”. An Independent Sales Rep is an example of this. Unlike the tech-savvy entrepreneur who wants to try to start their own firm, the rep can start to work for him- or herself with very little overhead.
The entire auto industry would do well to let that 30% loose, let a lot of them be the independent sales representatives who can facilitate the coming-together and meeting of minds between the large automakers and the small innovative start-ups. It may be chaotic, but from chaos comes change. And no one would disagree change is exactly what the auto industry needs.
It’s sad when an industry simply won’t face facts. The music industry is another case study. Those that adjusted and could deal with the changing market survived and moved on. The rest had to settle for whatever live dealt them…like selling insurance instead of tunes. But if you love the auto industry and that’s all you want to dedicate your working life to, what do you do?
What follows, I hope, will be a way that perhaps 30% of those laid off from the auto industry can keep a foot in the door and eventually get back into it full time, working for themselves, making a decent living. Forget about a union lording over you. Forget about entitlements—that no one is going to be able to fulfill anyway. This 30% could amount to as many as 100,000 new jobs, if estimates to the total jobs being currently lost are correct.
In the June 2009 issue of Wired, Charles Mann discusses “Beyond Detroit”. The top down model the big three automakers is dead, he says. He theorizes that, like computer companies did in the 1980s, where many small firms contributed to the overall advancement, innovation, and development of the business, the American auto industry will have to do that as well. The new economy in many industries, including the automobile industry, will favor the small. Detroit will have to incorporate ideas from outsiders as never before.
All the myriad parts of what makes up a typical car—like the AC system, transmission, safety devices, electrical, etc. have been traditionally made and developed internally for the most part, from each auto manufacturer. What is starting to change now is that there are small companies popping up that specialize in niches for the automobile manufacturers. Mann gives example in Transonic Combustion of Camarillo CA, who are working on a whole new breed of fuel injection systems that will enable cars to get as much as 100 miles per gallon.
Rumors of such possibilities have floated around for years, even decades. But now the market is changing. Automakers are going to have to start looking at small companies that can pull this kind of innovation off. Particularly when we have Washington DC dictating what goes on in more aspects of our lives and businesses.
Now, back to the job opportunities this suggests. Sure, you can go to work for one of those small firms. No telling how long the firm will be around, but at least it’s a job opportunity and besides, welcome to the real world where a lot of us have had to deal with such frequent turnover no matter what industry we may have worked for. You may have the technical expertise to be one of those innovative small manufacturing companies... but what if you can’t afford the risk? What about being an independent sales rep in this growing field?
The day may come when the average automobile trade show will be still dominated by big booths featuring new car models, but then more, possibly a lot more smaller booths housing vendors who specialize in the niches, like Transonic Combustion. And if they are like many other industries, these smaller booths will have a sign out front saying “Reps Wanted”. Independent sales reps, that is.
Picture the possibilities for a guy or gal who kicked around for 20 years with GM or Chrysler. He or she knows the industry cold, and knows people who are still working for those firms and in other parts of the industry. He or she can represent several lines of small, innovative new firm specializing in specific parts or systems to sell to these large auto makers. If this rep can land one or two deals a year that mean millions for these companies, and make a percentage of the deal in commissions, this rep is doing pretty well financially. Well enough that he or she can buy their own health insurance and start funding their own pension.
Executive recruiter and radio host Martin Birnbach says that 70% of people out there need to work for someone else, need mentoring, supervision, to be led in their work environment. That leaves 30% who are self-starters, that prefer to “be the only SOB they want to work for”. An Independent Sales Rep is an example of this. Unlike the tech-savvy entrepreneur who wants to try to start their own firm, the rep can start to work for him- or herself with very little overhead.
The entire auto industry would do well to let that 30% loose, let a lot of them be the independent sales representatives who can facilitate the coming-together and meeting of minds between the large automakers and the small innovative start-ups. It may be chaotic, but from chaos comes change. And no one would disagree change is exactly what the auto industry needs.
Monday, May 11, 2009
5 Things A Vendor Can Do To Help Reps Sell More Of Their Goods
After a long conversation with a new sales manager at a vendor that hasn’t seen much action from me lately, I noticed she sent out a blanket email asking other reps for “Five Things You’d Recommend Us Do” to get more business. Great move, and a great topic.
Many vendors do not try to get this kind of feedback and they really ought to, be it from reps or customers themselves. I’ve seen many vendors go along their business thinking they know what they are doing but they find out too late they don’t.
It reminds me of a trip to a shopping center during the holidays with my kids when they were ages 2 and 4. I had my 2-year-old daughter in my right hand, my 4-year-old son in the left. He was at the age when he was figuring he could do everything on his own, he didn’t need hand-holding. The mall was packed with crowds of shoppers, and I kept telling him to hold onto my hand. He kept arguing. So I let go and told him to stick close.
Naturally, his attention started to wander and he drifted away in the crowd, but I kept an eye on him. He looked up and realized he was lost, and the panic on his face, the tears welling up in his eyes were unmistakable.
It’s not unlike the vibes we get when we see a vendor who’s steadfastly refused any sort of feedback for years, finally go down the tubes and out of business.
So here are five things they can do to help us reps, and by extension their customers, sell more of their product:
1. Have Marketing Materials. A website is fine, but keep it up to date. You should have print also—don’t use the lame excuse you’re “going green”. LLBean uses both print and website marketing to catalog their product and they are probably more “green” than you’ll ever be.
2. Share Marketing Materials. If you enter into a relationship with a rep it means you want access to the relationships he/she has with customers you probably don’t have. So if the rep wants X amount of catalogs or passwords to your website, for goodness’ sake, give them to the rep! Unless of course you have all the business you can handle, but then…how many vendors can make that claim?
3. Have Something New To Report. Monthly, weekly, semi-annually—whatever cycle applies to your industry. This gives the rep something new to, in turn, tell the customer. And besides, it makes you as a vendor look relevant. A monthly sale on some particular item or category among your products is an easy way to do this. Just having new releases is good, but spice it up a bit. Sales, promotions, thematically inspired stuff is good and makes customers eager to hear from you via the rep.
4. Logistics—keep them up-to-date. Not only your website and catalogs, but your bookkeeping and the way you communicate. When every other vendor is sending art and information via email with PDFs and Jpegs, if you are faxing this kind of information, a rep will tend to ignore or forget you. E-invoicing is another great new feature. Take advantage of technology to make everyone’s job easier. Your reps and customers will love you for it.
5. Respect Reps’ Images. Never, ever, make the rep look bad to a customer unless they really truly are bad and have misrepresented your product or corporate image. Even if it's done unintentionally, correct it yourself, don’t leave it up to the rep. For instance, let’s say you’ve just hired a new receptionist who is ignorant of the fact that an order a rep placed three weeks ago is stalled in credit. That customer calls to ask where his order is and the new receptionist says “We don’t have it here”. The customer is instantly going to blame the rep. When this occurs, contact the customer and apologize for the confusion. I’ve personally stopped selling anything for lines that did this—why bother when I’ve got other lines that thoroughly train anyone before letting them answer such queries? Even if it is an isolated case, the vendor should waste no time taking corrective action. Your reps are partners so treat them as such.
There are more things that vendors can do to ease their relationships with reps; these are the most obvious and any well-run company ought to do these things even if they don’t use independent sales reps.
Many vendors do not try to get this kind of feedback and they really ought to, be it from reps or customers themselves. I’ve seen many vendors go along their business thinking they know what they are doing but they find out too late they don’t.
It reminds me of a trip to a shopping center during the holidays with my kids when they were ages 2 and 4. I had my 2-year-old daughter in my right hand, my 4-year-old son in the left. He was at the age when he was figuring he could do everything on his own, he didn’t need hand-holding. The mall was packed with crowds of shoppers, and I kept telling him to hold onto my hand. He kept arguing. So I let go and told him to stick close.
Naturally, his attention started to wander and he drifted away in the crowd, but I kept an eye on him. He looked up and realized he was lost, and the panic on his face, the tears welling up in his eyes were unmistakable.
It’s not unlike the vibes we get when we see a vendor who’s steadfastly refused any sort of feedback for years, finally go down the tubes and out of business.
So here are five things they can do to help us reps, and by extension their customers, sell more of their product:
1. Have Marketing Materials. A website is fine, but keep it up to date. You should have print also—don’t use the lame excuse you’re “going green”. LLBean uses both print and website marketing to catalog their product and they are probably more “green” than you’ll ever be.
2. Share Marketing Materials. If you enter into a relationship with a rep it means you want access to the relationships he/she has with customers you probably don’t have. So if the rep wants X amount of catalogs or passwords to your website, for goodness’ sake, give them to the rep! Unless of course you have all the business you can handle, but then…how many vendors can make that claim?
3. Have Something New To Report. Monthly, weekly, semi-annually—whatever cycle applies to your industry. This gives the rep something new to, in turn, tell the customer. And besides, it makes you as a vendor look relevant. A monthly sale on some particular item or category among your products is an easy way to do this. Just having new releases is good, but spice it up a bit. Sales, promotions, thematically inspired stuff is good and makes customers eager to hear from you via the rep.
4. Logistics—keep them up-to-date. Not only your website and catalogs, but your bookkeeping and the way you communicate. When every other vendor is sending art and information via email with PDFs and Jpegs, if you are faxing this kind of information, a rep will tend to ignore or forget you. E-invoicing is another great new feature. Take advantage of technology to make everyone’s job easier. Your reps and customers will love you for it.
5. Respect Reps’ Images. Never, ever, make the rep look bad to a customer unless they really truly are bad and have misrepresented your product or corporate image. Even if it's done unintentionally, correct it yourself, don’t leave it up to the rep. For instance, let’s say you’ve just hired a new receptionist who is ignorant of the fact that an order a rep placed three weeks ago is stalled in credit. That customer calls to ask where his order is and the new receptionist says “We don’t have it here”. The customer is instantly going to blame the rep. When this occurs, contact the customer and apologize for the confusion. I’ve personally stopped selling anything for lines that did this—why bother when I’ve got other lines that thoroughly train anyone before letting them answer such queries? Even if it is an isolated case, the vendor should waste no time taking corrective action. Your reps are partners so treat them as such.
There are more things that vendors can do to ease their relationships with reps; these are the most obvious and any well-run company ought to do these things even if they don’t use independent sales reps.
Monday, April 20, 2009
The Perfect Sales Career During This Tough Economy
There are around sixteen million people in the USA that classify their career as "sales". How many of these professionals feel safe and secure at their job in this tough economy?
Hard to tell, but I'd say many of them (30% to be conservative) either fear for their position with their company, or fear that their company will be bought out and then downsize, or disappear altogether. Also, there's perhaps 10% in addition who are self-starters anyway and are itching to branch off on their own. These entrepreneurs at heart would be anxious to leave after learning all they can at a steady job, whether the economy is good or bad. So, what type of vocation would be perfect for all these folks--ie, about 40% or more than 6 million sales pros currently in this country?
Easy: they should be Independent Sales Reps.
By easy, it's meant the answer is easy. Actually being an Independent Rep can be tough. Consider these arguments in favor of taking that route:
Hard to tell, but I'd say many of them (30% to be conservative) either fear for their position with their company, or fear that their company will be bought out and then downsize, or disappear altogether. Also, there's perhaps 10% in addition who are self-starters anyway and are itching to branch off on their own. These entrepreneurs at heart would be anxious to leave after learning all they can at a steady job, whether the economy is good or bad. So, what type of vocation would be perfect for all these folks--ie, about 40% or more than 6 million sales pros currently in this country?
Easy: they should be Independent Sales Reps.
By easy, it's meant the answer is easy. Actually being an Independent Rep can be tough. Consider these arguments in favor of taking that route:
- You often work out of your home
- You can, and should, use your knowledge, skills and contacts acquired through your years dedicated to your career and industry. Being an indie rep isn't an entry level position, so do get experience under your belt and work up a sizeable rolodex or contacts list for your particular field. And don't burn bridges!
- You won't require much overhead in supplying yourself with tools of the trade--computer, copy machine, phones, fax, a decent car...most of this stuff you probably already own or can easily afford and place in a spare room in your home to use as a home office.
- You can start small and keep working your way up. Take a part-time job in retail or some service industry if you've been laid off, and then work on getting a few lines into some accounts you have established contacts with...next thing you know, you have some more customer contacts, then more lines to sell....see how it works?
OK, so why should any companies consider hiring you on?
First, you work for commission only...and those commissions can add up. It's not unusual for indie sales reps to make high five-figures, up into six-figure incomes. Therefore, to the company paying the commissions, you are worth only what you actually deliver...a novel concept in today's entitlement culture. That culture, by the way, is now ruining the biggest and most powerful companies of the last century. Just ask General Motors.
Second, the company doesn't have to train you or pay any benefits or perks. You do all this yourself. But it can be done, don't worry--besides, they're paying you just to deliver, no matter how that's accomplished. It's estimated the cost of hiring, training and paying benefits to an employee is close to $40K--and that's before the employee really starts to kick in and pay for himself by being productive. If a company can get results without that expense, there is another attractive aspect of using independent sales representatives.
Established companies that are looking to cut costs in this economic malaise would be absolutely crazy not to study the option of using independent reps, even just to supplement their in-house sales staff. These same companies outsource almost everything else from payroll to janitorial services to human resources to customer care. Why not sales?!?!? If there is one plumb account that they don't have in their client lists, and YOU can bring that customer to the table, at $100,000 in sales annually, don't you think any sane Sales VP would be willing to give you a percentage of that? Even if you still hold some kind of part-time gig or "day job", that's not a bad commission check to start out with. And from there you find more accounts, and more lines to sell.
A lot of sales professionals used to a steady base salary + commissions check may live in fear of being self-employed; that is natural. But keep thinking how great it would be if you called the shots! If you work up a portfolio of several dozen lines to sell to scores of accounts, your business will grow to the extent that even if one of those lines fires you, so what? You have several dozen more to fall back on.
And you'll be helping the country... How? you might ask? Having more people self-employed means more people paying taxes quarterly. Once these people go from having taxes deducted from their paychecks (a passive way to do it--face it, one gets used to the net amount they are paid) to having to write that massive check every few months (an active way to do it), paying taxes becomes a much more acutely aware activity. And this leads to citizens who are far more demanding on the government to quit wasting our money on self-serving schemes that pad every spending bill. There's nothing more fearful to career politicians than an informed and enraged electorate.
To learn more about how to be successful as an Independent Sales Rep, read my book, available on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Independent-Sales-Rep-Successful-Successfully/dp/1439224153/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240252216&sr=1-1
...And if you are a small company who needs outside sales help--the book has a lot of helpful information in it for you too.
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