Set up a Sales Force
Is your refrain about a sales force,
"I have never been able to get a salesperson to perform for me. They just don’t walk to the same beat as everyone else."
Of course the first attempt at hiring a sales force did not work. That is to be expected. The first several times you tried to ride a bike you probably fell off.
In order to grow with any growth strategy other than to ride a few corporate clients (which has other business risk) you will need to create a sale team.
The way to make a sales force work is actually, to treat them like other employees or contractors. Develop systems for how you want them to work. This needs to be realistically based on meeting their needs and have realistic objectives. But, just letting a good talker run wild will never work.
One way we recommend you start is to develop a process based on your personal experience:
1. Write down exactly how you make prospect calls.
2. Write down how you do follow-up and tracking.
3. Write down how you close your sales and what the paperwork process is.
4. Write down expectations for salesperson. Specific criteria such as number of cold calls per day, number of appointments per week, etc.
5. Develop tracking method to record progress in each area
6. Find a salesperson who will work for commission or almost completely commission AND will follow your system
7. This person might start with small areas such as cold calling.
8. While part-time might be work, in most cases they must only be selling your product.
9. Plan on hiring 5 people to get one that really works for you. Set it up in the beginning that if the results are not met they will not stay. When you get the one that really works keep them happy. Usually it is not money that causes people to leave.
Fine-tune this process with input from your salespeople, experience, and others.
Monday, May 24, 2004
Interesting Collateral Marketing Materials
"Our marketing materials are so bland no-one reads them". How can this be overcome?
Develop simple collateral materials around the problem you solve:
1. Determine the chief problems that your product is solving from the customer point of view.
2. Determine if your clients think the product solved the problem and would they recommend it to others – get recommendation letters, tapes etc.
3. Maintaining a problem focus in the headlines, develop simple but effective collateral materials.
"Our marketing materials are so bland no-one reads them". How can this be overcome?
Develop simple collateral materials around the problem you solve:
1. Determine the chief problems that your product is solving from the customer point of view.
2. Determine if your clients think the product solved the problem and would they recommend it to others – get recommendation letters, tapes etc.
3. Maintaining a problem focus in the headlines, develop simple but effective collateral materials.
Monday, May 17, 2004
Who Does What?
“How do I know what needs to be done,” is not a reasonable excuse for delaying the task of defining job descriptions. If you, or the correct person below you, do not know what your people should be doing, how do you expect them to know?
In order to effectively delegate you must clearly define what people need to do. We have heard every excuse imaginable as to why people don’t accurately record job descriptions including, “the tasks change too rapidly”, “if they are really good we will want to give them more work”, and finally, “how do I know what needs to be done.”
The best way to define tasks is to carefully write down each step as it is done for each defined task. Find a logical starting point and a logical finish point for the task. Once you have written down what is done you may want to get together with staff and talk about how the process might be improved. Staff will often have great time and step saving ideas that improve efficiency and results.
The definitions can often be covered in one or two pages. They do not have to be huge books. Start with your critical complex tasks then work down to the simple ones. Defining one job a month for a year will cover most small businesses.
Part of the definition process is to define acceptable variances and to define how to fix issues once they fall out of an acceptable range. Include how the work will be measured. This may be spot-checking at certain times, going over summary reports or other methods. It is important to keep the process as simple and self-correcting as possible.
As a thought to keep your employment lawyer comfortable make sure you always include the following legal disclaimers. All descriptions and tasks are subject to change without notice. Nothing in this description is intended to change the relationship known, as employment at will between the employee and the employer. We suggest you check with your employment lawyer for exact wording in your jurisdiction.
The final step is to actually implement the job descriptions. The measurement and reporting should tie into periodic performance reviews. They also should be updated yearly.
“How do I know what needs to be done,” is not a reasonable excuse for delaying the task of defining job descriptions. If you, or the correct person below you, do not know what your people should be doing, how do you expect them to know?
In order to effectively delegate you must clearly define what people need to do. We have heard every excuse imaginable as to why people don’t accurately record job descriptions including, “the tasks change too rapidly”, “if they are really good we will want to give them more work”, and finally, “how do I know what needs to be done.”
The best way to define tasks is to carefully write down each step as it is done for each defined task. Find a logical starting point and a logical finish point for the task. Once you have written down what is done you may want to get together with staff and talk about how the process might be improved. Staff will often have great time and step saving ideas that improve efficiency and results.
The definitions can often be covered in one or two pages. They do not have to be huge books. Start with your critical complex tasks then work down to the simple ones. Defining one job a month for a year will cover most small businesses.
Part of the definition process is to define acceptable variances and to define how to fix issues once they fall out of an acceptable range. Include how the work will be measured. This may be spot-checking at certain times, going over summary reports or other methods. It is important to keep the process as simple and self-correcting as possible.
As a thought to keep your employment lawyer comfortable make sure you always include the following legal disclaimers. All descriptions and tasks are subject to change without notice. Nothing in this description is intended to change the relationship known, as employment at will between the employee and the employer. We suggest you check with your employment lawyer for exact wording in your jurisdiction.
The final step is to actually implement the job descriptions. The measurement and reporting should tie into periodic performance reviews. They also should be updated yearly.
Friday, May 14, 2004
Accounting Consistency
We went through our accounting records and concluded that we don’t have a clue about our expenses!
How could this happen? After all you paid your bookkeeper to enter all the information. You paid your vendors. Why is the information useless?
Many businesses make the mistake of carelessly cost coding their accounting records. One month the rent will be placed in the rent column. The next month it may be placed under lease. The month after that it may be called facilities. Over time it becomes very difficult to determine what is going on. Rent is usually a fairly large payment made monthly that can be sorted out. Think of the work involved to sort out with office purchases, material purchases, travel expenses and other variable costs.
To obtain valid data that becomes more meaningful over time you must consistently classify your expenses the same way every month. Then over time cost trends can be compared. These comparisons should be used to manage your business.
For instance carefully coded travel expenses will allow you to immediately see when your sales force decides to travel first class without your approval.
Don’t end up with tons of useless data. Cost code and enter accounting data with care. It really will not cost you any more and the information may one day save your business.
We went through our accounting records and concluded that we don’t have a clue about our expenses!
How could this happen? After all you paid your bookkeeper to enter all the information. You paid your vendors. Why is the information useless?
Many businesses make the mistake of carelessly cost coding their accounting records. One month the rent will be placed in the rent column. The next month it may be placed under lease. The month after that it may be called facilities. Over time it becomes very difficult to determine what is going on. Rent is usually a fairly large payment made monthly that can be sorted out. Think of the work involved to sort out with office purchases, material purchases, travel expenses and other variable costs.
To obtain valid data that becomes more meaningful over time you must consistently classify your expenses the same way every month. Then over time cost trends can be compared. These comparisons should be used to manage your business.
For instance carefully coded travel expenses will allow you to immediately see when your sales force decides to travel first class without your approval.
Don’t end up with tons of useless data. Cost code and enter accounting data with care. It really will not cost you any more and the information may one day save your business.
Monday, May 10, 2004
Maintaining Balance
Every once in a while we all get overwhelmed. Having just completed one of those periods I thought I might reflect.
Often becoming overwhelmed is from failing to delegate, failing to give product delivery dates that can be met, or failing to otherwise intelligently manage your workflow. You know it all has to be done tomorrow – but does it?
The best solution I have found for that panicky feeling that comes from being overwhelmed is to write a list of everything that needs to be done. Usually the list is not that daunting. Then you look at what needs to be done when and assign dates to projects. If necessary you can make a call or two to see if things can be moved around a little bit.
9 times out of 10 at this point you start feeling better. That 10th time will happen and is a part of life. Being overwhelmed the other 9 times should be avoided by staying or getting organized.
Once you are organized again find time to start doing your high value - important work instead of just your urgent low value work.
Remember to think – then act.
Every once in a while we all get overwhelmed. Having just completed one of those periods I thought I might reflect.
Often becoming overwhelmed is from failing to delegate, failing to give product delivery dates that can be met, or failing to otherwise intelligently manage your workflow. You know it all has to be done tomorrow – but does it?
The best solution I have found for that panicky feeling that comes from being overwhelmed is to write a list of everything that needs to be done. Usually the list is not that daunting. Then you look at what needs to be done when and assign dates to projects. If necessary you can make a call or two to see if things can be moved around a little bit.
9 times out of 10 at this point you start feeling better. That 10th time will happen and is a part of life. Being overwhelmed the other 9 times should be avoided by staying or getting organized.
Once you are organized again find time to start doing your high value - important work instead of just your urgent low value work.
Remember to think – then act.
Monday, May 03, 2004
Asking For Help
One of the absolutely best ways to improve your business, or anything else, is to ask for help. This seems so basic that you probably ask why I would write something like this.
Let me tell you a story. A long time ago, when I had just started my first job out of school I was given a PC and a software program, Symphony.
I spent 5 hours trying to get the program to boot up. I read the manual. I banged on the computer. I did everything but ask. After five hours I went - all embarrassed that I could not get the computer to start - and admitted to my boss that his new hire apparently could not read. Instead of looking at me like I was an idiot, he laughed and stated, “I forgot to tell you that the instructions are wrong, you would never get it started without asking.”
While it took me many more years to learn to ask freely for help I now save many hours a week by asking questions.
Perhaps you might do the same?
One of the absolutely best ways to improve your business, or anything else, is to ask for help. This seems so basic that you probably ask why I would write something like this.
Let me tell you a story. A long time ago, when I had just started my first job out of school I was given a PC and a software program, Symphony.
I spent 5 hours trying to get the program to boot up. I read the manual. I banged on the computer. I did everything but ask. After five hours I went - all embarrassed that I could not get the computer to start - and admitted to my boss that his new hire apparently could not read. Instead of looking at me like I was an idiot, he laughed and stated, “I forgot to tell you that the instructions are wrong, you would never get it started without asking.”
While it took me many more years to learn to ask freely for help I now save many hours a week by asking questions.
Perhaps you might do the same?
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