Still Have A “Big Hat No Cattle” Salesperson On Your Payroll?

Flash; company growth comes from your inside and outside sales force.
Marketing and building a better mousetrap are important components, but many times, if you build it, sorry, they don’t always come! Why not?????? 

More and more companies are now looking to staff up their sales as the economy turns for the better, yet are not really knowledgeable as to what type of salesperson will be successful in the coming years. What we see is they advertise for that perfect “fit” which never exists, hence the sales drop and drop and drop. We suggest you do two things right now:

1) Embrace the understanding that you are looking for a professional salesperson that brings you new orders. Sales is a discipline, the product many times is not as important as the candidates ability to convince buyers to use your product instead of the competitors. This is the salesperson’s talent and what they should be paid for; profitable new sales. 

2) Take a hard look at your existing sales force, Some pragmatic sales force red flags to “deal with” or your company may die.  Are your sales declining and draws (or salaries) are not covered?  Consider the following:

*Are you paying the draw and turning a blind eye to the fact that the salesperson is carrying “other company's  lines" for no draw?

*Is this salesperson continually coming to you to cut the price to get orders?

* Do your top sales people reflect a tactic of annexing accounts from departed low producing sales reps? These reps, mistakenly, claim to be top producers but won’t let you put a new sales rep in to their (“rented”) territory when you find a good candidate, and cannibalize the new rep if you do hire them.

* After being involved in “input from their customers” on your product development and catalogs, do their sales still decline?  Do they blame your products and catalogs as what “their” customer said is the reason, even after you gave them  exactly what the customer asked for?

* At trade shows do they spend more time at competitor’s booths than selling at yours?

* Do they continually want you to foot the bill for new promotions, and a higher draw/commissions to offset rising overhead without taking it out of their side?

*Are you are too busy to track sales results, or ignore them when they are bad?

In 2010, many companies are looking to grow their sales by attracting new sales talent. Do you know where your existing sales force is headed?  Still looking for the perfect salesperson "fit" who comes from your market background?

Would you know a winning salesperson when you met one?  Would you actually hire one or just collapse the vacant territory to an exisitng old timer. Still cautiously looking for the perfect knowledge background "fit" within your industry?  Isn't  it now time to look  out of the box, and recognize "selling ability" is the defined talent skill set you are trying to recruit?   JMHO.

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Do Manners Still Matter In Modern Business Success?

I’m compelled to write this after hearing about the Bob McDonnell (Governor of Virginia) “F” grade remarks in American History last week. His totally off the wall revisionist "political" proclamation was a huge injustice to African Americans, Historians, and former black governor Douglas Wilder for sure. In my humble opinion this was also very insulting and displays  bad manners, unbecoming of a modern day "Virginian".

My blog focus today, however motivated, is a look at business manners in the age of the modern internet which was merely spawned by his recent misguided perspective of  "all" Virginians.

Most Virginians in my long travels have been held in the highest esteem by many  for their well mannered social skills in the business world. Whether I’ve been on the winning or losing end of a project, I’ve mostly admired this trait where Virginian business folks can leave you with a sense of dignity even when you have lost the “deal”. They are generally always tough, but polite, have impeccable manners, and are well spoken. Governor Bob McDonnell appears to be an isolated exception to my perception in this specific case.

I submit, manners are still one of the great traits of successful businesses people.  Even in a point and click world quality leaders want to connect with the human behind the keyboard.  Some notable selected examples in my career that I will never forget:

•       Williamsburg, Virginia and Gettysburg Pennsylvania merchants, per my reference to the Governor's recent remarks (He used these towns as examples to make his point), are really very business savvy.  The Governor should now apologize to these modern merchants as he is not fully understanding why they are so successful. Both town’s represent two of the top destinations for tourism and buying of consumer goods in the world.  They present traditional, powerful branding,  marketing, merchandising, customer experience, and ebusiness as well as any.  Both towns welcome all to their doorstep, it's about commerce and proudly making all visitors feel like very important guests.

•       Most striking in these two towns is the open public display of manners that make you feel special where ever you come from or your background. Always a “please or thank you Sir or Madam”, doors opened for ladies, and proper but friendly table and server manners on display from 2 stars to 5 star restaurants. These merchants have successfully blended the past traditions with modern marketing, always remembering how appreciative they are of the buyers coming to their doorstep. They are marketing leaders in person, television, printed catalog,  or over the internet.

• Suzie Ormond has the gift and respect of manners! At one time in my career I had fun being a guest presenter for the QVC television network. My first show was nerve racking as can be and much was new to me.  I was following the Susie Ormond show, one of QVC’s top stars and shows.  To this day I will always remember her simple kindness in reaching out her hand and offering to carry my boxes in from my car. Suzie was next up and under pressure to go on, yet she extended this incredible “human” offer. I mentioned I was impressed by her being a big star and so grounded; her response was “We are all in this together, I was just raised this way”.  Needless to say she has my respect forever, and again makes my point of why manners are a distinguishable trait of highly successful people.

•       Richard Chan owner of Morningside Investments (Former cancer M.D. in Boston, and one of the world’s wealthiest people) in Hong Kong understands the force of manners in the business world. In visiting his firm for expansion capital he met me at the Oriental hotel on HK island , but asked me to stand by a certain spot and he would come by, find me, and quickly leave to another location.  Five minutes before our meeting he showed up and personally opened the doors for me as we walked to his office.  During the meeting, he always stood up when someone entered and was the last to be seated.  I surely appreciated such an important person picking me up but was respectful of his time and my relatively small request compared to his holdings.

•       I, however, was very puzzled.  When I openly asked and complimented him about this, He told me he does this every time he meets a new person to make them feel comfortable and give undivided attention.  I was blown away by Richard's explanation that was now becoming familiar; “I was raised to have good manners by my parents”.  I’ll never forget his lesson that day! This is what I now call a class act!

      So, in the age of modern technology, my question to many of the young business people and entrepreneurs hitting the career street in the next few year is simply “How were you raised?” My sense is traditional good manners will be a great arrow to have in your quiver to differentiate you for your business competition in the growing high tech world. JMHO

Want A Simple 6 Point Sales And Marketing Strategy?

1) MARKETS you are in. Do you really know about your current or future market? Who are your customers? What differentiates you that would attract more non-customers? How can you sell to more loyal customers? Are you just playing defense or do you have the needed moxie to go on offense and get new customers aggressively?


2) COMPETITION. Who are they and why are customers choosing them over you? What is the overall market trend and how are you holding up in terms of market share and profit position?

3) DISTRIBUTION. Can you get the orders to the customers within two days? Why not? Do you know what the customer experience is or do you assume you know what they receive? How do you check what was actually delivered and what it looked like?

4) Supply Chain. Price quality delivery, pick any two. Every company wants and knows about JIT (Just in time inventory). Do you have the financing with street smarts to forecast, project, buy with good margins, quality, and manage inbound and out bound freight? Watch this closely if you want to succeed

5) Promotion and Pricing. Advertising budget, specials, testing, measuring results of any promotions you do? Pricing changes with the market pressures, are you still maintaining margins or panic selling?

6) SALESFORCES. Do you need one? Did you check the references of that salespersons past volume sold before hiring? Do they have access to all you customers or just their own? Are they paying for themselves? How do you know they are working for you every day?

Yes, Kemo Sabe, This Company Is Succeeding In Today’s Economy!

Want real positive simple answers to why this giftware supplier company is making it?

1. Products people want to buy are offered for sale at fair, affordable retail prices. Simple as it sounds many companies today have beaten to death tired old product lines because they get a big mark up or they don’t have the monies to develop new designs. Most old giftware today is in the "dollar store" graveyards and competes directly with the "Brand" offerings at rock bottom prices. The perceived value is still there on this new companies products, they sell thru and the "Brand" retailer gets great turns because it is priced right. Many giftware companies are still slapping new or licensed art on old tired junk, this is not 2010 product development, those days are gone....

This "new" company understands that impulse products must do more than one thing in the market today. Being a “dustible” (A giftware or Collectible that now or in the future collects dust on a shelf) doesn’t sell in today’s economic environment. Products today have 3 seconds to stoke the emotion of a buyer, cruel as it sounds. This company positively pushes specific targeted responses and connects with the individual buyer’s “emotion button.”

2. Internal systems are state of the art, outsourced, and yield variable overhead at low cost. VOIP Phones, Cloud email, I.T., accounting, HR, customer service infrastructure, and web services, etc, are all outsourced and the savings are given back to the end customer in lower prices, again giving the products high perceived value and high turns for the retailers.

3. Interactive consumer mindset. One of their top selling “Giftibles” is designed for today’s and tomorrow’s buyer enlisting the capability to have the product interact with a personalized live website as an ongoing ROI service.

4. Aggressive marketing that finds the customer and supports the brand for its retailers. Infomercials, Permission email marketing, Direct Marketing, and a number of innovative techniques that are proprietary all support their retailers and drive end customers to their dealers in an ongoing effort. They are playing offense, not defense with their marketing and sales in conventional and unconventional ways!

Who is this company that “get’s it” in today’s challenging marketplace? The company is called Little Gifts (http://www.littlegifts.com/) and is one of the top giftware companies listed on this year’s best seller list by Giftbeat magazines 2009 charts (Pet gifts) (http://www.giftbeat.com/ ). One of its hot items? IDtag.com (http://www.idtag.com/ ) is a non evasive, privacy protected pet system that invokes a gift and interactive web solution for finding lost pets. Great sellers are breed specific targeted affordable impulse items for owners of specific dogs, cats, etc.

The owner’s did not drop out of the sky with their innovations, rather learned the gift marketplace after being highly regarded consultants (for some of the “big Dog” brands back in the day). Growing up in the new interactive world Little Gifts owners took the entrepreneurial path and combined their business know how and consulting experience with their own money to create this vision of what works. This product line and company is gift, collectible, and decorative accessories circa 2010. They have reinvented the successful gift company model for the next decade.

So Kemo Sabe, better to light a candle than curse the darkness of this consumer economy, lessons learned from today’s buyer are showing the way. This is one case study with a happy ending, these folks are adapting and being rewarded for creating a new business model; they should be congratulated!

You might want to take a page from their book and forget about all those Indians that are swarming around your present situation.......

Food Samples At Trade Shows, Help the Needy!

Fresh in my mind is a disturbing observation at a food supplier show I witnessed first hand this month:

Upon tear down of a booth, the sales reps running the booth tossed all the unused booth food samples into that large gray custodial bin we all have seen across the Trade Show circuit. I asked the reps why?, their response was they "were in a hurry and had to catch a plane". One thought to ponder as owners of an exibiting company:

What if all exhibitors in the trade show food industry required attending reps to donate their left over booth samples to the local food bank upon tear down, and required a proof receipt? (It is easy and usually they are on premises). Why that single act would be a good thing:

• You would help in some small way the families that don't know where their next meal will come from.
• You will save on poorly kept and damaged shipped back samples. (If reps even take the time.)
• You might , in some small way, help the needy and feel good about yourself.
• Your reps may not over ship samples, via overnight costs, and thereby save a lot on trade show expenses.
• Please Read point number 1 again.

JMHO