Be Different or be dead

May 4, 2010

How to make salespeople build excellent customer relationships

Source: Pexels

How to make salespeople build excellent customer relationships.

Sales must turn away from the traditional product flogging practice to building deep intimate relationships with customers.

The challenge becomes one of jarring sales loose from years of “product love” into a world where relationships rule.

Here’s some leadership hints to get you going:

— First, declare to the sales organization that you intend to move to a relationship-building (RB) performance management structure in 36 months. Discuss why the product-only method won’t work over the long terms and that sustainable competitive advantage requires the change.

— Set out year 1 changes: immediately sales performance management and bonus compensation will be based 80% on product revenue; 20% on measured RB competency.

— Then advise them that year 2 will look like: 50% product revenue; 50% RB competency.

— Then tell them that year 3 will move to 30% product; 70% RB.

— Of course you can decide on the distribution that fits your own circumstances, but I suggest that the shift away from the product approach be bold. If not, your aspirations to change won’t be believable and sales will continue to exhibit past behaviours.

Establish a customer report card to measure the RB performance of each salesperson by following these 9 steps.

1. Define 6 RB behaviors you expect each salesperson to demonstrate. Could be: listening, empathizing, follow up, consultation etc. The behaviors chosen must line up with the business plan and values for your organization.

2. Weight each behavior as some may be more important than others.

3. Decide on a rating system for each behavior. I used ‘poor’, ‘fair’, ‘average’, ‘good, and ’ as the rating categories. It worked well.

4. Set year-end objectives for each RB behavior. A typical would get a target of 80% ‘good/excellent’ ratings.

5. Get the executive to sign off on the targets to ensure consistency with the game plan of the organization.

6. Engage customers to rate their sales person on each RB behavior. Do it monthly. Encourage written comments. The more customer commentary to explain the numerical ratings the more useful the overall process will be in terms of understanding the behavioral changes necessary.

7. Issue performance results monthly.

8. Require each salesperson to create an action plan to improve the RB behaviors below target. A meeting with their manager will present the opportunity for coaching.

9. Celebrate the “most improved” salesperson in relationship-building. Make it matter to everyone. Eventually have it dominate the sales recognition and reward program.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 5.4.10 at 12:00 pm by Roy Osing
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April 10, 2010

How cost cutting can be done without losing customers

Source: Pexels

How cost cutting can be done without losing customers.

When operating margins get squeezed, organizations go on a cost cutting rampage often without reflection on their strategy. This approach is a disaster waiting to happen.

Here are some guidelines for collapsing your cost envelope without being sorry later for your actions:

1. Avoid considering activities that impact how you serve customers — Customer serving functions and people are definitely NOT in the ‘low hanging fruit’ category.

2. Examine quick hit opportunities to simplify business processes — Cut out unnecessary steps that impair effectiveness. Less complex processes will drive expenses down.

3. Eliminate layers in your organization that ‘manage’ and do not directly contribute to the output of the organization.

4. Throw out low value-add positions— Any ‘or’ jobs such as ‘co-ordinator’, ‘administrator’, and ‘facilitator’ should be considered for elimination. You need doers not people who work with the output of others.

5. Cut the crap — Anything that does not directly serve the strategy of the organization should be hacked. This is essential in good times; it is critical in challenging times. Training programs, for example, that don’t support the strategy (customer service, marketing and sales) directly should be stopped.

6. Look at temporary positions— Consider keeping only those that are in the serving customers value chain.

7. Mass media advertising.— Should be eliminated in favor of targeted “me marketing” programs.

Incent your leaders to remove non-strategic costs. Change the bonus compensation plan to make it matter for all of them.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 4.10.10 at 01:00 pm by Roy Osing
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March 20, 2010

How to execute brilliantly in 6 simple steps

Source: Pexels

How to execute brilliantly in 6 simple steps.

The anchor of any execution plan is your organization’s business plan; it informs and drives every tactic and activity that people are engaged in. I see too many organizations executing a number of tactics with no strategic plan or context to give them meaning.

Before describing what ‘good’ execution looks like, make sure you have a strategy to lean on.

If not, go back to square one and create one. In addition, when creating your strategy, spend significant time on thinking through implementation.
Avoid the trap of spending 80% of your time on the essence of your strategy and 20% on execution.

Reverse your focus and spend 80% of your time on executional planning.

6 steps to one-of-a-kind execution:

1. Get your strategy in focus

Your strategy needs to be specific and clear to drive the specific top priority executional elements throughout your organization.
Aspirations will kill implementation.
A vague strategy results in a diffusion of executional energy and lack of results. The Strategic Game Plan will serve the purpose very well. Use it.

2. Define the top three things that will drive 80% of your business plan

An intimate understanding of your strategy is required. It’s not a matter of having a relevant Action Plan list of twenty things to work on.
You need to purge the relevant but less compelling actions; focus on the critical few only.

3. Get every function - marketing, sales service, operations etc. - in the organization to determine the critical three things THEY must do to achieve the top 3 organizational priorities.

Make this task non-negotiable. If every department in your organization doesn’t have direct line of sight to your overall strategy, people will tend to march to their own drummer and effective execution doesn’t happen.

4. Build departmental priorities into everyone’s Personal Performance and Compensation Plan

Make it real tough for any individual in the organization to deviate from the strategic imperatives of the firm.
Pay people ONLY when they further the Strategic Game Plan. This motivation will create behavioral synergy and progress.

5. Cut the Crap

Eliminate non-strategic tactics and activity and make room for the things that need to be executed in the Strategic Game Plan.
Execution around the new strategy gets impaired when people continue to do the old comfortable stuff. Assign a Cut the Crap champion to make this happen.

6. Plan on the Run

Learn from how you are implementing your strategy and tweak your execution plan as you go. Execute > Learn > Adjust > Execute >....

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 3.20.10 at 01:00 pm by Roy Osing
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March 17, 2010

Why aggressive competitors shouldn’t be your biggest worry

Why aggressive competitors shouldn’t be your biggest worry.

Why is building barriers to competitive entry really wrong?

Traditional marketing strategy spends a copious amount of time focusing on how to erect barriers to competitive entry.
Unfortunately in my experience this doctrine doesn’t go far enough and it certainly doesn’t create a sustainable competitive position for an organization.

Worrying about the competition is not where energies should be spent.

Worrying about the competition is misplaced — Here are 7 reasons why this traditional business approach doesn’t work:

It’s not a particularly unique approach to the market — Most organizations seem to follow this approach to minimize competition in their business; if everyone pursues the same strategy, how can it result in a differential advantage for any one of them? The truth is, it’s a business school course and every student takes it and typically tries to apply IT when there are other strategies that work much better.

The notion is rooted in a more theoretical perspective and falls short of the practical need to show business people how to do it. It’s all very well to salute a strategy that is rooted in strong theory, but if it can’t be practically implemented in the real world, it’s of little value.

It’s a distraction — While an organization is consumed with trying to find ways to keep the competition out, it’s not spending enough time to ensure their existing base of loyal customers are taken care of.

And it spawns an unhealthy culture that is preoccupied with preventing market activity rather than doing whatever is required to beat the competition in the trenches where the customers are. Earning their business everyday should be the priority rather than erecting barriers to others coming in to compete with you.

It diverts marketing attention — Away from investing in value based offers for the existing customer base. Rather, marketing resources are employed on other activities — regulations, patents and government restrictions — designed to keep competition away.

It creates an illusion — That competition can be restricted. It’s futile in the long run because a hungry competitor will always find a way to gain access to your markets and your customers. You will never keep them out or restrict their natural market activities.

It tends to focus on artificial non-market tactics — To prevent more competition such as regulation and law rather than beating them by providing amazing customer service and unmatched value.

It’s an ineffective use of valuable resources — With an outcome that is inevitable. Back in the day, the incumbent telecom carriers spent an enormous amount of money trying to prevent competitive entry into traditional monopoly markets through a time-consuming and expensive regulatory process.

The competitive tsunami wasn’t deterred, however, and they should have been paying more attention to creating better customer service and a marketing engine that provided compelling and unique value.

I am not suggesting that you shouldn’t pay attention to the competition, existing and potential.

But don’t get obsessed about preventing them from doing what is reasonable given free market conditions.
If they have an opportunity with your customers, expect them to make a play and respond by shielding your loyal customers from the onslaught of their competitive value proposition.

If you feel that a certain non-market response is necessary, go ahead and do it. But don’t let it be all-consuming. Don’t let it gobble up all of your resources. And don’t let it drain the effort in executing a customer response to the threat.

Observe your competitors but ACT for your customers.

Make it so difficult for your competition to attract your customers away from you - by providing them with constant unmatched value - they will be frustrated and will have to endure so much pain, they will decide it’s not worth it. And they will retreat.

How can you hold them? — What are some of the actions you can take to keep your customers close to you and prevent them from leaving?

Music is a great teacher.

The Grateful Dead informed us on how to create a unique competitive claim.

You don’t want merely to be the best of the best. You want to be the ONLY ones who do what you do. — Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead

And The Eagles’ Hotel California declares the impossibility of patrons leaving.

You can checkout anytime but you can never leave. — The Eagles

The message is cool. It’s mysterious. It’s haunting. It’s foreboding. It’s dramatic. It’s scary. It’s suggestive of a clandestine move.

Here are 8 actions you can take to prevent customers from ‘leaving your hotel’:

▪️Don’t be concerned about what the competition is doing; focus on the action that YOU need to take to enrich the stickiness of your products or services;

▪️Action to prevent leaving must be taken quickly. The time it takes to get to check-out and leave the building is short; rapid innovation of offerings your customers love is mandatory;

▪️Abandon the conventional; take risks with out there solutions;

▪️Give ‘em something more. Move ‘em to ‘another room’ with added value. Transform them into another world where a new reality intrigues them to stay;

▪️Intercept them as they make their way to check-out. Don’t follow up after they have left. Have your spider senses ready to know they intend to leave and disrupt their intentions;

▪️Give them a new experience that makes them want to stay. Give them something so dramatic that it will take their emotions to a new level;

▪️Make it personal Speak to them specifically. What works for Mr. Smith won’t work for Mr. Jones;

▪️SURPRISE! SHOCK! JOLT! AMAZE! FRIGHTEN! them to stay. Do whatever it takes.

Too much attention is given to the threat of others taking guests from our hotel.

If you want to worry about something, worry about the door closing behind them.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 3.17.10 at 01:40 pm by Roy Osing
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