Preventative Maintenance and the Service Agreement, Part 1

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Preventative Maintenance and the Service Agreement, Part 1

In Part 1 of a two-part blog, guest blogger Ross Atkinson talks to us about preventative maintenance and the service agreement.

 

There is a phrase you may have heard of before: it’s called preventative maintenance. If you are in the rental business, you are fully aware of the importance of keeping your equipment up and running as much as possible, generating revenue for your business. To ensure that this happens and to avoid those costly breakdowns, you need to spend time doing scheduled maintenance.  

 

Just about every manufacturer has a recommended maintenance schedule. They offer defined job codes with the time necessary to perform preventative maintenance steps at scheduled intervals. These codes not only tell you the time required to perform the maintenance, they can also include detailed descriptions of the repair task and sometimes a list of the required parts. These schedules not only cover the primary equipment but also sub-components like an undercarriage. Many of the schedules are based on hours of usage whereas others are time based.

 

For rental equipment, it’s pretty easy to keep track of and know the timing of the maintenance needed because you are always in physical contact with the equipment when it comes back in off rent. Even if the equipment is out on long-term rentals or leases, factory installed GPS transponders are pretty common nowadays or can be installed by your dealership. Knowing the current hour meter or mileage reading is the key to estimating the timing of the next service interval and allows you to plan your service workload accordingly.

 

But let’s look beyond rentals. What about your customer’s equipment? As Ron has mentioned in his classes, it is your goal to give the customer the best service possible and to reduce the repair costs for the equipment they own. Why not use these same principals of maintaining a rental fleet to upsell and offer your customers the same service? 

 

You see, I’m pretty passionate about this subject. I believe that dealers are leaving money on the table and missing an opportunity to offer exceptional service. Too many dealers have not even considered going down the customer preventative maintenance path. I was introduced to the concept of service agreements many years ago by a gentleman by the name of Mark Caldwell. The knowledge he had and how he went about selling service agreements to customers was truly amazing.

 

Mark created his own manual on the entire process, a good 3 inches thick. It covered everything from what was being offered to the customer cost savings formula to how it was to be implemented and managed. He used to say how so many service managers would convince management to buy a service truck and then try to figure out how they were going to utilize it. Mark managed to correlate the number of service contracts to a truck. Boy, did that make for an easy conversation with management to justify the purchase of a new service truck after signing the required number of contracts!

 

We will continue next week.

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Why Things Always Go Wrong

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Why Things Always Go Wrong

Why Things Always Go Wrong

This week, Ryszard Chciuk gives us a recipe for success in his blog post on why things always go wrong.

Do you want to have a successful year? Do you want to become a better person? Listen to what Ron Slee is saying to you in his first vlog in 2021 and do it, because The Time Is Now. The time for reading books.

If you are able to read only one book during your whole life, and you want to achieve true satisfaction, both in business and life, read The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull (both of them born in Canada of course).

The Peter Principle:

In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence

What is incompetence? Perhaps you have heard of the nurse who says to the patient: Wake up! It’s time to take your sleeping pill.

First time I read The Peter Principle was in 1977. It was really funny to observe my superiors and colleagues through the Laurence Peter glasses. The book is written in the Mark Twain style so it’s OK to laugh, but you’d better take the content seriously. At that time nobody told me it would be the most important book in my life. Later on, I read it again and again, usually every few years. Also, I read it each time I had an opportunity to get a new job. Why? Nobody likes to make a fool of oneself. I also never wished to be an incompetent person. And believe me, it is not easy to recognize whether you are already only one step below your level of incompetence or perhaps not yet.

Each of us spends his life in a hierarchy and everybody is subject to the Peter Principle. As Peter Laurence claims, in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties.

You are not allowed to hurt your employee. So, be careful promoting him to another post, even he is very eager to. Imagine your best technician is getting a chance to manage a team of field technicians. For many years he was solving the most difficult problems with customers’ machines and he was proud of it. Are you sure he will also be happy and competent as a supervisor for another people? Maybe he is destined to become the Chief Diagnostics Specialist? I know, this is obviously about a career path and your HR department should be able to support you in this matter. Are you sure the HR specialist is still below his/her incompetence level?

Let’s jump out for a while from business. In democracy we have rights to vote. Why there are so many totally incompetent politicians occupying posts which are so important for the safety and well-being of the nation? Do you think you are still one step below your level of incompetence as a citizen of your country?

Are there any exceptions from the Peter Principle? The third chapter in the book has a title Apparent Exceptions.

What about super-competence? Standard incompetence is only a bar to promotion to higher post. If you are super-competent and your superior reached already his/her level of incompetence you will probably soon be fired due to the violation of the first commandment of hierarchal life i.e., the hierarchy must be preserved.

The people who have reached their level of incompetence are everywhere, so who turns the wheels? Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.

The final question: is there any way to protect your own organization from reaching the total level of incompetence? Yes, two things could prevent this happening: that there should not be enough time available, or not enough ranks in the hierarchy.

***

Do not decide lightly to read The Peter Principle. This is just a book, but I have to warn you using words of Raymond Hull:  The decision to read on is irrevocable. If you read, you can never regain your present state of blissful ignorance; you will never again unthinkingly venerate your superiors or dominate your subordinates. Never!

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Pre-Call Planning Is an Absolute Must!

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Pre-call Planning is an Absolute Must!

Pre-Call Planning is an Absolute Must

Don Buttrey is the president of Sales Professional Training Inc., a company that offers in-depth skill development for sales professionals and sales support. He has trained thousands of salespeople over 25 years and clearly understands the selling environment of equipment dealers. His curriculum is comprehensive and proven. All courses are now available as web-based Elearning. E-learning is ideal for training individuals and smaller sales teams! Don can be reached at (937) 427-1717or email donbuttrey@salesprofessionaltraining.com. Check out this website link salesprofessionaltraining.com  for more information – or to purchase online sales training. This week he is sharing all of the reasons why pre-call planning is an absolute must for our salespeople.

What preparation should I expect my salespeople to do before picking up the phone or meeting with a customer?

Most of the time salespeople do the ‘typical’ prep such as considering the situation, doing some research, or reviewing notes on the customer such as past sales, problems, internal politics, personal facts, previous calls etc. That is important – but it is not enough. Often, at that point they just charge in or pick up the phone and “see how it goes”. I call this, “showing up and throwing up”. There is another part of pre-call planning that is an absolute must!

One of the most important disciplines and skills I teach is, tactical pre-call planning. This involves consideration of the customer contact person, situation, competitors, etc. and then designing and perfecting the expected interaction. I love that word – “interaction”. The last part of that word is action. And if you want to get action – you must be a master of the interaction! When salespeople make proactive calls, they are on the “offense” and they should prepare their offense!

First, what is the objective for the call? If a salesperson does not know why they are there – the customer doesn’t know why they are there! Sales Professionals must have a purpose or defined reason for every call. If our veterans get in the habit of calling on buddies and just stopping in to say; “got anything for me” or “I just happened to be in the area and thought I would stop by” you will end up with a team of professional visitors. We need professional salespeople!

What will salespeople say to start? What questions will they ask and how will they word them for maximum effectiveness? What benefits of product or distributor value will they leverage? What is their action-oriented objective and how will they ask for commitment or action?

The SELL Process Tool

For the last two decades my mission has been to help salespeople pre-call plan using the SELL Process tool. SELL stands for Start, Evaluate, Leverage, Lock: and each of these steps should be prepared in order to maximize every precious customer interaction. My training curriculum teaches this powerful process in great detail and provides a simple, but profound tool as a framework for effective pre-call tactical planning. It’s like learning a proven offense, that with time, empowers sales professionals to execute each uniquely different call brilliantly! Preparation and ongoing practice are essential. You play like you practice—and salespeople just don’t practice enough. I am a firm believer that we should even be doing dry runs and scrimmages before critical calls!

Using the SELL Process framework, my training teaches sales professionals to write out their tactical plan. Yes, write it. Writing makes the message exact. If you don’t write it, you can’t fix it. Tooling out what you will say to Start will keep you from getting “diarrhea of the mouth” and overwhelming the customer with jabber. Writing out the questions you need to ask and perfecting the wording of those open-ended questions helps you be a consultant and increases the chance that you will find out the real needs and situation –and listen! Plus, writing provides some notes for you to follow and indicates to the customer that you cared enough to get ready for this important investment of their time. Writing helps you remember, helps you prioritize, and keeps the meeting on track and in control. Your confidence and improved non-verbals will show!

And this is not just for big calls. It is an essential daily discipline to prepare appropriately for every precious customer interaction prior to making a call. When a sales professional is prepared, it shows respect to the customer. It presents a professional, consultative image. Buyers are sick of cocky salespeople who wing-it and don’t even listen. Plus, the deal at hand may come down to this do-or-die call – and if the salesperson is not prepared, the opportunity is lost. Careful preparation assures that the message is focused on the customer and not the salesperson. It keeps the call focused, concise, and clear without veering off on useless rabbit trails!

I accept the reality that selling is very dynamic and that anything could happen in each unique call. Pre-call tactical planning with the SELL Process is not a silver bullet. However, it empowers sales professionals with skill and brilliant execution of their offense and defense to maximize every opportunity. The market for a small, independent construction equipment dealer is extremely competitive. Every call counts. The days of winging it are over. Pre-call tactical planning is a must!

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Virtual Reality as a Tool in Recruitment

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Virtual Reality as a Tool in Recruitment

In this week’s guest blog, Don Shilling talks about using virtual reality as a tool in recruitment.

“Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with Robin Leach”, remember that TV program from a number of years back? Basically, via video the viewer was introduced to a world they could never have imagined and how success and wealth had altered the life style of the subject of each story.

Businesses today are struggling to fill skilled employment positions within their organization. Many of these businesses might be better served to take a page from these reality television shows and invite potential employees into their businesses to see what these jobs are like and how exciting a career can be within their industry.

But there is a new medium that really hits the nail on the head, it is call Virtual Reality (VR). Essentially VR can place the viewer directly into an environment we want to highlight. Whether that be in the office, warehouse, shop floor, production or assembly area. That 360-degree camera captures all the activity and allows the viewer to really see and experience what it is like in a place they may have never imagined!! A short but effective job shadow.

Our company created a number of VR videos to deliver a career experience to High School or Technical College students wondering what it is like working for us or in this industry. As the viewer is guided through some work simulations, they can also look around 360 degrees to see what other people are doing who work in that same setting. They can see our products, facilities, safety, job organization, the specific tools we use and the processes we follow. In their minds they can see themselves working there.

In a four-to-five-minute VR experience you can really sell your company and the positions you are trying to fill. This VR experience opens the eyes of the viewer to the position we are trying to fill and actually makes them feel comfortable with the position. What may have been a bit scary or unknown becomes familiar and understood. They gain a wealth of knowledge.

These VR videos are a few steps ahead of what our competitors are doing in the recruitment process and really create a stir at Career and Job Fairs where we do our recruiting. We literally have lines of students wanting to view our industry from the VR goggles. (Buy plenty of goggles!)

We have even sent the VR experience directly to the home of a potential recruit who can view it over and over and share with his parents. The parents can really “buy into our industry” once they see firsthand where their child might work and the details of our environment.

The VR videos can be used after you hire in the “On Boarding” process where you can share with a new employee the company culture, values, facilities and introduction of key personnel or customers associated with the day to day operation.

Today, if you pick the hardest one or two positions you need to fill and create a VR experience I think you will find you recruitment process to be more interesting and successful. You have a story to tell, you should share it!

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The Future Is Now – Part 2

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The future is now – part 2

The Future is Now Part 2

 

In his previous blog post “The Future Is Now” Ryszard  Chciuk presented the way his after-sales management team created the very important part of its strategy – vision. This week, in “The Future Is Now – Part 2” he will tell you what it was for.

The long-term goals work against each other, to a certain degree. Every head of every team is expected to clarify arising problems on a daily basis. Thus, the details from the reality are carving the final shape of our vision.

This vision was translated into a graphical representation, much easier to memorize. I changed the four long statements into four gears marked with symbols which are easily understood:

  • 1 – we are recognized as the best,
  • $ – we earn money,
  • ☺ – everybody is happy,
  • ! – we have no fears about the future.

Gears are to underline the interdependence of the four goals.

I communicated our long-term goals to all new workers of the after sales department. I illustrated it with many examples from the company life. It was usually taking place in the course of their first training led several weeks after starting the job. Later on, they could hear it again, and again, together with all employees of the dealership. It was part of my presentation during annual company meetings.

What was it for?

Imagine, you are a worker facing any serious problem, in the presence of the customer. You have to fix the problem right now, and you can’t get support from your superior. The future of our relations with the customer is in your hands. You force your brain to find optional solutions. The company expects you choose the best one. Don’t be afraid, you are equipped with a good tool, our vision. So, please check if the chosen solution brings us closer or moves us away from our long-term goals. Will the chosen solution satisfy our customer? Your decision will cost some money. You are aware that CFO and CEO are not happy when a field technician spends a penny without permission. So, will you take a risk or you will take a coffee break and wait until your superior lights up a green or a red light?

This kind of situation is not comfortable for any worker and his superiors. In my opinion it is better if the employee is not afraid to take a decision in such circumstances. Why? In general, company profit is generated on the front line, by salesmen and servicemen. They know better than CFO, CEO and any other supervisor, how to satisfy the customer with smaller money and how to fix customers’ equipment the most effective way. Finally, the front-line people create most of the company cost and they can save or waste a lot of company funds, if they want to. If you grant them trust and some authority, they become trustful and responsible. And vice versa.

***

Perhaps next time I wouldn’t go exactly that way, i.e., to establish a vision for only my department. The idea was good for my people, for customers and for the company. Unfortunately, it caused me a lot of stress. Every time the company faces market turbulence, heads of departments and the board are acting according to the visions known only by them, if they worked out any. Those separate visions are usually incompatible. As a result of that, we fight problems in chaos.

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Using Time Purposefully

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Using Time Purposefully

Using Time Purposefully

In “Using Time Purposefully,” guest blogger Ed Wallace continues his relationship with Max, in talking on the rides to and from the airport, about how his time gets taken up very quickly if he doesn’t take great care. Max asks him to think about the number 168. Ed then takes us on a journey of sorts.

We all have the same amount of time. We also have a great amount of freedom in how we use that time. And the trouble is we rarely review how valuable the use of that time was for us, personally or professionally. In our relationship ladder we started with “establishing common ground with our clients, employees, friends and families. That took us to the next level in displaying integrity and trust with those people with whom we have relationships. Now comes the critical element of time. Time is one of the few things in life over which we have no control. I don’t mean how we control it; I mean what is available to us. In his book, Ed gives us many examples to consider. They are all worth the time to think about and act on. He also continues in his use of acronyms. Remember G(goals) – P(passions) – S(struggles)? This time it is POP.

POP is the acronym he uses for Purpose – Outcomes – Process. It is wonderful to have these acronyms to remind us of what needs to be done or happen. Everything starts with a PURPOSE, doesn’t it? A goal, an objective, a destination, a deal, a date, whatever. Without a purpose it would not be very interesting. Think about going to a grocery store without any idea of what you were going to buy. Can you picture yourself wandering about aimlessly? Not going to happen is it? So, we start with a PURPOSE. That is good, I am going to try and do something which makes sense, but what is it I’m going to try and accomplish. Of course, you are aiming at an OUTCOME. A result. Alright then the next question is how are you going to do that? What is the PROCESS?

Nice and simple isn’t it? A Purpose leading to an Outcome following a Process.

Relationships are critical in our lives. We are social animals we need each other. In our family lives and our work lives we need people to become successful. More importantly we need people in our lives to make us happy. Imagine if you will if our lives were to continue to be in the state of the past fourteen months with the Pandemic. Compare that to your lives prior to the Pandemic. Society as a whole, is in a lot of stress for whatever reason, financial, schooling, mortgages or rents, loss of jobs, unable to get proper healthcare and all the rest. No one knows the answers or the solutions. Depression has never been at a higher level on the country. It is very significant that at times like these we become more focused on the use of our time. The professor from San Diego State University, James A. Belasco, the coauthor of the important book Flight of the Buffalo, says “people don’t lack motivation – they lack focus.” Ed brings us this smart yet simple approach – POP. Purpose – Outcome – Process.

As with any interaction with people; a phone call, a meeting, a sales call or a talk with your children there are some simple questions to ask yourself:

  • What am I trying to accomplish?
  • How will the other person benefit from it?
  • Is this the right time?
  • Do we have enough time to do this properly?
  • Is it meaningful and appropriate?

Peter Drucker, a famous business teacher and author says – “The clearer the idea you have of what it is you are trying to accomplish, the greater the chance of accomplishing it.” CLARITY is critical and Ed is giving us a very real and clear plan to better succeed at accomplishing our goal of the “purposeful use of our time.”

If managing time is something that you would like to pursue further our Learning On Demand Class on Time Management would be a “purposeful use of your time.”

For more information and thoughts on pursuing your individual potential, please visit our blog for further posts.

You can purchase Ed’s book “Business Relationships That Last” at Amazon and other prominent book stores.

 

What is the Future of Work?

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The Future of Work

What is the Future of Work?

In this article by Sonya Law, we examine what is Human Resources’ Role in the future of work?

The catalyst for this article being the Pandemic which continues to disrupt businesses forcing them to: Stop, reset, recalibrate.

Human Resources role in the future of work is multifaceted and requires a pivot away from old thinking to a leading role in guiding and enabling managers to develop, as Amy Scott would put it, ‘radical candor’ conversations that directly address what people need in order to achieve their potential and the company as a whole to achieve its Strategic objectives.

In 2021 organisation’s that will thrive will have the difficult conversations with empathy about diversity and inclusiveness.  Will have courageous conversations that give direct feedback to employees about their performance.  Human Resources role is to educate people managers in a Holistic Approach that requires them as leaders to bring their whole self to work, to care personally about their people and address people’s physical wellbeing, mental health and desire for social connectedness in the future of work.

Be prepared to tell people what you really think and be challenged in return, fulfill your morale obligation as a people manager, an example of this would be when giving employee’s feedback about why they were unsuccessful or overlooked for a promotion within the business.   Or when an employee’s request for flexibility is denied.  When people are given a standard answer, it does not respect the employee or the value they bring to an organization and does not inspire or transact discretionary effort which drives high performance.

We are told as managers to be professional and if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say it, this old thinking whilst nice, polite and civilized, serves only our own comfort.  It does not encourage and nurture talent.  When an employee is given guidance, direct and respectful feedback on why they did not achieve a promotion, or more money, they then are empowered as they have a choice whether to take on that feedback to aid their growth, learning and development within the organization.  Being overlooked for promotions, or raises, is a key reason that employees exit from organizations.

Flexibility is the new Stability in 2021.  During the Pandemic, organizations who are exploring a long-term commitment towards flexibility, embracing technology and a willingness to be open minded to new ways of working will thrive in the future of work.  It is not a one size fits all, a holistic approach guarantee’s that the conversation is heading in the right direction. It does not need to be perfect, in fact their will be some trial and error and testing of different scenarios before a solution is landed, employees know when you are genuine and authentic.

Human resources role in coordinating the future of work will require many leadership skills, adaptive, inspirational, affiliative, coaching and democratic.  These different leadership styles present an opportunity to look at the employee experience through different lenses as we contemplate what the future of work will look like.  Who is doing it well – designing workplaces to engage employees, during pandemic?  The following are two examples for you to explore; – Axel Springer in Berlin, Germany What’s the status of the new Axel Springer building in light of Corona? – YouTube and the Smith Group A Holistic Approach for Returning to the Office After COVID-19 – YouTube.

Human Resources lead the culture of the organization and play a pivotal role in guiding and monitoring key people metrics by way of a culture dashboard that gives quantitative and qualitative insights into the culture.  Culture surveys are the most common method used while another approach is to get out from behind the desk and walk the shop floor and get out in the field with technicians and customers to understand where the pain points are and what is needed to take the organization forward acting.  This approach also gives some valuable insights into how to solve customers and more broadly societies problems.  This particular approach informs quality and engineering in terms of innovative product design and service as to why there is churn in customers, or what it is that your customers like and what differentiates you from your rivals which informs the sales and marketing investment and spend.  This is particularly important in future marketing to Millennials whom are motivated by creating value and connection with the company’s values, vision and mission.

Human Resources Managers, who will do well in the future of work are able to adapt their communication style to influence all key stakeholders of the senior leadership team, quality, engineering, technical, sales, customer, finance and CEO’s to be a true Strategic Partner.  Human Resources in the future of work needs to orientate away from just benchmark and best practice towards realizing its potential to create, deliver and capture value throughout the whole organization through guidance of the human capital effort towards achievement of strategic objectives.  This is Human Resources that embraces soft and hard metrics to deliver bottom line impact in the way of revenue per headcount, which is a measure of how well we are utilizing our headcount to deliver a return to the shareholders.

High performance organizations who have adopted this holistic approach that values people, extracts discretionary effort, promotes from within and develops its human resources potential will be successful in … future of work.

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The Future Is Now

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The future is now

The Future is Now

In his guest blog this week, Ryszard Chciuk reflects upon his years with his service management team and considers that the future is now.

Once upon a time, I and my new service management team decided to create the best after sales organization in our country. I am not going to tell you how to build something from scratch. It is about the most important thing: how to explain to all members of a team what we are going to achieve together within the next several years. Some authors of books for managers call it vision. I have a problem with this word because in my native language we sometimes have visions, usually after too many drinks. Also, I don’t recommend using that word while speaking to the front-line people. Instead of vision, I talked to them about our common long-term goals. Why?  Terms like vision, mission, values and strategy are irritating to many managers and plenty of employees. They become anxious about the future of their companies – and mostly they are right – when the highest management starts to talk about new market strategy based on new values, new vision and new mission. One can ask oneself: in the end, what’s it really all about? Is it about closing our decent business? Contrary to myself, in the story for English speaking readers I will use the word vision. Maybe you were luckier in your encounters with the prophets without true vision.

At that time, our parent company vision was To be the Model of Excellence and Care. Sounds nice, but how to present it to newly employed field technicians, mechanics, service supervisors, as well as parts and administration personnel? Unfortunately, the vision of our corporation was not translated into more specific version, understandable for all employees of the dealership.

My service team decided to work out the vision just for ourselves. Why?

I knew my department would grow very fast. It would be no time for an individual coaching. Written procedures did not exist. Creating a company culture was in progress. Our plan to build the best after sales organization could not be executed if we employed people having bad habits. As the result of that assumption, most of my new colleagues were very well educated, but totally inexperienced. And even worse, they were to work in the field, mostly out of a supervisor’s eye. They were allowed to make mistakes, if they did it with good intentions. How were they to discern what was right and what was wrong? They needed to know the main, long term goals of the after sales department, our vision of our future.

N.B. Few years after we implemented the idea of vision, I found a confirmation that it was a proper approach. In his Strategy Navigation-A Systems Approach to Business Strategy, H. William Dettmer mentioned: … the military has learned an important lesson that most businesses haven’t: how to shorten response time to unexpected developments and build flexibility into the system. They do this by avoiding detailed policy and guidance from the highest levels – micromanagement – concentrating instead on establishing the overall objectives and rules of engagement alone.

How did we achieve it?

To propose and discuss long terms goals for a team, its members would have to find the answers to the following questions:

  • Which long term goals of our dealership and corporation am I able to support as a member of the after sales department?
  • What is my greatest professional dream?
  • What would make me proud in 3-5 years from now?
  • What are the main competencies of our team?
  • What differences do we have and what will make our team different from the competitors in the future?

First draft of our vision was agreed by the core members of the service management team. Then it was discussed in details, during Q&A sessions with all of our people. We did it because people are more eager to follow the agreed rules if they had a chance to define them.

Finally, our after-sales department vision was as follows:

  • most of our customers recognize us as the best construction equipment service in the country
  • we generate profit which covers cost of employees’ personal development and provides financial liquidity of our dealership, when the demand for new machines is reduced significantly
  • the best employees and the best suppliers want to work for us or collaborate with our team
  • we are always prepared for unexpected changes and we implement them in the proper time.

Please notice: those four sentences are written in the present tense, because the future is just now. Every day, each worker can assess approximately how far we are from our goals. Every month or every quarter, employees get more accurate data about the performance of their small teams in that matter. It happens if you have worked out balanced scorecards for teams and single employees.

Next time, I will tell you, what it was for.

What is your PEOPLE strategy? When should it begin?

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What is your PEOPLE Strategy? When should it begin?

What is your PEOPLE strategy? When should it begin?

In this week’s guest blog, Don Shilling addresses your business and asks the question “what is your people strategy?” Not only that, when should it begin?

What is the “definition of a expert”? . . . . . I once heard that an expert was a factory rep at least 50 miles from home who was at your business to give you advice!

As I put words down on this page, I am in admitting I am not an expert. I just like to share thoughts and if you think they make sense then you can figure out how to implement them.

We have all gone through the exercise of developing a business strategy. Most sound a lot alike . . . .  and after we have meetings and cover the walls with Post-It notes or flip chart pages our “Strategy” may be to Increase sales by 5%, or perhaps develop a new store location in new and active part of our territory, maybe we will upgrade 30% of our vehicle fleet, or our focus might be looking for that new idea like taking on a new product line. Your team I am sure puts a lot of effort into this exercise and at the end of the day it all makes sense and gives you a map for the future.

Sometimes our strategy includes elements related to people and sometimes perhaps it is brushed off! The interesting thing is each strategy, like it or not, has to include people. The people who we either need to be hired or the people we must challenge to change to fill the new roles we need to execute this new bold strategy.

Today in our current environment it might take 60 to 180 days to fill a skilled position if you can find that person at all. As I mentioned in a blog before, we grow our own skilled technical people and that takes much longer than just a couple of months. Whether you promote from within or just need to re-train existing people it takes just as long. We must be prepared to admit this will probably be our weakest link in our strategy and address it far in advance of the annual Strategy Session if we want any of our strategies to succeed.

In an earlier phase of my career I was CEO of my organization back when I spearheading strategy development. I soon realized that was not just HR’s job to fill positions, it was mine! Not to “micro-manage” HR or replace them but to assist HR in getting involved with “People Attraction”.

Now People Attraction can take on many forms. We did the same everyone does, we checked our wage packages, our benefit packages, we talked about culture and we did employee rewards programs, reviewed our facilities to make sure they were safe and comfortable for our workforce.  We all have to do that!

However, I felt compelled to go beyond that. I started by getting involved in local Technical Colleges where we might find our next employee.  We tried serving on Advisory Boards and helping connect with these Institutions on a more intimate basis. We got involved in the local Chamber of Commerce committees that dealt with employment practices and trends. Made an effort to get involved with State Technical Education Agencies to see what was going on and to give advice and donations of resources where it made sense to promote our industry.

Last but not least I got involved with our local Workforce Development Council. In our State it is Governor appointed and encompasses a cross section of people and agencies in the State where we get to together and work to solve workforce issues. In most cases we have developed recommendations to our State legislature in development programs to attract, educate or retain our workforce. I have testified numerous times to Legislative Committees to spell out to them the needs of business and industry in our region and promote the things that will improve our workforce efforts. For example, last session we got a law passed to make tuition reimbursement to an employee not subject to income tax and we help enact a program to provide State matching dollars with private dollars for “High Demand Jobs” tuition education reimbursement.

This was kind of a “hidden” part of our strategy. Has it worked you might ask? I think so. As frustrating as it can be to deal with a cross section of leaders from industry, labor, education and government it is worth the effort.

Now when we sit down and set a strategy where perhaps we think we need a half dozen additional skilled employees to increase our market penetration it becomes an attainable goal and not a goal where are the end of the year, we have excuses for its failure. To sum up – as an Executive in your organization you must get involved and become part of the Strategy before there is a Strategy! Good luck.

Strategic Planning for Key Accounts

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Strategic Planning for Key Accounts

Strategic Planning for Key Accounts

Virtual Selling Tips related to Vital Selling Regimens by Don Buttrey, President of Sales Professional Training, Inc. In this week’s guest blog, Don shares with us some strategic planning for taking care of key accounts.

Dealing with market potential becomes a challenge in the virtual world as well. Using data and information is critical. Your business systems can help you here. Take advantage of these condition and circumstances to become much smarter on how you manage you time and business.

Strategic Planning for Key Accounts 

  1. Focus primarily on accounts that are less impacted by the pandemic to assure quicker results in these accounts that already have a long selling cycle.
  1. However, it may be wise to pick at least one or two strategic accounts where business may be stalled short-term –but that have significant long-term potential. Now is an ideal time to do the legwork and create a path for future business. Now is a chance to build trust and solidify relationships. (whereas before, they had little or no time to spend with you.) Giving them time and offering creative ways to prepare for future growth now, proves that you are not just a partner in the good times. Show them that you are focused on their business in good and bad times – instead of just taking orders selfishly and forgetting about them! In difficult economies, focus on expanding influence and growing your market share. When it picks up again – you are well positioned!
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