Relationship Selling – How to Measure Sales Success
Sales are a cornerstone in business. Guest writer Floyd Jerkins talks tonight about relationship selling, and how you can measure your sales success.
Would you run your business without looking at a financial statement? Crazy right? Do you know how many customers your sales team talks to every week? For many organizations, they don’t know the answer and are leaving thousands of dollars on the table for a competitor to get. This article outlines the process to create a measuring system.
A sales driven organization takes time, energy and the correct vision to have a highly competent team. Becoming effective in sales and marketing of your business requires an understanding of your customer base so you can focus the team on what matters the most.
In many business environments, there are typically four categories of customers that can be measured:
New Customer
This customer is one who has never been to or called or emailed your business before. They may call, email or come into your business from marketing and advertising efforts. This customer forms an impression of your business through every interaction they have. Every interaction. Not just the one where they drive up on your parking lot, but when they call into your business, what they see on Facebook or hear at the local restaurant from a group of customers. Every interaction creates an impression of your business.
Repeat Customer
This is a customer who has bought from you before. To a salesperson, this means that customer bought from them before. To the business, it means that customer purchased from the company previously. Many companies have “orphan owners.” These are customers who bought from a salesperson at your business but who is no longer there. These are typically a gold mine for new salespeople in companies with turnover in the sales department.
Referral Customer
This is a customer who was referred by another customer to your business or the salesperson. I apply the same sales “rules” to this category as I do for repeat customers. This is often an area that is highly underutilized by salespeople to generate revenue. When you have happy customers, they tell others about their experiences. When they tell someone else, and that customer calls or comes into the business, it is essential to train the customer to ask for the right salesperson.
New Business
This customer is one that you meet while at the gas station or a social event. A brief conversation in most any social situation generates new leads. One of the most natural ways to prospect for new business is to just talk to people you meet. It works like magic when done correctly.
For each of these categories, it’s important to know the sales mix in your business. Measure them monthly to determine how many sales were made in each of these categories and by each salesperson.
Relationship Selling Metrics
Let me start this segment by asking you three questions:
- Who do you make more money on, a repeat customer or a customer who has never done business with you or your company before?
- Who do you have the most fun working with, a repeat customer or someone who has never done with business with you before?
- Who do you sell in less time, someone who you don’t know or a customer who’s bought from you before?
Ok, I could ask ten more but let me just give you the answers. Repeat and referral business is where you make money and in less time. Time is money in sales, and by now in your career, someone’s told you that. So, learn how to develop this book of business to be a pro at sales.
Closing Ratios and Measuring Variables
There are many variables to discussing closing ratios for a salesperson and a sales team such as the type of product or service being sold, the customers buying cycles and personality type to name a few. If you only have twenty customers vs. a hundred or a thousand that makes a difference. So, even though there are variables, there are common points that every salesperson and team should be measured to increase their success and have some fun while doing it.
Do you have a CRM or other Sales Tracking System? Without a sales activity measurement system in place that consists of more than gross margin and sales volume, the ability to make improvements can many times escape even the best intentions. Integrating these systems into your sales and marketing teams are also challenging but required. If you don’t have one, get one.
How many people you talk to vs. how many you close is a crucial measurement in selling a product or service. Just like learning to shoot a free throw or how to stand in the batter’s box, it’s the basics of the profession. Time is an asset, and it must be used efficiently. Future articles will cover more metrics in detail.
What Does This Tell You?
- If a salesperson talks to 6 people a day x 5 days a week, that’s 30 contacts. How many of those do they sell?
- With a 20% closing ratio, they close 6. What happened to the other 24 contacts?
To effect change, you have to look deeper into what the salesperson’s activities and behaviors are between the time they first met the customer until the sales order is signed. To only look at the end of the sales cycle is like jumping in a lake before checking to see if there is enough water in it.
Read my article titled, “Relationship Selling – Steps to the Sale” because how the sale is processed can make a difference in how many deals are closed.
Sold Ratio to Face-to-Face Contacts
The average closing ratio of 20% should be the very minimum standard of sales performance. There should be a focused effort to increase this number regardless of your sales environment.
In a business that has 50% or more repeat customers a 20% closing rate is terrible and should be carefully examined because you are losing customers. With measurement, you learn how “effective” the salesperson or the sales team is and in what areas.
What if you measured 10 sales people and came up with the following scenario:
- 10 salespeople x 6 customers per day x 5 days per week = 300 customers
- At a 20% closing ratio would be 60 sold units.
Let’s say your Average Gross Profit (AGP) per unit is $500.00. Your goal is to increase the closing ratio by 5%. That would be an increase of 15 Units.
15 Units x $500.00 (AGP) equals $7,500.00 of additional profit.
What if?
What if you improved the closing ratio to 30%?• What if you improved AGP by 2%?• What if you improved the closing ratio by 5% and the AGP by 2%?
With just a little focus in the right areas, you can make more money and have more fun doing it. There are no shortcuts to sales success.
Process Improvement: Steps to Gaining More Efficiency in Closing Deals
To improve salespeople’s closing ratio involves coaching and counseling. Many times, the ratio’s can be improved by helping them become aware of their selling habits. Just like every person does, after we do things for a while, they become a habit. It doesn’t mean it’s good for us. I also know that many salespeople don’t have a dedicated sales manager whose job it is to help them improve. Professional salespeople take it upon themselves to measure and improve.
For a Salesperson, you could ask yourself the following types of questions:
- Am I walking the customer through the sales process and fully engaging them in each step?
- Am I prematurely asking for the order or have I properly built value then asked for the order?
- In the past 5 customer experiences, how many of them was I successful in taking them through the entire steps to the sale and closing the deal? For those that I was not successful, why, what happened, what could I have done differently?
For a Sales Manager, you could be asking your salespeople the following types of questions:
- What step in the sales cycle are you in? They should be able to describe clearly where they are and why. If they can’t, they need some coaching.
- Since you’ve priced the customer, what are the top three reasons they want to buy that product and buy it from us? If they can’t tell you it’s because they have not asked during step #2 of the sales process.
- If the customer walked after you gave them a price, what were the customer’s reasons for leaving? Make sure you get what the customer said, not what the salesperson heard.
5 More Tips & Suggestions:
- An old-time rule of sales is that you have to talk to a lot of people to make money in sales. The new rule to add to that is you want to be super productive with each interaction. Time is money. You don’t want to waste your time or your customers. Learn the sales process and use it as many times as you can so you can make more money in less time.
- Make sure to measure your key behaviors accurately. Measure it the same way for a while to accurately assess before deciding on an improvement plan.
- Businesses that log these customer contacts for every interaction outperform those that do not. You wouldn’t run your business without a financial statement, so don’t run it without knowing the sales teams key performance indicators. Tracking the key selling behaviors is a performance statement for the salesperson or sales team that allows you to create improvement plans.
- Knowing the “steps to the sale” allows a salesperson to gauge where they are at in the sales process. By using the process, you build the value of your product and your business by knowing when to insert key value added solutions that your business or product offers.
- It is very common for a customer to ask the first question when they meet a salesperson. That question can be “how much is it?” When you first meet the customer make sure you qualify their wants and needs before pricing your product.
Moving a customer through the sales process naturally creates closes. Improving your closing ratio doesn’t add cost to the sale. It can be as easy as learning how to communicate better. In future articles, I’ll address other key metrics to measure and how to improve your effectiveness.
Did you enjoy this blog? Read more great blog posts here.
For our course lists, please click here.
Friday Filosophy v.03.18.22
Friday Filosophy v.03.18.22
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who is the 46th and current president of the United States. Biden was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, moving with his family to New Castle County, Delaware, in 1953 when he was ten. He studied at the University of Delaware before earning his law degree from Syracuse University in 1968. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history after he was elected to the United States Senate from Delaware in 1972, at age 29. Biden was the chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years. He also chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995, dealing with drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties issues; led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act; and oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Biden was reelected to the Senate six times and was the fourth-most senior sitting senator at the time when he became Obama’s vice president. During eight years as vice president, Biden leaned on his Senate experience and frequently represented the administration in negotiations with congressional Republicans. On foreign policy, Biden was a close counselor to the president and took a leading role in designing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. In 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.
Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris defeated incumbent president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the 2020 presidential election. He is the oldest president and the first to have a female vice president. His early presidential activity centered around proposing, lobbying for, and signing into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help the United States recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession, as well as a series of executive orders.
The Time is Now.
Did you enjoy this blog? Read more great blog posts here.
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Relationship Selling – How to Measure Sales Success
Relationship Selling – How to Measure Sales Success
Sales are a cornerstone in business. Guest writer Floyd Jerkins talks tonight about relationship selling, and how you can measure your sales success.
Would you run your business without looking at a financial statement? Crazy right? Do you know how many customers your sales team talks to every week? For many organizations, they don’t know the answer and are leaving thousands of dollars on the table for a competitor to get. This article outlines the process to create a measuring system.
A sales driven organization takes time, energy and the correct vision to have a highly competent team. Becoming effective in sales and marketing of your business requires an understanding of your customer base so you can focus the team on what matters the most.
In many business environments, there are typically four categories of customers that can be measured:
New Customer
This customer is one who has never been to or called or emailed your business before. They may call, email or come into your business from marketing and advertising efforts. This customer forms an impression of your business through every interaction they have. Every interaction. Not just the one where they drive up on your parking lot, but when they call into your business, what they see on Facebook or hear at the local restaurant from a group of customers. Every interaction creates an impression of your business.
Repeat Customer
This is a customer who has bought from you before. To a salesperson, this means that customer bought from them before. To the business, it means that customer purchased from the company previously. Many companies have “orphan owners.” These are customers who bought from a salesperson at your business but who is no longer there. These are typically a gold mine for new salespeople in companies with turnover in the sales department.
Referral Customer
This is a customer who was referred by another customer to your business or the salesperson. I apply the same sales “rules” to this category as I do for repeat customers. This is often an area that is highly underutilized by salespeople to generate revenue. When you have happy customers, they tell others about their experiences. When they tell someone else, and that customer calls or comes into the business, it is essential to train the customer to ask for the right salesperson.
New Business
This customer is one that you meet while at the gas station or a social event. A brief conversation in most any social situation generates new leads. One of the most natural ways to prospect for new business is to just talk to people you meet. It works like magic when done correctly.
For each of these categories, it’s important to know the sales mix in your business. Measure them monthly to determine how many sales were made in each of these categories and by each salesperson.
Relationship Selling Metrics
Let me start this segment by asking you three questions:
Ok, I could ask ten more but let me just give you the answers. Repeat and referral business is where you make money and in less time. Time is money in sales, and by now in your career, someone’s told you that. So, learn how to develop this book of business to be a pro at sales.
Closing Ratios and Measuring Variables
There are many variables to discussing closing ratios for a salesperson and a sales team such as the type of product or service being sold, the customers buying cycles and personality type to name a few. If you only have twenty customers vs. a hundred or a thousand that makes a difference. So, even though there are variables, there are common points that every salesperson and team should be measured to increase their success and have some fun while doing it.
Do you have a CRM or other Sales Tracking System? Without a sales activity measurement system in place that consists of more than gross margin and sales volume, the ability to make improvements can many times escape even the best intentions. Integrating these systems into your sales and marketing teams are also challenging but required. If you don’t have one, get one.
How many people you talk to vs. how many you close is a crucial measurement in selling a product or service. Just like learning to shoot a free throw or how to stand in the batter’s box, it’s the basics of the profession. Time is an asset, and it must be used efficiently. Future articles will cover more metrics in detail.
What Does This Tell You?
To effect change, you have to look deeper into what the salesperson’s activities and behaviors are between the time they first met the customer until the sales order is signed. To only look at the end of the sales cycle is like jumping in a lake before checking to see if there is enough water in it.
Read my article titled, “Relationship Selling – Steps to the Sale” because how the sale is processed can make a difference in how many deals are closed.
Sold Ratio to Face-to-Face Contacts
The average closing ratio of 20% should be the very minimum standard of sales performance. There should be a focused effort to increase this number regardless of your sales environment.
In a business that has 50% or more repeat customers a 20% closing rate is terrible and should be carefully examined because you are losing customers. With measurement, you learn how “effective” the salesperson or the sales team is and in what areas.
What if you measured 10 sales people and came up with the following scenario:
Let’s say your Average Gross Profit (AGP) per unit is $500.00. Your goal is to increase the closing ratio by 5%. That would be an increase of 15 Units.
15 Units x $500.00 (AGP) equals $7,500.00 of additional profit.
What if?
What if you improved the closing ratio to 30%?• What if you improved AGP by 2%?• What if you improved the closing ratio by 5% and the AGP by 2%?
With just a little focus in the right areas, you can make more money and have more fun doing it. There are no shortcuts to sales success.
Process Improvement: Steps to Gaining More Efficiency in Closing Deals
To improve salespeople’s closing ratio involves coaching and counseling. Many times, the ratio’s can be improved by helping them become aware of their selling habits. Just like every person does, after we do things for a while, they become a habit. It doesn’t mean it’s good for us. I also know that many salespeople don’t have a dedicated sales manager whose job it is to help them improve. Professional salespeople take it upon themselves to measure and improve.
For a Salesperson, you could ask yourself the following types of questions:
For a Sales Manager, you could be asking your salespeople the following types of questions:
5 More Tips & Suggestions:
Moving a customer through the sales process naturally creates closes. Improving your closing ratio doesn’t add cost to the sale. It can be as easy as learning how to communicate better. In future articles, I’ll address other key metrics to measure and how to improve your effectiveness.
Did you enjoy this blog? Read more great blog posts here.
For our course lists, please click here.
Equipment Sales in the “On Demand” Age
Equipment Sales in the ‘On Demand’ Age
Guest writer Alex Kraft Started as an equipment salesperson for Flagler Construction Equipment (Volvo heavy dealer in Florida) in 2004. Tonight he brings his expertise here on the topic of managing equipment sales in the “on demand” age.
Selling equipment used to be so easy. Or that’s what I thought when I listened to the old timers tell me stories of taking a customer out and signing a “million-dollar order on a cocktail napkin”. Then that damn internet came along and ruined everything! Truth is buyer behavior has changed. According to a recent McKinsey B2B study, there’s been an 85% increase in the preference for buyers to conduct online research, and a 238% increase in buyer preference for self-serve looking for information on the companies’ website.
The evolution of the sales profession is not just impacting the equipment world. There is a larger societal shift at play. For example, when I was younger, my perception of a salesperson was the Alec Baldwin character from the ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’ film. Baldwin’s character berates a sales team with his hard charging, second place is for losers’ mentality (in the movie 2nd place gets a set of steak knives!). Success was the result of those who simply ‘do not take no for an answer’. Today’s sales culture is much different. Training materials focus on skills such as listening, empathy, and personalizing a solution. I read a blog post today which mentioned the importance of understanding your prospect’s needs and not lumping all potential customers into the same broad category. I’d love to take a trip back with a time machine to see the Baldwin character’s face when someone mentions “empathy” as a key to closing deals!
What does that mean for equipment salespeople? First, it does NOT mean that salespeople are less valuable or that they will be unnecessary. To me, the job has changed. Customers aren’t basing their decisions anymore on who takes them to Ruth’s Chris or lunch twice a week. The most important trait for a successful equipment salesperson is responsiveness. What separates the best salespeople from the average is what they do AFTER the sale. Those that take ownership of issues that arise and solve problems are the salespeople that foster loyalty.
The best comparison I can make is to the medical sales industry. If anyone knows someone in the medical sales industry, you’ll know that a medical ‘salesperson’ typically doesn’t handle pricing. Instead, they focus on managing ‘cases’ or supporting the doctor’s usage of the products. Another industry that we can draw from is real estate. Everyone is a real estate expert today due to the unprecedented accessibility of information, but there have never been more registered real estate agents. Despite this dynamic, an agent that helps a buyer through every step of the process is worth every penny.
Since more customers perform online research, they are more educated on the products than ever before. There are fewer unique brand features that a salesperson can point out to a potential buyer. One area that I see a huge opportunity for salespeople to take advantage of is the focus on telematics data. Every OEM/dealer is touting their telematics data capability and the amount of information available. The problem becomes who’s going to read through all that data? Great salespeople are ‘advisors’ for their customers, and what better opportunity to be an advisor than to use the data available on your customer’s machines to provide valuable insight on how they operate their fleet. How powerful could it be for a salesperson to come to their customer, with 3-5 observations on their fleet performance for a specific job? Do you notice certain operators that can benefit from additional training? Are there potential looming issues on machines due to fault codes? Another area that customers seem to struggle with is when to dispose of a machine. Great salespeople know the market (like real estate agents) and could utilize their network to help customers maximize value for machines as they reach the end of their life cycle, so customers don’t always have to send machines to auction.
In summary, what do all customers seek from their vendor relationships? Value and support. As I’ve outlined above, customers’ definition of value has changed, so it’s time for dealers’ expectations for salespeople to adjust as well. That begins with redefining what a salesperson profile is. Some of the best equipment salespeople that I’ve ever seen were former mechanics. Their technical aptitude became a huge asset for their customers, as they could help troubleshoot issues, relay information to their service department, and in a pinch even turn a wrench themselves. Salespeople who continue operating with the belief that their job is solely to quote pricing, buy lunch, and push all other duties to another department will become very replaceable, very quickly.
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Friday Filosophy v.03.11.2022
Friday Filosophy v.03.11.2022
Henry “Henny” Youngman (16 March 1906 – 24 February 1998) was an American comedian and musician famous for his mastery of the “one-liner“, his best-known one-liner undoubtedly being “Take my wife… please”.
In a time when many comedians told elaborate anecdotes, Youngman’s routine consisted of telling simple one-liner jokes, occasionally with interludes of violin playing. These depicted simple, cartoon-like situations, eliminating lengthy build-ups and going straight to the punch line. Known as “the King of the One-Liners”, a title conferred to him by columnist Walter Winchell, a stage performance by Youngman lasted only 15 to 20 minutes but contained dozens of jokes in rapid succession.
The Time is Now.
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The Great Reshuffle: How to Retain Top Talent
The Great Reshuffle: How to Retain Top Talent
Guest writer Sonya Law tackles on of the challenges facing businesses today: how to retain your top talent in the face of what is being called the great reshuffle.
The great resignation: could it best be described as the great reshuffle?
It’s true that there has always been staff turnover, so the great resignation is not new, however the reasons for leaving and staying are!
So how do we retain our talent?
We are only as good as our people and our team without our employees we do not have a business. It’s important we understand as HR and Leaders, what are the roadblocks in our businesses and where do our employees need support. Its having a difficult conversation about an employment contract that needs to be sorted, so that we can get on with business. All too often we get sidetracked on what it is we think we should do, what leaders DO is focus on the right things.
When, we are put in a position of leadership it is to serve, it is to understand what is needed to get business done and achieve our goals together as a team. Gone are the days where apathy is a defense or I don’t like conflict is used as an excuse for not having uncomfortable but necessary conversations.
As leaders we need to be addressing issues and people who don’t fit or risk losing talent.
Post Pandemic, employees are looking for:
The entrepreneurial life:
The most interesting reason, that employees are leaving is to pursue their own start up’s, creating businesses that align with their passion and are becoming entrepreneurs.
Jobs in most demand are seeing increases in salaries of up to 30-40%:
The great reshuffle has also pushed up wages because of the lack of supply of seasonal labour and good candidates, due to a candidate short market.
The industries most affected and experiencing this great re-shuffle and increase in salaries are:
Compliance is a constraint on time:
The biggest roadblock HR and leaders are facing in retaining its talent is the constraints on time to invest in these initiatives, so much of the role is about compliance due to Pandemic and Vaccinations.
We know though that if we take proactive and positive steps to engage with our employees our businesses will thrive!
“Take the time to look after your people and they will take time to look after your business.”
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Training Develops Skills That Can Be Measured
Training develops skills that can be measured.
Guest writer Natalia Dmitrenko continues to build from the foundation of last week’s blog post, “Loyal Staff” with her exploration of the skills that training develops. Each of these skills can be measured.
Any corporate training initiatives have a similar purpose: evaluation of the difference in the performance of staff before and after the training took place. That way the company gets a much better picture of all the benefits or potential drawbacks which come with any L&D training.
But if you’d look at the other side of the coin, you’d see that developing effective training mechanisms that would provide up-to-date data about the gaps in knowledge and skills within the departments can be time consuming and rather costly.
Good news is that collaboration with e-learning platforms doesn’t mean companies have to invest tons of funds in training since there are already-made training solutions available. Luckily there are some tools that provide good assistance for these kinds of compliance training. One is Grinfer for Business that offers a training platform that takes the stress out of learning. Participants can log in from anywhere and on-the-go because it’s incredibly mobile. Person can watch one course or even a lesson per day and he/she is done. It’s almost like checking your Instagram, but more informative and career related.
Grinfer for Business is not only about the value-adding L&D activities but is also about performance metrics which can be now implemented easier, thanks to online technologies. This e-learning solution effectively builds a continuous cycle of learning with easy access on-demand not just to career related courses but also to a wide library of content for “your body and soul”. Or, in other words, things that are fun to learn in your spare time.
Business teams get instant access to free live webinars and masterclasses on any topic from top instructors, 1,200+ online courses, workshops, access to authors’ blogs, personalized learning paths/curriculum, and much more. Here learning is not a part of the job, it is mixed with enjoyment of learning something new about the stuff that you love to do outside of your job.
An experience shows that whenever a company builds a continuous cycle of learning, this will not only contribute to a corporate culture across the SME. It also adds a competitive edge that encourages staff in a good way to become more productive and efficient. However, everything really depends on the type of company’s training initiative.
For example, a good showcase of such team training would be collaboration in 2021 with a middle-sized IT company called Severex. Initially, this company’s goal was to find a highly efficient e-learning solution that would work well for upskilling company’s work teams with on-demand skills upgrades, rapid upskilling, and reskilling.
Since Grinfer for Business also engages teams by continuously measuring students’ progress/learning outcomes, after about 3 months of training, Grinfer has collected feedback from the Severex learning teams about their personal learning experiences, insights, achievements, success stories, and any drawbacks that they’ve faced along the way. The survey responses indicated that learning paths correlated with employee engagement which boosted productivity and the effectiveness of teams.
At the same time, this training initiative has built a stronger team spirit and contributed to maintaining a healthy corporate culture across the business. Severex employees, who took part in team learning, have admitted that the learning experience positively influenced their overall job satisfaction. And that most of them felt like the company does a good job in taking care of their needs.
Many respondents admitted that most upgrades they received on hard and soft skills were useful and helped them find new creative outlets for scaling and accomplishing set goals more effectively. By the end of the training cycle, the overall productivity of Severex staff had ticked up to about 15%. At the same time, interaction with the Grinfer for Business platform has ramped up showing the increase of 30%.
In addition, Severex’s HRs were provided with enough data (accumulated from the Grinfer’s custom reports and learners’ engagement rates) for finding better ways to develop long-term learning paths that wouldn’t demand costly investments. And, at the same time, would increase the absorption rate, break the daily routine, and boost employees’ loyalty.
Taking into account that retention rates and employees’ loyalty to a place of hire are the two pressing issues (since the cost of employee turnovers can be high), this puts L&D training programs in a high priority list of organizational charts. And if a company’s staff is filled with people who are always up for learning – always is a good sign.
Coping with today’s already accepted “new normals”, companies start to realize that using e-learning platforms for corporate training provide many undoubtful benefits due to its incredible flexibility, mobility, and accessibility. Some companies go for external e-learning resources like LMS or eLearning marketplaces that are available now for both, individual and group training sessions.
Some prefer to stick to blended learning, which could be the best choice too since it’s also highly effective and also less costly. And saving money is what most companies want in the current realities caused by the global pandemic.
Corporate training delivered via e-learning platforms may still raise some contradictions. The main concern is that you can motivate employees with proper training and you can kill your employees’ motivation with improper ways of training. However, with the rapidly growing popularity of the eLearning industry, investing time, money, and efforts into adequate online educational resources is one of the smartest decisions that business teams can come up with today.
Find more info on how we can help at Grinfer website.
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Friday Filosophy v.03.04.2022
Friday Filosophy v.03.04.2022
Mother Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu – 26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997, honoured in the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, was an Albanian–Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary. She was born in Skopje (now the capital of North Macedonia), then part of the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. After living in Skopje for eighteen years, she moved to Ireland and then to India, where she lived for most of her life.
In 1950, Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religious congregation that had over 4,500 nuns and was active in 133 countries as of 2012. The congregation manages homes for people who are dying of HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis. It also runs soup kitchens, dispensaries, mobile clinics, children’s and family counselling programmes, as well as orphanages and schools. Members take vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, and also profess a fourth vow – to give “wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor.”
Teresa received a number of honors, including the 1962 Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize and the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize. She was canonized on 4 September 2016, and the anniversary of her death (5 September) is her feast day. A controversial figure during her life and after her death, Teresa was admired by many for her charitable work. She was praised and criticized on various counts, such as for her views on abortion and contraception, and was criticized for poor conditions in her houses for the dying. Her authorized biography was written by Navin Chawla and published in 1992, and she has been the subject of films and other books. On 6 September 2017, Teresa and St. Francis Xavier were named co-patrons of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Calcutta.
The Time is Now.
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Loyal Staff: Does Corporate Training Really Work Well for Uplifting Employees’ Skills and Boosting Loyalty?
Loyal Staff: Does Corporate Training Really Work Well for Uplifting Employees’ Skills and Boosting Loyalty?
We are pleased to introduce another new guest writer here at Learning Without Scars. Natallia Dmitrenko is a content specialist at Grinfer with a focus on content management and blog promotion. She gained experience studying at the University of Nebraska taking graduate-level classes and working for a number of companies based in the US and in Minsk, Belarus. Tonight, she writes about loyal staff, and asks the question that many of our clients have asked: does corporate training really work well for uplifting employees’ skills and boosting loyalty?
What is one of the most expensive mistakes managerial staff makes? The answer is: unsuccessful hires. Indeed, statistics indicate that a wrong hire can cost three to five times the compensation of the candidate. On the other hand, according to Go2HR (one of the most trusted sources on HR): “40% of employees who receive poor job training leave their positions within the first year.” Lack of loyalty among employees?
So, how to stave people off from leaving in the first year of hire? No wonder why HRs spend a big chunk of time figuring out best ways of improving training programs for staff. In fact, an engaging corporate L&D training program can become an effective solution for boosting retention and reaching business goals.
Today, L&D online training programs have become a dynamic and almost inseparable part of any business venture. In 2022, almost 50% of L&D professionals confirmed that those employees who were engaged in corporate training were highly engaged in overall corporate processes as well. Hence, being aware of all the popular/efficient trends in the world of L&D is essential for the effective management of staff. Well, especially in the current COVID-19 realities.
Indeed, there are two types of L&D training that exist today: on-the-job training and online training. If the question arises what kind of training to give, this depends upon a multiple of factors: overall productivity and work experience of employees, particular types of hurdles faced at work, the recent work performance, etc. However, the rising tension caused by the never-ending COVID-19 epidemic is forcing companies to pay more attention to L&D training offered via the Internet. Many have already admitted that it really works!
New “work from home” practices prove that if companies engage employees into online training programs, they won’t bet on the wrong horse. Some of the main positive impacts of taking classes on e-learning platforms are:
Of course, corporate training programs vary depending on the company. For example, a company that lays concrete for warehouses odds are will probably need a different training program compared to a tech software company. Still, engaging workers in online training builds a progressive company’s image, foster loyalty, and boost retention rates. Plus, a good online training program also makes any company look more progressive therefore, more attractive to new recruits.
Obviously, staff upskilling through e-learning helps employees understand their jobs and company’s policies better. Proper training contributes to higher retention rates, greater job satisfaction and, as a result, increases loyalty of staff. People feel like they work in an inclusive atmosphere where everyone feels like they can contribute. And this is a part of the retention secret sauce.
Job satisfaction is a necessary ingredient for efficient and enthusiastic job behavior of staff. And that’s the case when a proper corporate training really adds to that dish and brings the whole meal together.
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Maximizing Profits Through Spend Management
Maximizing Profits Through Spend Management
Tonight, we are pleased to introduce our readers to our new guest writer, Jennifer Albright. In her first post, Jennifer educates readers on maximizing profits through spend management. But first, allow us to introduce Jennifer Albright in her own words:
My start in Procurement began unexpectedly with a temporary position, evolving into a career spanning over 20 years and becoming a true passion. I’ve worked in industries ranging from manufacturing to high tech to heavy equipment including 11 years with a large heavy equipment dealer, all of which have reinforced the fact that best practices are truly universal and the biggest strength of any organization is its people.
I enjoy bringing value through the details – working with systems, analyzing data, reviewing contracts – but my true passion is people, building relationships and figuring out what motivates people in order to bring about positive organizational change and millions in cost savings.
Education
Many dealers have yet to embrace spend management as the strategic opportunity that it is; it’s only natural put the focus on sales since that’s the obvious profit generator. The thing is, there are two ways for any business to increase profits – sell more and spend less. I’m not knocking our sales friends, but the savings a dealer can experience through effective spend management can make all the difference in the world during an economic downturn, global pandemic, the off-season, or any time when sales are more of a challenge – and when times are good it can make profits even higher.
If we look at dealers through a spend lens, they typically fall into one of the 4 stages outlined below:
We’ve been fortunate to work with a number of dealers in Stages 4+, and many who are in Stages 2 and 3 who are typically surprised by the magnitude of opportunity within their dealerships. We often hear things like, “I care about selling iron, not what we spend on copy paper” – but it’s so much more significant than paper.
Okay, so how significant?
The Center for Advanced Procurement Strategy (CAPS) is a nonprofit research center at Arizona State University, dedicated to supply management research. They have done extensive research on savings opportunities to be gained through a “mature procurement organization” – meaning, a company who embraces best practices in procurement and spend management.
They were able to quantify addressable spend – meaning, the spend you have control over – as a percentage of gross sales. They went on to define the percentage of savings a company should be able to save through the use of best practices. My colleagues and I have taken their numbers for Industrial Manufacturing and refined them further to find more specifically how the CAPS findings apply to the heavy equipment distribution sector. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you’d like to learn more about this research, I’m happy to share as many nerdy details as you’re interested in hearing.
Bottom line – dealers who embrace spend management as a strategic business function can aim to save 1% of gross sales annually. The average dealer size in North America is approximately $75M – which means a potential savings opportunity of $750K. By focusing solely on sales, the average dealer is letting up to $750K slip through their fingers each year. And the bigger the dealer, the larger the opportunity.
At this point, if you’re in Stage 2 or 3 I hope you’re wondering where to start.
First stop – look at your spend. Who are you buying from? How does your category spend shake out – meaning, do you have 42 office supply vendors when 1 or 2 would do the job? The same goes for tools, furniture, shop supplies, tires, and nearly everything else you buy. Supplier consolidation means higher volume with your chosen suppliers, which leads to larger discounts and other perks with the suppliers you choose to work with, which leads to stronger relationships with those supplier partners. Then, when the next Big Thing happens (hopefully not a pandemic!) you’ll have key partners in place to support you.
Next, look at your processes – you’d be surprised by the cost of waste. As dealers grow and especially as they add new locations, it becomes easy for processes to splinter and to find that you have many ways of doing the same task and that most are likely not as efficient as they could be. Anything from how you process parts orders to how you pay your suppliers, the layout of your facility, closing work orders or processing warranty claims – if you haven’t stepped back and given your processes an objective look, now is the time.
Embrace technology – while this industry is built on relationships and handshakes, many of our customers are becoming more tech savvy. If the pandemic has taught us anything it’s that dealers need to follow suit if they haven’t already. There are so many incredible systems & tools designed specifically for the equipment industry that can save time, streamline processes, and ultimately save money – which means increased profits, and in many cases makes it easier for your customers to do business with you. If you haven’t gotten out there and looked lately, take a moment to see what’s available.
Last but most certainly not least, hire a procurement manager. It may sound excessive for a small dealer, but keep that 1% savings opportunity in mind. This person may initially need to wear multiple hats but an experienced professional will more than pay for themselves a lot faster than you might think.
It’s an exciting time to be part of the equipment industry. By embracing these types of opportunities to improve profitability, dealers can ensure that they will be able to weather whatever storms may come next.
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Friday Filosophy v.02.25.2022
Friday Filosophy v.02.25.2022
Augustine of Hippo (13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings influenced the development of Western philosophy and Western Christianity, and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church in the Patristic Period. His many important works include The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, and Confessions.
After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in 386, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and perspectives. Believing the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, he helped formulate the doctrine of original sin and made significant contributions to the development of just war theory. When the Western Roman Empire began to disintegrate, Augustine imagined the Church as a spiritual City of God, distinct from the material Earthly City. His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. The segment of the Church that adhered to the concept of the Trinity as defined by the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople closely identified with Augustine’s On the Trinity.
Augustine is recognized as a saint in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. He is also a preeminent Catholic Doctor of the Church and the patron of the Augustinians. In the East his teachings are more disputed, and were notably attacked by some, but other theologians and figures of the Eastern Orthodox Church have shown significant approbation of his writings. The most controversial doctrine associated with him, the filioque, was rejected by the Orthodox Church. Other disputed teachings include his views on original sin, the doctrine of grace, and predestination. Nevertheless, though considered to be mistaken on some points, he is still considered a saint and has influenced some Eastern Church Fathers. Augustine’s impact on Western Christian thought can hardly be overstated; only his beloved example, Paul of Tarsus, has been more influential, and Westerners have generally seen Paul through Augustine’s eyes.
The Time is Now