Today’s post is about successful salesmanship, and I dedicate this blog post to all sale persons who have done and contributed more than they were paid for. I’m sure few of you out there will think that I’m being ridiculous - ‘doing more that you‘re paid for?’. To good to be true….. but let’s ponder for a while. How many of us feel that we are under paid? Many… sure there’s many of us think so. Then ask again…. What is the difference from being under paid and doing more than you are paid for? Emm… Can you grasp the math there? The two sides of an ‘equation’ are equal; the only difference is one is on the right, whilst another is on the left or in math we say that one is positive (on the left) and another is negative (on the right) if you were to bring it to the positive side and letting the equation equals zero; (x = y same as x – y = 0). So if you did more than you were paid, you are positive thinker (x) with regards to the contributions to your employer; and if you thought you were under paid then you are being negative (-y).
Let me suggest to you the extra work that has to be done by the sales team which can have tremendous result on the company’s business performance. The result would be similar for the case when an enthusiastic entrepreneur puts in this extra effort to his business. These extra duties by the way do not require you to burn more calories or performing back-breaking tasks; it only needs just a little extra concentration and focusing on the requirements of the customers, that is, from the start till the end. In other words, give the customs what they want and at the same time increasing your business efficiency. This is like killing two birds with one stone.
The example below will illustrate my point.
My client has a sales team that consists of 3 sales persons. They did a great job 3 months ago by bringing in 5 orders of automated process machines of about the same size from 5 different customers. However, all the customers want the machines to be delivered after a month. My client so far had the experienced of producing 3 machines in a month and felt that his capacity was already up against the ceiling. I thought that if we could just focus to making improvements a little bit more on the process of getting all the information from the customers to the production people my clients might be able to increase its capacity from producing the normal rate of 3 machines to 5 machines in 1 month time. He got no choice but to make it possible if he wanted improvement.
My client had experienced receiving many complaints from customers when starting the business. When we studied the nature of the complaints we found that main culprit was short in meeting the requirements of customers such as higher rejects rate when running at the required speed. We also found that some important information from customers was not delivered to the people making the machines and we decided to have solutions for the sales team not to leave behind information from customers.
The first thing that the sales team had to do was to identity the gaps in the process of communicating the requirements to the people who were directly involved in the planning, designing and all personnel of the manufacturing department. The idea was to get the manufacturing people as close as possible to the customers’ needs; so close that they could actually feel like the customers. The sales team must not sit back until all their coordinating jobs were well done.
The sale team had identified 5 points could be improved the process of conveying the customers’ demand to the others. The 5 points to be improved were;
1. Understanding the exact requirements of customers by all personnel involved in the production of the machines by defining the purpose of each requirements.
2. Performing all calculations and carrying out simulations by all concerned personnel to assess the requirements by the customers as to gauge their needs and other specifications.
3. Making 100% certain by analyzing the availability of technology, hardware and software and their alternatives to satisfy the requirements of the customers,
4. Designing and developing the manufacturing process of each machine ensuring that these processes can meet the requirement of the customers.
5. Carrying out reviews and verification on the above 4 points and ensuring that all requirements of the customers are met.
The sales team stepped up their activities by holding several discussions sessions with other personnel to ensure that all these points were being addressed to the other related department. Thus taking charge as the ‘front wheel drive’ in coordinating the efforts of getting the demands of customers to the people in manufacturing. They would take along key person from manufacturing to discuss directly with the user of the machine.
Previously this process of communication the customers’ demands was done once per machine during the project’s kick off meeting. Although other discussions were held like design review meeting, none of the sales team attended the meeting.
The results were very astounding and encouraging. My client was able to ship out all 5 machines in about 5 weeks after their ordered were received. Even though the target of one month was not realized, my client discovered that by making each process efficient, improvements in productivity can be achieved, like what I’ve described, without much investment on extra equipments and manpower.
You will notice that process of conveying the demands of the customers is located some what in between the sales and the departments responsible in the manufacturing of these machines. I called this as the ‘no-man-land’ where if it is left unnoticed; it will be neglected by the all departments and will result in miscommunications and other undesirable effects because many requests of the customers were neglected and not considered important by the people in designing the machines. The real problems will come when customers are not satisfied with the machines and the machines will undergo numerous modifications and be subjected to verification again and again – like a yoyo. The worst part is when receiving customer’s complaints after the machine had been delivered; it can be a real nightmare for my client.
I think it is most appropriate for the sales team to take the responsibly to ascertain that the above 5 points are meticulously addressed to the various departments so as to delivery what were being ‘promised’ to the customers. As we have already known by now that satisfied customers are held by delivering what the sales person had promised.
Let me suggest to you the extra work that has to be done by the sales team which can have tremendous result on the company’s business performance. The result would be similar for the case when an enthusiastic entrepreneur puts in this extra effort to his business. These extra duties by the way do not require you to burn more calories or performing back-breaking tasks; it only needs just a little extra concentration and focusing on the requirements of the customers, that is, from the start till the end. In other words, give the customs what they want and at the same time increasing your business efficiency. This is like killing two birds with one stone.
The example below will illustrate my point.
My client has a sales team that consists of 3 sales persons. They did a great job 3 months ago by bringing in 5 orders of automated process machines of about the same size from 5 different customers. However, all the customers want the machines to be delivered after a month. My client so far had the experienced of producing 3 machines in a month and felt that his capacity was already up against the ceiling. I thought that if we could just focus to making improvements a little bit more on the process of getting all the information from the customers to the production people my clients might be able to increase its capacity from producing the normal rate of 3 machines to 5 machines in 1 month time. He got no choice but to make it possible if he wanted improvement.
My client had experienced receiving many complaints from customers when starting the business. When we studied the nature of the complaints we found that main culprit was short in meeting the requirements of customers such as higher rejects rate when running at the required speed. We also found that some important information from customers was not delivered to the people making the machines and we decided to have solutions for the sales team not to leave behind information from customers.
The first thing that the sales team had to do was to identity the gaps in the process of communicating the requirements to the people who were directly involved in the planning, designing and all personnel of the manufacturing department. The idea was to get the manufacturing people as close as possible to the customers’ needs; so close that they could actually feel like the customers. The sales team must not sit back until all their coordinating jobs were well done.
The sale team had identified 5 points could be improved the process of conveying the customers’ demand to the others. The 5 points to be improved were;
1. Understanding the exact requirements of customers by all personnel involved in the production of the machines by defining the purpose of each requirements.
2. Performing all calculations and carrying out simulations by all concerned personnel to assess the requirements by the customers as to gauge their needs and other specifications.
3. Making 100% certain by analyzing the availability of technology, hardware and software and their alternatives to satisfy the requirements of the customers,
4. Designing and developing the manufacturing process of each machine ensuring that these processes can meet the requirement of the customers.
5. Carrying out reviews and verification on the above 4 points and ensuring that all requirements of the customers are met.
The sales team stepped up their activities by holding several discussions sessions with other personnel to ensure that all these points were being addressed to the other related department. Thus taking charge as the ‘front wheel drive’ in coordinating the efforts of getting the demands of customers to the people in manufacturing. They would take along key person from manufacturing to discuss directly with the user of the machine.
Previously this process of communication the customers’ demands was done once per machine during the project’s kick off meeting. Although other discussions were held like design review meeting, none of the sales team attended the meeting.
The results were very astounding and encouraging. My client was able to ship out all 5 machines in about 5 weeks after their ordered were received. Even though the target of one month was not realized, my client discovered that by making each process efficient, improvements in productivity can be achieved, like what I’ve described, without much investment on extra equipments and manpower.
You will notice that process of conveying the demands of the customers is located some what in between the sales and the departments responsible in the manufacturing of these machines. I called this as the ‘no-man-land’ where if it is left unnoticed; it will be neglected by the all departments and will result in miscommunications and other undesirable effects because many requests of the customers were neglected and not considered important by the people in designing the machines. The real problems will come when customers are not satisfied with the machines and the machines will undergo numerous modifications and be subjected to verification again and again – like a yoyo. The worst part is when receiving customer’s complaints after the machine had been delivered; it can be a real nightmare for my client.
I think it is most appropriate for the sales team to take the responsibly to ascertain that the above 5 points are meticulously addressed to the various departments so as to delivery what were being ‘promised’ to the customers. As we have already known by now that satisfied customers are held by delivering what the sales person had promised.
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