GrowthANSWERS » sales team development

January 2, 2009

How Not To Conduct A Manufacturing Sales Meeting

Filed under: sales team development, sales process optimization —

Many years ago I worked for a small manufacturing company. As one of four regional managers, I was invited to the home office the first week of the second month of each quarter, to meet with our Vice President of Sales for a five-day “Sales Meeting.” We really had a good time eating at our favorite restaurants in the area, but we all HATED those meetings!

We were never sure just why we were called in for a full week, four times a year. These meetings consisted of hours of random discussions without meaningful decisions, bull sessions about sports teams or favorite cars and where we would have lunch. These hours were punctuated by moments of interesting discussions with engineering, marketing and manufacturing, which helped us feel a part of something larger than ourselves. Here is what I observed about how not to conduct a sales meeting:

No advanced agenda. We were often unable to contribute effectively to a particular discussion because we did not know the subjects in advance. Lack of preparation resulted in frustration and poor decision-making.
Failure to adhere to the established agenda. The first morning of each event we were presented with the week’s agenda. We rarely stuck to those topics, and often got behind. We all felt like two of the five days were wasted.
Avoiding the “elephant in the room.” Sales were flat for four of the five years I was part of this group. While we discussed ways to increase sales (of course!), the “elephant” of our antiquated technology and poor market positioning was ignored.
Lack of a marketing and sales plan. I do not remember any cohesive marketing programs or plans of action which would increase our market share or customer awareness. It was difficult to generate excitement in the field.
No business fun. We had four talented, capable managers, who wanted to succeed and make money. There was no “motivational speaker” or trainer or consultant brought in to help us grow personally, to get outside our habits and look for innovative ways to grow our business.
No follow up from the top. The CEO and the VP of Sales were great people. We became friends. But they had no action plans to work with us in the field to identify markets, build distribution or increase OEM sales. We may or may not see them in the field between quarterly meetings.

From these experiences I have three recommendations for effective sales meetings:
1. Identify and promote a specific and definite objective for each meeting.
2. Keep it short and stick to business. Generate excitement to make the meeting personally rewarding and business profitable.
3. Follow up with executive presence in the field to reinforce the initiatives or the plans decided in the meetings. Field managers need to be accountable and feel supported.

If you want to have fun, build the business meeting around a fun location, but make sure that the business is the focus of the meetings part.

MARK WALKER http://www.jmwalkergroup.com/

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November 19, 2008

AT&T’s Lack of Customer Service - Part Deux

Filed under: customer service, sales team development, sales process optimization, marketing strategy, General —

BY STEVEN WINOKUR - www.tpstrategies.com

The adventure with AT&T continues. Ok, so as it got closer to the “new” scheduled date, I realized I hadn’t received a confirmation call about the appointment that weekend. And guess what?!? When I called them, they had no record of the re-scheduled appointment. So, I had to make another new appointment.

If you remember, they told me I had to cancel my old service before I could get their new one. So, two days before the installation I called a different part of AT&T (I had my DSL through Bellsouth, which then became AT&T) to cancel my current service. When the agent asked why I was cancelling (great question by the way - always try to find out why clients leave), I told her I was switching to U-Verse. She then proceeded to tell me that I was not supposed to cancel the service and that when the service gets installed, they would cancel it then.

I broke into laughter because while this was how I thought it should work, several people over at U-Verse told me otherwise. This agent, who was not in the U-Verse department, explained to me how it would work. Finally, someone who knew what they were doing! She tried to make excuses for them by saying U-Verse was new and that the agents would learn over time. Not a good excuse in my book…

So the installation date finally arrived - the technician called ahead and arrived on time. Great so far. But there was no way this was going to go completely smoothly, was there? Nope - first, my wiring was screwy so they had to run new cable. Certainly not their fault, just an annoyance that was tackled well by the technician. But the outside wiring guy never showed up so the technician had to call the dispatch and get someone out right away to put in a new box outside. To their credit, they did get someone out pretty quickly.

I won’t get into the problems I had getting my email to work and AT&T’s attempt to get me to pay for service. Well, wait, I will say something about it because I think it demonstrates a good lesson.

I was having trouble getting my email to send out using my own domain name. I was transferred to a service department that wanted me to pay for support to get it work. I complained that I didn’t think I should pay for support for something that didn’t work. The agent then proceeded to argue with me, telling me that since the Internet worked, that’s what I was paying for. They didn’t guarantee the mail working the way I wanted it to. Huh? I proceeded to explain to her that I had no problem with email before U-Verse and since I did now, their service was not working the way I needed it to. I finally got to someone who helped me for free. Word of advice - if a customer calls to complain about your service, DO NOT ARGUE WITH THEM.

Let me repeat - DO NOT ARGUE WITH THEM.

Even if they’re wrong, figure out how to deal with the situation WITHOUT arguing with them.

That’s one lesson - the second had to do with training. If you bring out new products or services, make sure your staff is well-trained on how the product works, how it gets installed and what the user has to do to purchase the new product. Like I said in the previous post, most of us have many competitors. It’s too easy to switch to a competitor that has their “ducks in a row”. Don’t make the mistake of unveiling something new and not have your processes in place to make it a smooth transition because you know what, someone else will.