The best sales managers I have had the privilege to work with develop sales skills in their people to ever-higher levels so that they stay competitive in this ever-changing business environment.
One way to define the job of sales management is: To Close the Selling Skills Gap
Realize Profit Potential
How much of the market's profit potential do each of your reps realize? If you plotted their numbers on a piece of paper, a bell shaped curve would emerge.
Some of them will fall to the left of the curve in the "below average" range. Perhaps, they frequently leave business on teh table for fail to pursue new opportunities.
Others will fall to the right of the curve in the "above average" range. They may exercise diligence and follow-through to win business that others leave behind and outspace the competition by creating opportunities from unlikely sources.
A good number of your reps will fall somewhere in the middle where they settle for some available business, but fail to capitalize on all of the dollar potential within their grasp.
This raises two questions:
- What are your average and bottom-performing salespeople not doing now that you wish they were?
- What are your top-performing salespeople doing that sets them apart?
Sales management must insure that it has the sales talent, resources, and opportunities to take more than its "fair share" from the market.
Sales management is the key.
Our job as managers is to close the selling skills gap by improving the performance of our average and below-average sales reps, while maintaining and enhancing the ability of our top performers. Your commitent to coaching selling skills will help you lead more of your people to sell to the right of "average"...to a place where they outsell the competition and realize more of your profit potential.
Click here to download a Performance Guide and Productivity Checklist that you can use to help close the skill gap of your sales people.
____________________________________________________
For more sales management strategies, subscribe to this blog RSS Feed or send us your e-mail and receive our monthly newsletter. Follow me on Twitter, connect on LinkedIn. And, if you are interested in having me speak at your next sales meeting, send us your contact information or call 847-381-7797.
If We Don’t Change - We Die!
While we know our businesses must change, many distribution businesses are at risk. Some suggest that less than 10% of the total distribution population is prepared for the future. That we have our blinders on. That we’ve stayed too complacent.
In the last 25 years while the world, technology, and our customer’s needs have evolved dramatically, the business of distribution looks much the same. As we wrote earlier, we are standing on a burning platform.
Most distributors are working off old business models. The way they create, deliver and capture value is rooted in the industrial era before big data, global markets, 3D printing, the internet, mobile, millennials, disruptive technologies, and well, the world of today.
Remaining relevant in today’s super sonic world - must be the priority of every wholesale and distribution leader.
And if we are honest - those industry meetings we have religiously attended the last 25 years have stopped being the change agent they once were. 
You can’t expect the catalyst for change to come from a vehicle that hasn’t changed in decades. I’ve been asking distribution leaders what they think of the typical industry meeting they and their people attend. It’s not a pretty picture.
- “Going to an association conference is like sitting at my grandfathers dinner table. It’s stuck in the 1950s.”
- “There is not much on how to improve your business.”
- “When I walk away from these conferences my only take away is that it was one place to go where I could meet and socialize with my channel partners.”
- “I’ve stopped going because there was no furthering of my thought.”
One distributor who attended his trade association’s annual meeting this past month posted some strong and telling views of the state of these meetings:
“The association is not going to convince me of their value with tribute bands. They appear to be confused about what adds value to their members and think throwing a good party is a key component. I already belong to a country club and don’t need an industry equivalent. Until the association gets down to business and figures out how to create a value proposition that makes their members more successful and profitable they will continue to lose the hearts and minds of the industry.”
Making Distributors More Successful & Profitable - Let’s Break The Rules!
How can you expect to change, if you don’t break the rules?
You can’t!
So let’s break the friggin rules!
If the current structure of industry gatherings are no longer providing the spark for innovation and transformation - let’s break the rules.
The value of these annual conferences has degenerated as a money maker for the association rather than delivering a value proposition that makes the industry more successful and profitable.
The last thing the industry needs is another meeting.
But what we do need is a catalyst for change. And Unleash:WD is the single strongest catalyst of change for wholesalers, distributors, and their channel partners in the last 25 years.
Unleash is a first of its kind summit for the distribution industry. This ground breaking summit was designed by bringing the voice and experience of forward-looking CEOs and industry leaders to the forefront. Industry leaders who break the rules and challenge others to do the same.
If we expect change we have to break the rules. And break the rules we are doing.
5 Rules Unleash Is About To Break
From Industry Gurus To No Industry Speakers
We started breaking the rules with the question: “What if we had an industry event with no industry speakers?”
To drive new thinking we need to be exposed to those from outside of wholesale and distribution. Our inspiration came not from the latest in supply chain management but from Steve Jobs who once said: “It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best humans have done. And then try to bring those things in to what you are doing.”
During Unleash, we’ll look to 24 of the world's most provocative and inspiring people on the planet to bring a fresh and innovative perspective to our business, industry, and our world.
From Keynotes, Lectures, & Panel Discussions To Storytelling
We’ve all been to too many conferences consisting of as one industry blogger recently put it, too many “unfocused meetings, second tier speakers ... with 110 slides that no one could read.” Death by PowerPoint, panel discussions and recycled lectures have become the norm.
Unleash, on the other hand, in breaking this pattern will be the new inspiration of change acceleration. And we’ll do this through storytelling. As TED has shown and Business Innovation Factory chief catalyst Saul Kaplan describes, “People must be inspired and emotionally vested in cocreating a new future. Without inspiration businesses don’t change. Sharing stories is how to create a network of passionate supporters that can help make new business model ideas a reality.”
From Best Practices To Next Practices
It’s time we rethink old habits that made us great in the past. Best practices of other distributors is fine for incremental change. In today’s world however, incremental change is not going to secure our future.
Unleash will go beyond best practices within wholesale distribution and look to the innovators and creators in the world of technology, start-ups, finance, and others. We’ll explore next practices to bring to our organizations, allowing for relevancy of our business model as we lead our teams forward.
From Like Businesses & Titles To Like-Minded Individuals
For decades we’ve gathered within our silos. Fastener distributors go to fastener distributor meetings. Electronic distributors go to electronic distributor meetings. CEOs of billion dollar companies go to CEO of billion dollar company round tables. Supply and logistics professionals go to supply and logistics conferences.
Unleash believes that the big ideas and innovation are born and created in the intersections between these silos. Unleash will bring together 300 like minded early adopters of change without regard to industry segment or title. Inspired connections will spark new conversations and new understanding of what’s possible.
From What Will We Do Differently To Design For Future Relevancy
We have to change the conversation! As the rest of the organization is concerning itself with how to tweak current processes and systems for efficiencies, the real leaders of the business must be focused on what’s required to get the organization to think differently.
Our two day immersion into what’s possible will spark creative and innovative thinking for you and your business leaders to begin designing the future of your business.
From Assuming Our Business Model Is Strong To Finding New Ways To Create, Deliver, And Capture Value
It’s time to change our thinking from how to we ride out the trend of disruption, to how do we become the disrutper. Rather than being disrupted, Unleash is all about you and your organization becoming the disrupter.
To disrupt, you’ll need to find new ways of creating, delivering, and capturing value. You’ll leave Unleash with a new commitment to innovation and transformation.
Join Us As We Break The Rules
Plan on joining us as we break the rules. When you do, you’ll be surrounded by 300 like-minded leaders who will immerse themselves and find:
- A catalyst that leads to a new call to action.
- A vehicle to spark new ideas to get spirited and inspired movement within their businesses
- A new intellectual challenge catalyzing innovation for value creation.
Engaging Workplaces
Too often, our mission, purpose and values simply live on a plaque or the "About Us" page of our website.
Great leaders, however, build an engaging workplace by clarifying how each individual's work contributes to the organization's purpose, inviting input from their people and keeping up conversations about the work.
Excellent sales performances usually come from salespeople that are engaged in their work, motivated, and productive. Researchers tell us that engaging workplaces are:
- 56% more likely to have higher-than-average customer loyalty
- 38% more likely to have above average productivity
- 27% more likely to report higher profitability
We can create this kind of environment by (1) helping our people "own the work that's before them, and (2) practicing good communication.
Ownership
When our reps "own" an idea or behavior, they prove that ownership with their actions. Two best practices in sales management help us achieve ownership from others:
- Frequently show how their work contributes to the "big picture". It takes little effort to link an individual's current task with company goals, but over time, those kinds of explanations reap big rewards. Good managers regularly make these connections for their people.
- Invite their participation in planning. People "own" ideas that they've had a part in developing. When we solicit input from our people, we give them the freedom to assess problems, and invite them to author and execute solutions.
Good Communication
Good communication is essential to every message we deliver to our people, from persuading them to buy in to a vision and strategies, to keeping them focused and engaged in their work. Three traits characterize effective conversation: it's clear, ongoing, and runs in two directions.
- Clear communication builds trust. This means holding back on delivering "half-baked" ideas, or messages that are complex or vague. Instead, by repeating simple, memorable messages, we instill confidence and foster understanding.
- Ongoing conversation keeps important topics alive. A series of informal conversations that address and readdress the same topic is more effective than one big information "hit" (an an annual meeting, for example). The "5-7 Rule" builds off this concept. Repeat a message five to seven times before expecting your people to "get it".
- Two-way communication keeps the sales team engaged in its work, motivated, and inspired. When we sincerely ask for and actively listen to our reps' feedback, we not only keep up meaningful discussion, but we build positive, productive relationships in the process.
_________________________________________________
For more sales management strategies, subscribe to this blog RSS Feed or send us your e-mail and receive our monthly newsletter. Follow me on Twitter, connect on LinkedIn. And, if you are interested in having me speak at your next sales meeting, send us your contact information or call 847-381-7797.
Something is missing from our business today—and that something is tension.
Not the kind of tension you’re thinking of—not fear, worry, concern for our jobs, our stability, our future. There is actually plenty of that to go around, especially as we slowly climb our way out of the recent recession. There’s certainly no shortage of negativity out there, even though business conditions are improving in many industries.
No, we’re not talking about fearful, worrisome tension at all.
We’re talking about positive tension, good tension—the kind that is driven by optimism, 
excitement, and a vision for a better tomorrow. When you get right down to it, tension suggests that we are entering the unknown, that we are vulnerable. But this doesn’t have to be a negative state. If we flip this condition on its head and fill our organizations with the right kind of tension, there’s no telling what we may achieve.
Positive tension is more than just the opposite of negative tension; it is the polar opposite of the complacency we have come to accept as good business practices in our daily operations.
Injecting tension into your organization can push you to the next level. It can take you from survival mode to thriving mode.
Bring Your Organization To The Edge
There’s no question we are stuck in a comfort zone these days. We surround ourselves with people from our industry. We bring in consultants from our industry. We recruit from within our industry. We read industry-specific publications. As a result, we come to really know our industry. We come to conclude “we are doing pretty good” compared to other wholesalers and distributors.
But this comfort is camouflage. Camouflage of your businesses exposure to disruption.
Our comfort helps us maintain our position until someone or something better comes along. And then what will we do? We’ll cry “unfair competition.” We’ll say “I can’t compete with that big-box store,” or “If I only had the resources to provide those kinds of services.”
But what we’re really saying is that we can’t keep up; that we can’t compete. We’re really saying we’ve failed to move beyond our safety zone.
To become the thriving, innovative organizations we all want to be requires moving from inside your organization to the edge of it.
Providing new and better solutions to customer problems is the heart and soul of what wholesaler-distributors do. And we can’t continue to do it if we’re stuck on the sidelines. Being out in front means being vulnerable—to the competition, to your surroundings, and to yourself.
But it is only there—out in front, out on the edge—that we can find new and better ways to deliver value to our customers. And this is the true definition of innovation, as we have said in this space before.
Getting to the edge requires being in a state of tension that drives us forward. It means looking beyond best practices of other distributors to the earth shattering changes of technology, consumerism, mobile, social, millennials entering the workforce, evolving business models, and more.
It means being in a race to get your next great idea to the market. And it means being brutally honest with ourselves, our peers, and our employees about what it takes to succeed in the new business economy.
There are many ways to harness the power of positive tension in your organizations. Consider some of these ideas:
- Let your employees feel vulnerable. Being on the edge of something is what drives us forward. Historically our industrial driven hierarchal management styles have demanded immediate results - today. Positive tension allows for trying something that we think might work. At Burberry for example - they value feeling over knowing. You can’t prove what hasn’t been so positive tension says - “Do you believe in what you are suggesting? We don’t know if it will work. If you feel that it’s right - let’s run at it!” The vulnerability comes in not knowing what the outcome is going to be and the risk involved. That’s positive tension.
- Admit you don’t have all the answers—that some of your best solutions are still out there, waiting for you to discover them. Sharing our vulnerabilities opens conversations and brings people closer together. What better way to bring employees together to create new value.
- Be brutally honest. Is there anything that causes more tension than good old-fashioned, blatant honesty? Of course this honesty must be directed towards uncovering the camouflage of comfort. Use your direct and coaching communication skills to move your people and their ideas, not to what we can do today, but to the edge of what’s possible.
Tension In An Organization Is Good
Positive tension is a force that great leaders use to bring their team to a new place. Look at your team - are they comfortable? The day they are, is the day you begin to lose your business. Let go of the fear and unleash the power to push them—and your organization—to the next level.
In my NAW Institute for Distribution Excellence book Driving Distributor Sales Beyond: Best Practices For Outselling Your Competitors, I introduce the concept of a holistic business approach as it relates to distributor sales teams. Our research demonstrated that top performing distributors
- First build from a base of their Guiding Ideas - Success in business requires the entire organization working towards the same vision, mission and by the same values, for example.
- Next, they build a sales management system that provides sales managers with a roadmap for how to lead the sales team, so that together, they can help the company achieve its guiding ideas.
- Third, the company builds a sales system that guides the sales team towards the needed selling strategies, skills and behaviors.
- And in the end, the financial results that the company achieves are attained as a result of the implementation of this holistic model.
Andrew Berlin is the President and CEO of Berlin Packaging, a wholesale distributor of rigid packaging that has a 13 year average growth rate of 17% in an industry that has grown just 3% in those same 13 years. Speaking of the company success, Andrew stated: "It's not because we have some emerging technology. It's not because we have some special idea that nobody else could figure out. Our 'secret weapon' -- and not so secret, but hard to achieve -- is that we have the best people and the best culture."
Andrew Berlin's insight reminds us that great results don't happen by accident. They're the product of high performance culture: great people who understand, internalize and implement the company's mission and its strategies.
In short, when we internalize and help our team internalize the Guiding Ideas of our organization and allow them to drive the way we manage and sell, we set the stage for high performance.
Your set of guiding ideas:
- Form the very foundation of your job descriptions
- Guides your choices, priorities and activities
- Defines what you attempt to do as a company
Examples of Guiding Ideas
This leading distributor of industrial supplies, MRO equipment, tools, and matterials, posted 2010 sales of $7.2 billion. Grainger is a Fortune 500 company and a perennial member of Fortune Magazine's Most Admired Companies List. Grainger's vision statement:
Grainger's Vision is to be the world leader in offering solutions that help businesses and institutions maintain, repair and operate their facilities.
While Detroit struggles, Ford continues to post some impressive results, with U.S. Sales up 7% in January. The evolved culture at Ford Motor is about continuous improvment, collaboration, focus on the customers, and delivering great products more efficiently than the competition. Ford's three Guiding Principles are:
Quality Comes First: To achieve customer satisfaction, the quality of our products and services must be our number one priority.
Customers Are the Focus of Everything We Do: Our work must be done with our customers in mind, providing better products and services than our competition.
Continuous Improvement is Essential To Our Success: We must strive for excellence in everything we do; in our products, in their safety and value, and in our services, our human relations, our competitiveness and our profitability.
Your Company - Fill in the blank here. It's probably time to dust off your firm's Guiding Ideas and bring meaning back to them.
Your Own Constitution
In some ways, each of the guiding ideas are just like the U.S. Constitution: While they can't address the details of every possible scenario, they provide general direction and guiding principles that keep you, your team, and your company on track. As managers, we must take steps to ensure that our people understand how their individual contributions help to accomplish your organization's guiding ideas.
Your business growth does begin with your Guiding Ideas. Here are a series of questions to help you determine the level of commitment to your firm's Guiding Ideas.
- Do you continually refer back to the Guiding Ideas or are they just a plaque hanging on the wall?
- Have you personally answered the question "How do these guiding ideas mandate I perform on the job?"
- Have you asked every member of your team to answer the question "How do thee guiding ideas mandate I perform on the job?"
- Do you intentionally coach to improve behaviors that support your Guiding Ideas?
Download this tool to help you think through these four questions to begin focusing on business growth through the foundation of your Guiding Ideas.
____________________________________________________
For more sales management strategies, subscribe to this blog RSS Feed or send us your e-mail and receive our monthly newsletter. Follow me on Twitter, connect on LinkedIn. And, if you are interested in having me speak at your next sales meeting, send us your contact information or call 847-381-7797.
It's Not Them. It's You.
Managing sales performance begins with an understanding of the what, why and how of driving accountability throughout the sales organization.
To get a feel for the degree to which your people feel accountable for producing needed results, you might try this exercise at your next sales meeting. As your team is assembled around the table, ask your sales people the question:
"Think of the last sale that you lost. A sale that you had wanted, worked hard for and quoted, but htat you lost. The sale went to one of your competitors. Now ask yourself - why did you lose that sale? Write down two or three reasons why you lost that sale."
In most instances, you will hear reasons such as:
- Our pricing
- The product was out of inventory
- The competitor bought the business
- The customer has had a bad experience with us in the past
- The relationship the customer has with our competitor
Take a look at the list, and compare to what you hear from your sales team. What do you see? What do you hear from your sales team? What do you find troubling about this list?
You see, most salespeople come to the conclusion that they lose the sale because of things others did. Seldom will you hear the sale was lost because they:
- Got outsold
- Didn't work hard enough
- Didn't understand the customer's needs deep enough
- Didn't differentiate themselves
In a word - they fail to take accountability. And this lack of accountability is killing your sales effectiveness.
Now, make no mistake, the first list above contains real obstacles. Obstacles fighting to stop us from achieving our goals. But again, what is missing from the list? What is missing is individuals taking accountability for the lack of performance.
So What Is Accountability?
Accountability may best be defined by Roger Connors, Tom Smith, and Craig Hickman, who authored the best selling book The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability. In this book, the authors define accountability as:
A personal choice to rise above one's circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary for achieving desired results.
We must consciously ask ourselves:
- Are we making the personal choices to rise above all that the market, the economy, the competitors, and our own internal challenges that are being thrown at us?
- Do we accept ownership to do whatever is required to achieve our goals and objectives?
____________________________________
For more sales management strategies, subscribe to this blog RSS Feed or send us your e-mail and receive our monthly newsletter. Follow me on Twitter, connect on LinkedIn. And, if you are interested in having me speak at your next sales meeting, send us your contact information or call 847-381-7797.
Leading a Sales Team and Driving Sales
Bobby Bowden, the former coach of the Florida State Seminoles football team from 1976 to 2009 knows a few things about beating the competition. In addition to coaching the Seminoles to 12 Atlantic Coast Conference championships and two national titles he finished his career second in all-time wins by a Division 1 football coach with 389 wins.
Bobby Bowden understands that the identifying, evaluating, and successfully recruiting the student-athlete that best meets the needs of the football program is an ongoing challenge coaches face. He summed up its importance when he said
"He who gets the best player usually wins."
The same could be said for leading a sales team - those who surround themselves with the best and most professional sales people win. And it is the conscious effort of manpower planning that allows you to do exactly that.
The best sales managers I have ever been with, frequently evaluate the effectiveness of their people and adjust roles or positions to help the team consistently outperform its competition.
Ask yourself - have you just accepted the roles and territories your sales people have, just because that is where they have always been? Many have. And many are failing to drive sales as a result.
What is Manpower Planning?
Manpower Planning consists of putting the right number of people, the right kind of people, in the right position, at the right time, so they may do the right things for which they are suited, allowing the organization to achieve its goals.
Said another way, Manpower Planning involves reviewing current manpower resources, forecasting future requirements and availability, and taking steps toe ensure that the supply of people and skills meet demand.
In the spirit of effective business planning, top producing sales managers continously evaluate their business in terms of needs going forward versus the manpower they currently have. They then plan, as Bobby Bowden says, to have the best players so that they can win.
When is the last time you honestly assessed:
- The number of sales reps you need to maximize potential?
- The qualities of the people you need to meet market and customer demands?
- The territories your sales reps have responsibilities for, and how a restructuring could help drive sales?
- What your future manpower needs will be?
- Your efforts to attract the skilled talent you'll need in the future?
Go on. Go get the best players. Put them in the right position. Be Bobby Bowden and win!
_________________________________
For more sales management strategies, subscribe to this blog RSS Feed or send us your e-mail and receive our monthly newsletter. Follow me on Twitter, connect on LinkedIn. And, if you are interested in having me speak at your next sales meeting, send us your contact information or call 847-381-7797.
You’re falling behind and you don’t even know it; wholesaler-distributors must loosen their grasp on the past to ensure a stronger future.
Sure, you say you think different. Most really don’t. As a whole, the gravitational pull of legacy continues to attract our people, our thinking our business to what was - rather than what could be.
You’re a wholesaler distributor; chances are you’re running a business that has pretty much done things the same way for two or more generations. Of course you’ve created an online store and implemented “lean” or Six Sigma processes in your warehouse—and you may have even dipped your toe in the social media waters with Facebook and Twitter.
Understand however, all of that is just an attempt at keeping up.
You’re falling behind. You just might be standing on a burning platform.
How do you try to stay ahead? The tried and true method – for the last 30 years – has been to attend your industry annual meeting and convention. Right? 
Upon arrival to the beach resort, you look at last year’s agenda and compare it to this years. In a Bill Murray Groundhog Day kind of way, you find yourself listening to the same slate of industry gurus—with a few new names thrown in for good measure—thinking that you’re somehow staying ahead of the competition.
This in-and-of-itself raises a question – Just who is your competition? But, I digress.
To be sure, you must keep pace with technology adoption and current trends in your supply chain. But I believe it’s time to face a new reality. Business is changing in more ways than that, and if you’re not moving beyond best practices shared by your peers or industry consultants, you and your company will be left behind.
For good.
It is the end of business as usual.
It’s Time To Innovate
I’ve come to the conclusion that success in todays’ business world lies in unleashing a certain power within your company—the power to think, act, and lead differently than you have in the past.
With the disruptive onslaught of technology, new business models, and unthinkable competition you must surround yourself with individuals who are ready to nuke nostalgia to think, act, and lead differently.
For most distributors, the groundwork was laid many, many years ago. Now it’s time to step outside the comfort zone of nostalgia and even best practices to ensure your business’s future. It’s time to take that solid foundation and move from best practices to next practices.
It’s time to let go of the past and embrace new ideas from new sources.
What Does It Mean To Innovate?
Innovation has become a buzzword in today’s business world. That’s a shame. On the whole, distributors have not developed an innovative culture. To do that, you first need to understand what innovation is and what it is not.
Developing the latest and greatest product or service is not innovation; that’s called invention--and there’s a big difference between the two terms, says Saul Kaplan, founder and chief catalyst of the Business Innovation Factory in Providence, R.I.
Kaplan’s passion is rooted in showing people how to innovate for success no matter what their industry or endeavor. In doing so, he makes a key point about invention versus innovation: the former is all about technology and creating a tangible new product or service; the latter is about finding a better way to deliver value to your customer.
As Kaplan explains, it’s not innovation until you’ve solved the customer’s problem.
Today, we have more inventions (read “technology”) than we know what to do with. (What’s the latest iPhone version? Who’s got the fastest Internet service on the market?) But when it comes to finding new and better ways to deliver value, there’s a real dearth of offerings in just about every marketplace.
What Can Distributors Learn From Our Education System?
In a recent interview, Kaplan used our education system to illustrate this point. Ask any parent or educator what they think about today’s public education system and chances are you’ll get an earful about what’s wrong and what needs to be done to solve the problem. At the same time, schools are using plenty of new technology (inventions) to educate students--and we have certainly thrown a lot of money at the problem of improving public education.
As Kaplan puts it, the real problem is the business model; despite the new technologies and the financial investment, we continue to use the same failing business model to educate our young people. Even more problematic, educators and politicians refuse to draw from successful models such as those found in many charter schools to change, invigorate and deliver better value.
Let’s take Kaplan’s thoughts on education, change a few words to the paragraph above and apply his thinking to wholesale distribution:
The real problem in wholesale distribution is the business model; despite the new technologies and the financial investment, we continue to use the same failing business model to compete and serve customers. Even more problematic, leaders within distribution businesses refuse to draw from successful models such as those found in Silicon Valley to change, invigorate and deliver better value. They become the disrupted rather than the disrupter.
Damn, it rings of truth. Doesn’t it?
The point is that we need to find better methods, better business models, experiment with new ideas and let go of the way we have always done things.
As Kaplan explains, “It’s not innovation until it delivers value. Innovation happens when you solve a problem. And, you don’t need to invent anything new to do that.”
Ask Yourself This
Where are the success stories from outside the wholesale and distribution industry that can help you deliver better value tomorrow?
When Stephen Elop took the helm of struggling Nokia in late 2010, he was tasked with accelerating the execution of Nokia’s transformation. Part of Elop’s leadership style is to spend an enormous amount of time listening with the belief:
"The truth is out there, if you listen for it, you can hear it."
He found the truth at Nokia.
This truth was then communicated to Nokia’s employees with Elop’s “Burning Platform” memo. This 1200 word manifesto begins with the following story:
“There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire.
In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way out of the chaos to the platform’s edge. When he looked down over the edge, all he could see were the dark, cold, foreboding Atlantic waters.
As the fire approached him, the man had mere seconds to react. He could stand on the platform, and inevitably be consumed by the burning flames. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. The man was standing upon a “burning platform,” and he needed to make a choice.
He decided to jump. It was unexpected. In ordinary circumstances, the man would never consider plunging into icy waters. But these were not ordinary times – his platform was on fire. The man survived the fall and the waters. After he was rescued, he noted that a “burning platform” caused a radical change in his behaviour.
We too, are standing on a “burning platform,” and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour.”
Let, me know in the comments section below, if you think the wholesale and distribution platform is burning.
Nokia, And Now Best Buy & BlackBerry’s Burning Platform
While Stephen Elop shared this story just over a year ago, this weekend’s business news was dominated by the burning platforms of BlackBerry and Best Buy.
Best Buy is being bested by new forms of competition, changing buying habits, a sluggish economy, and more. After decades of big-box retail putting mom and pops out of business, a seismic shift is underway. Consumers armed with price-comparison technology are visiting more stores seeking deals or exclusive merchandise rather than making one-stop, fill-the-cart excursions. They are also buying more products online.
Best Buy’s platform is burning.
And so is Research In Motion’s.
At Research In Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry, the flames are engulfing its business platform. As Adam Thierer writes at Forbes “Just five years ago, ‘BlackBerry’ was virtually synonymous with ‘smartphones. Today, however Research In Motion...is a financial basket case that has come to symbolize just how turbulent life in the modern digital economy can be.”
Which brings me to a central question;
If industry titans like Nokia, Best Buy, and Research In Motion can be brought to their knees in today’s new normal, what is happening to our country’s 300,000 distributors?
Is the Platform Of Wholesale Distribution Burning?
70% of distributors are small and mid-market businesses. Certainly these business don’t have the capital and human resources of Nokia, Best Buy, and Research In Motion. Even those large billion dollar plus distributors are feeling the foundation of their platform, if not beginning to burn, certainly heating up. Do you agree? Let me know below.
Distributors of all sizes are facing transformational market forces that have the ability to bring once strong and proud businesses to their knees.
- Does the industry have the will and ability to, as Jack Welch says “face reality straight in the eye and act on it with as much speed as possible?”
- Can the distribution industry, which employs 1 in 20 private sectors workers, find the inspiration and courage to innovate despite the gravitational pull to remain within the success models of yesterday?
These and other questions are yet to be answered.
As Stephen Elop said above, “the truth is out there, if you listen for it, you can hear it.”
While we will be writing more about and offering solutions in coming posts, here is a glimpse of what we are hearing - here is a glimpse of truth:
A Glimpse Of Truth
“Many distributors are already out of business. They just don’t know it.” CEO
“Much of the industry is working off business models that are 50 years old.” CEO
“Less than 10% of the distribution population is prepared, or is preparing for the future.” CEO
“How can I do this? There is so much to do. I’m not sure I know how to do it, or even where to start. I’m scared.” CEO
And from the CEO of an industrial distributor looking across the wholesale and distribution landscape:
“We need something that creates a call to action. If we don’t change we die. People don’t react until someone says - ‘Hey you have to close these branches.”
My observations are pointing to a certain percentage of distributors who are closer than they care to be, to jumping into “the cold, foreboding Atlantic waters.”
What do you think? Is our wholesale and distribution platform burning? Share your thoughts in the comment area below.
Why Must We Plan?
"You hit homeruns not by chance, but by preparation," advised Yankee outfielder, Roger Maris, who hit sixty-one of the long balls in 1961.
Said Another way....
"Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail."
For sales and sales managers, good planning upfront prepares us to seize opportunity and helps us stay focused on the priorities. It reminds us of the direction we've chosen, our goals, and the mile markers along the way that tell us we're making progress. What makes planning "good"?
- It builds off defined priorities - Priorities are defined by executive management annually. These priorities set the stage for the remainder of the planning processes, including the Branch Business Plan, Individual Sales Territory Plans, Key Account Plans, and Key Supplier Plans
- It orders our work - Good planning helps us organize our work so that we are spending time on activities that drive the greatest results. Schedules, meetings, e-mails, phone calls, questions, and administrative duties -- do you juggle so many activities in a week that you're considering a career change to the circus? Opportunities come, and then -- they're gone! Good planning helps us focus on the opportunities that drive results.
- It systemizes - "Routine" may sound dull, but top producers attribute their success to good management habits. Monthly, weekly and daily plans ensure our top priorities established in the annual planning process are kept in the forefront of our minds.
The Dangers of Distraction
What's our biggest threat as sales and sales managers? The economy? Our competitors?
Neither! Our biggest threat to sales effectiveness is distraction!
Too often, our day-to-day "busy-ness" masquerades as vital work that demands immediate attention. It pulls us away from priorities we established earlier and calls us to abandon our goals and plans. The result? We trade systematic and thorough sales management processes for random hits and misses.
Ask yourself the question, "Am I in control of my activities, or are activities in control of me?"
When you master the planning process, your team will be well on its way to claiming more of that sales and gross margin potential under its care.
The liklihood of you and your sales people hitting a home run improves signficantly with preparation. The planning process prepares you for your people for sales effectiveness and to consistently meet and exceed expectations.
Good Planning
_______________________________________
For more sales management strategies, subscribe to this blog RSS Feed or send us your e-mail and receive our monthly newsletter. Follow me on Twitter, connect on LinkedIn. And, if you are interested in having me speak at your next sales meeting, send us your contact information or call 847-381-7797.