Work or Play?

Work or Play?

 

It is coming up to that time of year … SUMMER VACATION! … Remember how it was to be a kid? Take off 3-months and have fun, not a care in the world, and when you got back to school in the fall, you just kind of started where you left off.

Well, as sales professionals, we are always on – we really never leave and start up gain. When is it okay to take a break? And how long is it okay to go without checking email, voicemail or other customer contacts?I believe that we all need to take time away, and as Steven Covey states “sharpen the saw”, but the real question I see people struggling with is how long?

How can I walk away from my business for a week or two, without addressing concerns that come up with my customers? I personally have never been able to walk away for more than a day; does that make me a work-a-holic? Or maybe an over concerned sales person?

I work with Europeans, and it is in their culture to walk away for weeks, let alone days. Shut off the cell, laptop and phone and not respond to anything. I don’t know how they do it, or how they handle the stress of coming back to an email inbox that has hundreds, if not thousands, of unanswered mails?

Personally, I check mail every morning, vacation or not, and spend 15-30 minutes addressing anything that needs my input. I take the rest of the day that I’m on my holiday and enjoy it, knowing that there isn’t anything that I overlooked. I also know that with all the cutbacks that have occurred at our factories and companies, there is much less support available that will take care of my issues. I feel more relaxed doing it this way then I could possibly come back to 600+ emails after a week “off”. Reading those emails will waist 1-2 more days of not selling, or what our customers think, ‘not caring’ …

There is nothing wrong with taking your laptop with you on vacation, or scheduling 30-minutes a day to review your inbox. If you write a mail during this time, it’s also okay to tell your customer “I am on vacation this week, but will have this person look at it, or will get back to you next Tuesday” … Believe it or not, our customers are people too, and they will (should) appreciate that you need some time off just like they might.

This blog is not a suggestion; it’s just the way I handle my time off. If you’ve felt more stressed after that first day back from vacation then before you left, you might be able to work and play at the same time!

If you are having a problem with time management, give us a call at;

Pinnacle Sales, LLC

418 Main Street, Suite 6

Belleville, MI  48111

mkole@pinnaclesales-llc.com

(734) 516-0221

Pinnacle Sales is an agency that offers support to clients in any part of the sales & marketing process. From planning to implementation, business development to training, Pinnacle Sales offer Service Above the Rest.

Planning & Preparation

Getting ready to go into a meeting?

What have you done to prepare?

I’m sure you’ve written all your hot points down, and things that you really must cover, am I right?

Let’s say you are working with a logistics problem, and your customer really needs more parts. Your supplier seems to be falling short of your demand over and over again. This is going to be a fun meeting your thinking, right? You’re going to destroy this guy! You’re new on the block in planning & logistics, so you’re going to take this supplier to the wood shed and give him a little whipping!

You listen to the stories, well you hear them anyway. The supplier is doing all he can, he is working day and night and can only produce this X amount. You need that amount x 30% so you really don’t care what his stories are. You have an idea about the process, and you think it should be no problem to get the extra out on the weekend. You’re really stressing (yelling) at the supplier to tell them they are full of it, because afterall you have done all your math!

There is a little lull in the conversation, and then the supplier says the following;

“When your company came and audited our process last year during the logistics crisis you had then, they agreed that this amount was the most we could every hope to get”.

What? You start to think! When was our company at this supplier? You were never told, or you failed to research the history more thoroughly. You spent more time preparing for a slaughter than trying to be objective and find a solution.

With a little extra time and effort, this person could have avoided a lot of stress and probably the meeting itself. How many times have you either participated in meeting that covered a subject that was already covered? How many times have you arranged a meeting like this? You need to be professional in your preparation, and part of the process should always be to research the history of the problem. Don’t call a meeting to ask questions that have already been answered, meetings are for new questions and solutions.

A couple of articles ago, I wrote about being the account expert. This is where this type of history comes into play. I recently participated in the above meeting (I was the supplier in this case), and had to take the switch away from the logistics person who was in the process of taking me out to the woodshed. Instead of finding the information internally, they decided to use a heavy hand, and try to get blood out of a stone.

Don’t be the guy that calls an unnessary meeting, always ask around to find out what had been done in the past.

If you are having difficulties in meeting preparation, or problem solving, give us a call at Pinnacle Sales. Our coaching services can help you become better prepared so you are not that guy!

Pinnacle Sales, LLC

Michael Kole

418 Main Street, Suite 6

Belleville, MI 48111
( 734-516-0221 (Direct / Cell)
* michael.kole

* mkole

SITE: www.pinnaclesales-llc.com

BLOG: https://pinnaclesales.wordpress.com/

Are you the account expert?

From Account Manager to Relationship Manager to Historian!

            This week alone, I had to attach 3 old emails as references to discussions that were 5 years or older. True, I was lucky, I kept copies on my hard drive of certain documents, and let me tell you, I would rather be lucky than good! Each of those mails saved the principal a lot of money, because of the agreements that were made from the past. They weren’t contracts, but enough documentation to provide details that are necessary to best explain what the original intent of a contract might have been.

            If you have been at your position for a while, you have started your career as an Account Manager, developing the relationships, making business happen, and selling. Over time, you moved from just ‘handling’ the account to being the actual relationship manager. When you started, your sales manager came to you and said, “Go ask Account ABC, what they think of this proposal”, now your company comes to you first to ask you how the customer will respond to certain proposals. You have become the expert for that account.

            From expert, we move to the ‘account historian’, the one that can tell the new controller, or plant manager about the history of these parts and how they came to be. We know the good stories and the bad ones, and even if we aren’t handling that account directly anylonger, they come to us for opinions.

            In order to be considered this ‘expert’ you have to be organized and thorough in your record keeping. As sales people, I think we are genetically incapable of being neat and organized, but we have to learn how to be, and also we have to learn what could be important in the long run. Our administration (back-office) keeps all the real ‘legal’ documents like proposals, engineering documents, drawings, and contracts. But we need to keep the things that have lead up to that point. We must have some form of paper trail that shows conversations that show intent and of course what the promises were.

            This blog is just a reminder to keep copies of; meeting minutes, emails (especially long chains or conversations), hand written notes, and come up with a way to have multiple copies. Don’t rely on your IT department to have and archive file of 4 year old emails. You need to plan for contingencies (like changing from Lotus Notes to Outlook), or moving from Office 2007 to 2010, and God forbid the old – BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH …

            Also keep in mind, that the industry standard seems to be in favor of changing purchasing agents every 6-12 months, so those records are going to save your butt when your next buyer comes in. You will gain a lot of credibility with these new faces at your customers when you can show both longevity and the history behind previous decisions.

            Sales Managers, you too should be thinking about this as a method of security! If your top sales people leave, most of them take this history with them. You lose your expert and your historian, and the best way to not lose your customer is to have this information available also.

            This is the boring part of our jobs; filing, record keeping, note taking, etc. But, let me tell you from personal experience, there is nothing better than finding an email that you wrote in 2004 that not only clears up the matters, but also shows that you predicted the future very accurately!

            Organization is one of the topics in the book, PROFITS, Your Seven Letters to Success, which was released in December. I have a link on my blog page, as well as below to order through Amazon.com. The book is available in paperback and Kindle versions for you fellow E-Readers!

             amazon.com at;

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1432767798

Barnes & Noble at;

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Profits/Michael-Kole/e/9781432767792

            Pinnacle Sales, is both a sales agency and consulting group that offers solutions for your sales & Marketing problems. We specialize in various processes from developing sales teams through one on one coaching, to providing account management and business development services.

Give us a call or send us a note at;

Pinnacle Sales, LLC

418 Main Street, Suite 6

Belleville, MI  48111

(734) 516-0221

mkole@pinnaclesales-llc.com