Thursday, November 17, 2011

The ass way of doing things

Adopting a dualistic approach to building a successful business just does not work.  Effectively disharmony crashes in through the door when a business is trying to work at two poles apart. If the primary head of the business wants to work with two polarities, on the one vision, then there is a wide gap between all facets of the business. What must happen is that the range of activities either comes closer merging in a mediocre nature [of the middle line] or the diversification must slow down while one pole of activity is built, then the other. Mildly putting it - either way the owner of the business will not be satisfied. Diversionary tactics must be unleashed so that the owner will get out of your hair while you correct up the mess and deal with the other problems.

Communication is a form of 'art'. ...An art form.   Just try and explain to someone who is used to seeing their world from one perspective how to change what and how they see things - through the eyes of another.  That person knows about  what is out there.  They may be very aware of how everything fits into place.  What that person has not yet experienced is how to use their 'learned' knowledge into something of use to them.to fit into  this present situation.

For instance a person dealing in sales may have a retail certificate.  Yes they know how sales are conducted after the point of choice being confirmed. What they do not yet have is the practical working knowledge of how to use this retail certificate theory in  another work related sales area.  For instance a sales staff member re-learning their trade to become part of a Sales Markets sweep team.  One that goes from business to business 'drumming up business'. Rather than working together to overcome a "knowledge argument" qualia the two 'sides' involved in the performance argument get into the non- progress mode and will not address conflict.  One yell at the other and lets off steam, the other does not perform well with their tasks. Now they are in trouble.

While helping to diversify base line of the business I am working with a needs analysis was complied.
The following was found:

Primarily links between teams was of a low to very poor level.

  • There was no sales coming in. The reasons were various, hard hitting. Overall this issue needed to be dealt with while simultaneously creating anew and building another sales team up.
  • Other than a practically non-existent sales team the main thrust of the business did not know how business is garnered.
  • The main business source of the income were simply being mismanaged by people with hidden agendas.
  • In house training appeared one sided as performance issues were not being resolved.
In summary there was a conflict occurring.  The resolution became clear when the situation was viewed from outside the "box".  Since not everyone could, or wanted to, become position C it meant that everyone coming in would go through Position A, then be on- trained trough to B or C, or D e.t.c. The rational is that with everyone knowing exactly how hard the "drumming of the business was to get" the people in the original position C, as well as the expanded positions B, D, E... would better appreciate their role in building the business business up.  In short the professional performance would be better benchmarked to. While this better performance was adhered to other business would come through as customers would benefit and refer on in a positive word of mouth format. 

The practical side of this is that the business sales team has grown. The new ones are being mentored by those with various skills and now sales experience.  The person in head of sales has begun to coordinate where the base sales team are going each day, they have a follow up-sheet presented to them that was collated from the knock back lists the day before.

During the week those in sales communicate by phone, text, knock back sheets, follow up sheets and in house dialogue.

Once a week there is a sales team meeting. All issues and strategies are open for dialogue. 

Developing the strategy, while implementing the logistics of having a functioning, creative and active sales team as part of the in-house training has already see positive effects. 

No comments:

Post a Comment