Cerius Business Today

Kristen: Hello and welcome to Cerius Business Today. This is Kristen McAlister and I’m joined today by Interim Operations Expert, James Stewart. How are you doing today, Jim?

James: I am doing very well. Thank you, Kristen.

Kristen: Fantastic. So I know that you’ve recently come out of an assignment where you were the interim Director of Operations. One question that we get is how does someone end up being an interim executive? How is that you were available to step into this company on an interim basis for probably like a month, and be their interim Director of Operations. Give us some background on how you ended up there.

James: Sure. So I spent the majority of my career in a Fortune 100 company. You know over two decades worth of time and in that time I was able to, you know, go from being an engineer to all the way up to a Business Unit Manager with one of their divisions on the west coast. I separated from that company during one of their early retirement packages and at that time realized that I still wanted to be working and so ended up doing and getting connected with Cerius Interim Executives. Threw my hat in the ring with them, so to speak, and this assignment in particular resulted in that connection quite a while later. At the same time I was doing, also had my own consulting business where I was doing the same sort of work for a variety of different clients and in this case it was very convenient to have Cerius come over and say hey we got a client you might be interested in, would you mind helping out in your local area.

Kristen: When you look at operations consulting, what types of situations have you worked with and when are you typically brought in?

James: I think there’s a couple different factors that would lead up to an assignment like this. One is where there is operational underperformance and they have some specific issues they are trying to address and so they are trying to bring in some talent that they might not want to employ on a regular basis or just a permanent basis, but they need some expertise to come in and help out. Another way would be where they feel there is a hole in an organization and they need somebody to feel it in and in this particular assignment that I have just parted from, it was actually a combination of the two. The organization was underperformance from a revenue and profit perspective over the year prior to my coming on board and at the same time there were clear operational issues that they were needing to address, there knew there was a lot of improvement to be had, and so they wanted somebody to come on board, be a local leader for the organization and make significant improvements on their operational performance vectors.

Kristen: When you step into the company who are having some of those issues, what are they saying? What are the pinpoints? What are kind of the symptoms they are experiencing in an organization? Because I’m sure many of them don’t say “Gosh, we have operational efficiencies, we need them fixed.” What are some of the pain points you see going on?

James: A motto I use a lot is, it’s got a technical name called socio-technical systems. But regardless of that title, it means that you really have to look at things in a business, from three perspectives. One is a business perspective, what is going in the business, and why is there a problem. Another one is a technical perspective and that is what are the workings inside the organization that are out coming together? And then, there’s also social aspects as well. So you have people involved in the middle of all that. I think that if I look at a particular situation I [3:47] company is that there were issues across all three of those vectors. Some of them were inter connected and some of them were a little bit independent. So on the business side, the industry that this company was in was having a bit of a tankage going on from a revenue perspective. Unit sales were up, revenues were down, so the av

Kristen: Hello and welcome to Cerius Business Today. This is Kristen McAlister and I’m joined today with interim CFO Bill Hegeman. How are you?

Bill: I’m really good Kristen. How are you?

Kristen: Great. Thank you taking time out of your busy schedule. I know it took quite a bit to get you here, but glad to have you. I understand that you jump in to a number of pretty complex and dire situations, some they range in severity. You’re in an interesting assignment right now. Obviously without bulging any confidential information, what are some of the things that you are working through with the situation and bringing about the impact that you bringing about in the company?

Bill: Well the one thing I talk about is cash. When I came here cash was extremely tight and even when I was, they were talking to me about this position they didn’t bring it up that much but shortly after I got here I realized there were severe cash situation and dealing with it, and then a little more digging I found out they weren’t collecting receivables in a timely manner that they had that you know more than about two-thirds of receivables were past due and at the same time they were not paying their suppliers on a timely basis. So they were stealing money thatshould have been for the suppliers by not collecting from their customers. I immediately put somebody on charge with that to make phone calls and make direct contact with our customers, and ask for the money. And once we did that within 5 weeks, we cleaned up over 80-percent of those past due receivables and they’ve been able to pay their vendors again. And it’s just a matter of discipline that you know you sell a good product at a fair price and you need to collect that. And if you don’t collect that, it’s going to cause you problems. So I just put in a very specific thing that you didn’t stop until you talk to the customer and get a commitment. And once you’ve done we collected them. Because they did like working with us. That’s one of the main things. The other thing was just the lack of credibility. That was the primary reason I was brought in is they could not provide, they had an international parent and they could not provide good, consistent financial information. And the company was extremely frustrated that they would ask for information, then they’d ask in a different way and they’d get two completely different answers. And this went on and on again where they just couldn’t get consistent financial information out of the organization I’m with. And so that’s one of the things I’ve done is really tighten the policies and procedures to make sure that we’re doing things the same way each time and that we review the information before we send it over but we make sure it’s right and it’s on time.

Kristen: I know in this specific situation there’s also a talent assessment, do you have all the right people in the accounting or finance department. And we see that often in our clients and especially in fast growing companies. What advice would you give to their CEO or someone who’s currently leading the finance department of how to recognize the talent that you need in there? What the gaps are? How do you train them? Or maybe they’re just not the right fit that’s so those soft skills that are really difficult. Is there may be some top pieces of advice you can give from talent management and finance…

Bill: Yeah. So one of the things I do when I come in to an organization is I do meet with each of the people and they, most of the people in the organization know who the good performers are and who the bad ones are. And so the first thing is just to talk to everyone and get their opinions. Who do they like working with? Who gives them the best information? And you get a pretty good sense of who’s on board and who isn’t. And then secondly, you go through what should you be expecting from that position? Because from my experience I know what the output should be for specific position and then

Kristen: Hello and welcome to Cerius Business Today. This is Kristen McAlister and I’m joined today with interim CFO Bill Hegeman. How are you?

Bill: I’m really good Kristen. How are you?

Kristen: Great. Thank you taking time out of your busy schedule. I know it took quite a bit to get you here, but glad to have you. Well Bill I know that you go into a number of situations where there’s, involving finance challenges with companies and none of them are ever easy. But just to understand a little bit about your background and how you ended up being an interim CFO helping companies in troubled situations. I know you’ve gone from Controller to CFO to President to an interim. Can you give us a brief overview of how you got there?

Bill: I started at a Fortune 500 company, did all their back office accounting, taxes, cash management. And then became a controller of a billion-dollar division which really gave me access to a lot of different things. What I found is the controller position is I really like the operating side of the business, really understanding how customers buy, and how suppliers provide their products. And with that I decided to move to a smaller company as a CFO. From there I ended up as a general manager and eventually spinning it off and became President of a small contract manufacturing. That eventually ended and I moved into a CFO role in a little bit larger organization, but the organization was broken.

I took the actions to fix the organization and eventually ended up as president of that organization. After retiring to move to warmer climate, I was looking around for new opportunities and I found there is a need for people that understood businesses the way I did because of my diverse background, and therefore I became an interim executive for a number of different firms.

Kristen: Sounds like your variety of background in finance operations to president, you’ve got a lot of experience to draw from in order to help organizations. What are some of the ways that you help them that the most common challenges that organizations run into, especially in the finance realm?

Bill: Well some of the things that I run into are fairly common, and the first one I run into is just the credibility issues that people don’t trust the finance organization. Things have gone on, usually for a period of time, where they miss deadline, they don’t communicate. When they do communicate, the information is either incomplete or its confusing, and then people start asking more and more questions, and they get more information that doesn’t quite make sense, and eventually they point just don’t trust the finance sector at all. And if you’re a bank, or you’re an auditor, that causes you a great deal of concern and it becomes very dysfunctional for the organization. Another problem I see a lot, and this is usually the tipping point where I get called in is they don’t have enough cash to run the business. And it’s usually a product of, it could be a number of different things because it’s usually that they don’t collect what is owed them. And for some reason they don’t feel that they can go out and ask for it on a consistent basis. That’s another thing. And then the last thing is really the lack of discipline within the finance organization can cause a lot of problems is that they don’t run a lot of businesses as a serious entity. A lot of times the company doesn’t value the finance function and so they don’t put enough resources in or enough skills in those resources to run a good finance department. And then the issues that come with that prop up in a number of different ways, but it’s just the lack of investing in the finance organization.

Kristen: So it sounds like there’s a number of things that end up compounding on top of each other, and you certainly end up going in one. It’s in pretty dire strength. So if I’m a CEO, a company owner, I’d like to get someone of your expertise in there sooner than later, especially before hav

Executive Leaders have an enormous impact on the way businesses function. The way the executive leader behaves with and treats their employees can have a tremendous ripple effect right down to the customers.

Becoming an executive leader is a decision, not a rank or a position.

If you have chosen to become an executive leader to your employees, you have promised that you look out for the people beside you.In an excellent talk by Simon Sinek on 99u, the Executive Leadership expert explained how the best kind of Executive Leaders are the ones who are willing to sacrifice themselves so that others may gain. In the military, for example, the example of a brave pilot covering for his mates on the ground despite difficult flying conditions. The soldiers down below feel confident knowing that somebody else has got their back and fight on without looking behind them. Why did the pilot risk his life? Because he knew, his colleagues would’ve done the same for him in a heartbeat.

In a business context, wouldn’t people working in an organization feel more confident and safe knowing that others they may or may not know within the organization will sacrifice themselves the same way so that they may gain? It seems hard to imagine such a scenario these days when people do not give up credit, let alone a life.

So where do such people come from? They are not born, but rather made.

The human animal is like a machine. It is a system that works to make you do things to survive. Just as people work towards a goal for which a business offers an incentive, your body works the same way with chemical induced feelings working in our best interest.

All our happy feelings are brought about by four dominant chemicals: endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. The first two chemicals do not need a person’s help to trigger them while the latter two depend on other people and bring balance.

Endorphins mask physical pain. They bring on feelings of extreme happiness in times of pain like laughter or the high you get from an intense workout. Your brain releases dopamine after you accomplish something. It makes us get stuff done focusing on our goal. It is easier to pursue goals that are visual that is why it is better you write down your goals, and keep it detailed and tangible.

The danger of dopamine is that it is highly addictive. When unbalanced, it is dangerous and destructive. Addiction to alcohol, gambling, mobiles, nicotine and other addictive are all a result of dopamine. It makes you distracted and gives you a short attention span (which is probably why 66% of youth today addicted to their phones are misdiagnosed with ADHD). In businesses, employees get a dopamine addiction out of hitting target numbers.

When there is danger outside, we protect ourselves by grouping up with other people to be safe and extinguish external dangers. Outside dangers are constant and unknown. They can be ups n downs in the economy, competition, terrorism, the list goes on. Dangers of an organization, however, are not constant. They are variable and depend upon how safe the decisions of the Executive Leadership make employees feel when they go to work.

Remember the Aesop fable of 4 oxen teaming up against a lion? When they stood together, the lion was not able to harm them, but when they disbanded the lion easily defeated them. Take the lion as the extreme danger faced by a company. When you do not feel safe inside your company, then you spend more time and energy saving yourself inside, and ultimately expose yourself to outside dangers. This destructive behaviour uses energy which could’ve been used for productivity instead, yet it is not.

The responsibility of an executive leader is two things:

Who gets into the safety circle? What values and beliefs define the circle?

How to create a safety circle that is truly meaningful? Should it just be C-level executives or should we extend it to the outer edges, including the bottom most junior levels?

The last two ch

Big changes that require higher resources and change the company’s portfolio and business activities is transformational growth. Product expansion, getting into new markets, introducing new product categories, and following new segments are some prime examples of transformational growth in a business.

Globalization and technological advancement have pushed many companies in the economy to grow increasingly rapidly in the past few years. If you do not keep up with the competition, you will get left behind. Unlike entrepreneurs of the past, where you could stick with that one good idea for the rest of your life without further developing it, current business owners need to innovate continually and bring about positive changes in the organization to survive.

There are different ways a business can grow. On one end of the spectrum, there is optimization, where small tactical changes collectively add up to a significant change. This is something any efficient business constantly does to keep the firm afloat. Incremental changes are always going on in a company to keep up with the dynamic market. The company achieves growth through continuous improvements and little changes.

On the other end is transformational growth.

Transformational growth

Big changes that require higher resources and change the company’s portfolio and business activities is transformational growth. Product expansion, getting into new markets, introducing new product categories, and following new segments are some prime examples of transformational changes in a business. According to research by Fortune, “the best companies tilt their innovation portfolios away from incremental initiatives and toward breakthrough and transformational projects.”

Don LeBlanc is the Chief Marketing Officer of Vistaprint, a multinational e-commerce printing company with over $1 billion in revenue. They have over 15 million micro business customers around the world of which a large portion is from the United States.

In a recent interview, LeBlanc was asked how he would define transformational growth in his company. He said, “We only started with one product that was a business card, which is still our number one seller. But how we got to be over a billion dollars is by taking that and launching new products around it. If you need a business card, you might need something that is a comparable product, matching website, matching postcards, and so forth. So there’s product expansion. We went from the market we are in, to over 20 countries. We went through the channels that we were initially just promoting online to now we promote offline. So we’ve added in new channels, both distribution and for marketing. So every time we’ve turned on new countries, new channels, new product lines, to me they would be examples of transformational growth.”

Role of brand in driving growth

In a direct-order company like Vistaprint, it is a common misconception that brand doesn’t matter in driving revenue. In every company a perception of a brand does exist but investing and managing that brand is considered ‘not worth it.’ They would much rather spend the resources of investing in a brand into something else which generates immediate revenue like giving out a new offer.

Investing in your brand means losing out on immediate money producing activities and no quick visible results. However, in the long term the message and philosophy transmitted by the brand you’ve developed will be the very reason your customers choose to come to you instead of your competitors.

Planting seeds for the future

Companies typically are so caught up in the present that when they do future planning, they envision only the next 3-5 years. To be ready for the future, you need to envision where you want your company to be in next 20 years and start working towards it. Plant seeds for the future by starting operations in product categories or locations that have potential in the future. For Vistaprint, it saw India as an e

We have seen executive careers take many forms over the decade we have been working with these executives. Some of it was caused by economic changes while other times it was most influenced by personal changes. Experienced executives have a number of options when making the next career choice from taking a full-time position, retiring, focusing on board work or going independent as a contingent executive (ie. interim executive, management consultant, advisor or coach).

As much as each of these decisions seemed independent of the other, over the past 10 years, we have witnessed executive careers as more fluid, interchanging and often overlapping between these options. At Cerius, we work primarily with the executives who want to work on a contingent basis. We often get a number of questions surrounding what that career choice looks like, what an executive can expect and why executives choose this path. No better person to ask then a large group of executives so we surveyed our network and want to share the information along with what we are seeing in the marketplace.

Who makes up the contingent or interim executive workforce?

With over 75% of the executives surveyed being baby boomers, it is clear that being independent isn’t just for a retired executive who isn’t ready to play golf full time. Though we are seeing more executives step into this career long before they are nearing retirement age, it is still most popular among executives who have had a successful executive career and are looking to now work independently with various companies who can use their expertise.

This career field is still somewhat new in the United States compared to our UK counterparts for a number of reasons. Our survey found that just under 30% of the executives have been in their career for five or more years compared to over 72% based on a recent survey of interim executives in the UK. The duration includes both consecutive and non-consecutive years as an interim executive or management consultant.

We are seeing a growing demand for interims at the CEO and President level. There are a number of variables impacting the top position whether it is family owned, privately owned or publicly traded. From retirement to health issues and even being forced out, the increased demand is reflected in our survey with over 45% of the executives providing that top level expertise. It is closely followed by operations at 41.3%. We were surprised to see technology expertise be more predominant than finance with over 21% of those polled. Finance, sales, and marketing were somewhat even with 17.4%, 17.4% and 17.9% respectively.

Why does an executive do interim or management consulting work?

It was clear from our survey that interim executives love the freedom of this type of work. It provides a better work/life balance then their previous careers and the ability to choose the types of challenges they want. There was also a strong pull to interim executive work for those in the process of looking for their next role and executives who have sold their company or are semi-retired. As much as most executives enjoy the freedom of interim executive work, over 86% said they would consider a full time position for the right opportunity. This is down from 90% in 2013 and a stark comparison to those polled. Meanwhile, over 90% would recommend interim or consulting work to another executive.

Over the past ten years, we have seen executive careers become more fluid between interim executive and full time employed roles than the prior decades. It no longer is one or the other. As we track executive careers over the past decade we are seeing less of a division and more of a migration from one to the other depending on a number of variables from personal situations, external factors and the need for either consistency vs. variability at any given time. At the same time, the average tenure of a company executive shorted quite a bit causing some to question how long is “

When should I sell my business?

In the back of their heads, entrepreneurs are always thinking about ‘when should I sell my business?’ An owner who ponders over selling their business, most of the time, does not do so out of financial desperation or trouble, but for a wide variety of other reasons.

John Hammett is an investment banker at Corporate Finance Associates, and a former company owner himself. He understands the unique situation a private company owner is in. At one point in his career, Hammett was working for an entrepreneur in his mid-fifties who sold one of two divisions in his company. While working on the transaction with the company owner, Hammett learned some valuable advice that has stuck with him to this day. The owner told him, “Anytime you have an opportunity to get liquidity in your company, you need to seriously consider it because running a business is risky and the longer you hold on to that business and the bigger you get, the more chance you risk of failure. There is value in a business but no liquidity until you go through a transaction of selling a piece or all of your company to a buyer.”

In the early stages of a business, owners are more confident in taking risks because they don’t have much value in their companies yet to lose. Taking chances are essential and beneficial if the founder wants their business to grow beyond the initial stages. As the company grows bigger, so does the value of it and owners become more conservative, fearing greater damage than when it was a smaller business. Owners who are older no longer have the luxury of time to spend years on damage control fixing bad strategies, so they avoid those risky situations that could lose them their company. In Hammett’s opinion, business owners should always be looking to exit their investment in their businesses. Not because the company may be in a bad place, but because as one of your largest single investments, it is something to be concerned about.

Cal Lai, President and CEO of Recom Technologies points out that owners have many reasons why they sell their businesses. Although a chance at liquidity is a good reason for an owner to decide that it’s time to sell the business, that may not be the only reason. After dedicating 15-20 years of time, energy and resources into the building of a company, CEO’s and founders may find themselves ready for retirement. An owner may be ready for some change and something new to try and that could be motivation enough. “A good entrepreneur is always looking at their options going forward.” Lai agrees with Hammett that, “Time is always a risk, and the more time your business is out there, the greater risk you have.”

As an owner you have financial goals you are continuously striving for and this applies to selling your business as well. Things to keep in mind when thinking of selling your business are timing of the sale, getting your company ready to sell (audited financials, the right technology, a good executive team, etc.) and finding the right potential buyers.

But selling a company is not always only about getting the best price. Murray Rudin, Managing Director at for Riordan, Lewis & Haden, a private equity firm says, “If the firm is entering into a deal in which they are only selling a percentage of their business and will continue to be engaged, then other kinds of factors are equally important as price. These factors include the caliber, the reputation, the references, the culture, the chemistry and the trust of the Private Equity firm or other type of firm they are going to partner with.”

The mindset of an owner selling their business should not be obsessing over the last few dollars of valuation, but rather focused more on the quality of people they will be partnering with as a result of the sale. Rudin argues that this is the biggest mistake business owners make in scenarios where they intend to roll over significant equity. Remember, once the deal is done, you have to work wi

Small Business Operations – Don’t let people become bottlenecks

Whether you’re a small business owner or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, managing an organization can be intricate. Processes that keep the business running are complex and interdependent on multiple people. One of the most common killers of growth and productivity in a company is communication and information flow. Talk to most business owners and you will hear at least one of the following:

“Nothing is written down. All of the information on my business is in the employees’ heads.”

“I have one key employee who is so critical to me that I can’t promote him/her, and I don’t know what I’ll do if he/she leaves.”

“We are operating in silos, and it costs me money. The right-hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.”

“We discussed it at the meeting two weeks ago, why isn’t everyone following the new process?”

“We have no formal processes and procedures. We keep reinventing the wheel.”

Creating a culture of communication and information sharing in a growing company can be difficult. You are often moving so fast that you feel there is no time to stop and get things in order. The reality is that it costs you more by not slowing down and doing it right. Here are a few key places to start:

Small Business Operations – Put your processes into writing

Processes should be written down so clearly that employees can follow them with little to no support. It saves a lot of time for both managers and their employees. Certain tasks which require frequent training for new recruits can be taught using a step-by-step video using PowerPoint and a vocal recording that is native to the program.

Whatever the format, getting it written down is a good step but making sure it is easily understood is even better. Keeping the language simple and clear is a great way for employees to understand procedures.

A well-respected operations executives I work with, Marc, builds everything around pictures and symbols. When he works with companies to come up with a vision, mission and core values he has the company vote on symbols or pictures to represent them. This is especially critical in bi-lingual companies. When’s the last time you walked into a company and a random employee could communicate the vision, let alone the other guiding principles of the organization? You can in any company Marc has worked with.

Another great example is one of our clients who was tasked with training a production staff, who only spoke Spanish, on one of the most boring – yet most important – subjects in business: Safety. A couple of staff members put their minds together and came up with one of the most memorable PowerPoints I have ever seen. They enlisted the production staff, put together costumes and overly exaggerated the dos and “do nots” of safety. The employees were engaged as part of the training, and an incoming employee got what was probably the best safety training they’d ever had. A picture says a thousand words. When given the option – go with the picture!

Small Business Operations – Don’t let people become bottlenecks

When one employee takes on more responsibility than most of the staff, it restricts everybody else’s support, creativity and growth, creating a bottleneck in the company. You can picture these in most organizations. Where does the work in the process slow down? There are likely areas in your business that seem as though four lanes are trying to merge into one during rush hour. This is usually one of the easiest places to start when addressing information flow and operational inefficiencies in your company.

An optimized company does not allow specific processes to be dependent on only one person. It creates an unhealthy employee-management relationship where the organization is too dependent on a select few individuals.

This creates a number of issues. Employees end up trapped in their current role, as they are the only one who can do it. If the employee is then out for a p

There’s a number of reasons companies bring in an Interim CEO or Interim President beyond the most popular cause of a vacant position.

At Cerius, we have seen the strategic use of an Interim CEO or Interim President include:

Turnarounds

Company CEO does not want to be involved in the day-to-day operations of the company anymore so looks to bring in a Interim President while they stay on as CEO and Chairman of company

Family owned businesses to better prepare a family member to take over as CEO or President

Situations involving merger, acquisition, purchase or sale of a business

Partnership resolution

Founder of company is a scientist, engineer or technologist and does not want to run the company as the CEO or President

Interim CEOs and Interim Presidents (also known as temporary executives, part-time CEOs, or super temps) have already enjoyed stellar C-level careers in which they started, grew, and sold successful businesses. Now in their current careers these senior executives step into organizations like yours for a season to provide highly objective recommendations and lead your management team to deliver significant measurable results. They are ideally suited to not just fill a leadership gap, but to actually energize and grow the business.

We are seeing a current trend in the area of business exits. A number of business owners we know are looking at a near term exit. Either they have held on to the company longer than planned on due to the recession or a number of other factors leading them to consider now is the time. There’s a number of things that can be done to maximize a company’s value and the sell price for the owner. In many cases, the owner has been the CEO and/or President up to this point and though they were the best to grow the business, they may not be the right ones to prepare it for an exit. An Interim President not only brings an outside perspective and the expertise to create additional value, it also shows potential investors that the value of the company is not contingent on the owner running the company.

The right Interim CEO or Interim President can have a great and immediate impact on the situation and help better drive the company to its goals. Here’s a few of the most common ones we see from clients at Cerius, how they were addressed and the types of results the client experienced:

Family owned Manufacturing Company of Electronic Components

Interim President: 2-3 days/week, 6 months

Situation

Company losing money, one month away from closing

Father founded the company, currently run by one of the siblings

Concerns regarding sales organization and leadership

Non-performing team

No plan, goals or metrics, lack of processes

High inventory, low turnover

Implementation

Established strategic plan, goals, metrics with dashboards, daily quotas and accountability

Daily meetings with follow through

Prioritized quotes and engineering

Increased margins through charging for engineering, successful price increases, better metrics for purchasing

Corrected inventory

Reorganized with 20% force reduction, removed “C” players and elevated other employees

Created daily booking thermometer to allow for 13 week budgeting

Results

Breakeven in 2 months, profitable by 3rd month

3% loss to 3% profit in 5 months

Returns reduced by 90%

Inventory reduced by over 16%

Sustainable Results One Year Later

25% increase in product shipped

13% decrease in COGS

Now, 7.5x more profitable

Family Owned Manufacturing Company

Interim CEO: 4-5 days/week, 3 months

Situation

Father (owner/operator) passed away suddenly

Succession planning had not been done so there was no clear leadership

Company was losing money, knew something was wrong

Lack of strategic plan and reporting for decision making

Lack of inter-department sharing

Inaccurate financials

Outdated ERP system

Implementation

Realigned culture to Expect Excellence

Implemented LEAN manufacturing

Initiated regular meetings & reporting

Initial dashboard formulated to drive key

Finding a good salesperson is one of the most common challenges we discuss w­ith business owners. A major source of frustration for businesses is finding the right people to sell their product or service to potential customers. Entrepreneurs and business owners continually get frustrated that they can’t go out and connect with the market themselves because of time constraints. They instead have to trust hired salespersons to do the best possible job in selling their product.

A good salesperson is one who understands the values your product stand for. They should be familiar with the production of the product or service so that they can accurately relay information and tell customers what differentiates your product from the rest.

Defining the traits that define a good salesperson starts with defining the word ‘sales’. When you look into the dictionary for definitions of ‘sales’, you’ll find definitions sprouting technical terms on the exchange of money. As a salesperson, you should look beyond jargon and know that sales is not so much about getting money, but rather about positively influencing people.

Being influential matters

You have to be influential as a salesperson. You need to understand what the customer’s known needs are, as well as, their ‘unknown needs’. The former kind are what the customer already knows and has identified as lacking in their routine; perhaps through some research or by asking around. In cases of customers with known needs, most salespeople will go straight ahead and fixate on that need and sell the solution to the client.

Again, the role of a salesperson is to influence, not to sell.

The thing is, people don’t like to be sold to. They don’t want to feel like they are being forced into purchasing something, even if they need it. If you go into the street and randomly ask a sample of people how they’d like to be sold to, almost all of them will invariably tell you that they wouldn’t want to be sold on anything in the first place.

A good salesperson not only understands and fulfills known needs but will also acknowledge unknown needs. The ability to understand, uncover and address those unknown needs is critical. Looking to understand your customer, what they need and how you can help solve that rather than how you can convince them to buy from you is key.

Forming connections are key

A successful salesperson is one who is all about getting to know the individual. To connect with a person, the salesperson needs to relate a positive and honest experience that makes a sustainable idea and attracts customers. A solid foundation for sales is made when there is a positive experience on both sides of a transaction.

The ability to influence other people is part of our psyche. From the moment we are born, we influence people around us. Babies scream and cry to get food, but as they get older they pick up new skills, like verbal communication, to get what they want. With time, we develop new ways to communicate and influence others.

Utilizing interpersonal skills

As we grow older and develop, we start to use and understand skills that match our interests with others to form a connection. Using the ability to influence people, we are able to find jobs, make friends and find life partners. Without even realizing it, we are positively influencing people subconsciously from the moment we first meet them. A good salesperson utilizes their interpersonal skills to influence a person in a positive way.

Some salespeople are so focused on the objective, the products, and the sales benchmark that they miss out on all the stuff that creates the platform. Good sales people are those who realize and understand that the skills and capabilities they bring to the job are what they use all the time.

Potential employers are deeply interested in the background of a potential salesperson; fragments from their personal life and achievements from their professional experiences. They try to get a personal perspective to f