What have you done that has caused you to stand out amongst your peers?
Building the people-When I started with my existing employer I identified areas, which were deficient and evaluated the people and their skills. The overall company was lacking compassion for the business and it’s customers. Based upon my evaluation, the company was basically coasting, since the business had changed around them. Initially all the business/clients came to them for a solution since they were the only solution for the Dryvit class action settlement. Clients were instructed by the attorneys, courts and Dryvit to go to them for the solution. Since that lasted for 2-3 years and the settlement was over they still operated with this mindset, which was no longer, the situation and not conducive for the business. They needed to develop a new business structure and culture and go after the clients. The culture and mindset, which was created, was that the company still had a strong cash flow, money was no object and that clients would be purchasing their product with no effort. I had to develop and implement a proactive sales approach, and teach them basic successful business practices and change the culture which I’ve done before but it does takes time. To improve the business culture and profits, I personnally interviewed each person, asking why they are there, what they perceive their strengths / weakness are, what excites them and what they would like to achieve personally & professionally. My objective was to build on their strengths to make them winners. This strategy changed the environment into 100% participators rather then spectators.
Trust worthy - I’ve always given my employers 120% of my talent which I believe is important for a company to prosper. Without trust the company cannot be efficient. Trusting can be contagious and influential to the other employees and builds a cohesive and healthy environment. My goal is always to join or create an environment where clients want to participate and people want to work for.
Hard working – The Company (staff) was lacking the element of a time critical nature. This was created from the top. Therefore, to change this I had to become the model and teach the employees how to properly react to clients request, to become proactive and time management skills. I work many hours / week and the employees know it since I’d send emails at all hours of the night & weekends and would be in the office every other weekend. This created a sense of importance and urgency. This taught that there is plenty of time to perform tasks. Though like any culture, change takes time. You can instruct them on what to do but they learn from observing the right behavior from management and they must be the model.
Creativity / solution based – I’m always looking at ways to improve our bottom line by continually questioning myself, employees, partners and clients i.e. Is this the best sales method? Is there a better way to capture the data? Can we sell a different product with the same processes and staff? How are we communicating our message? How can we better serve you, our client? Based upon the answers to the questions I solicit ideas or reflect internally to create answers to these questions. For instance I visited a material supplier who wanted to partner with us for our product but I quickly uncovered that there is an enormous potential outside of this business for our product and within 3 months created a business, an automated process and enticed hundreds of independent business owners to sign on. This is currently a $500K business and quickly growing. This took creative solution base thinking.
Take charge / initiative – If I uncover a deficiency no matter where in the company, I’ll take the initiative to find and execute a solution. For my current employer I was hired to startup a commercial division. As I began to develop client relationships, create an industry awareness and build momentum, I observed problems with the companies sister division. Although it was not my responsibility I took the initiative to solve the issue by training the sales staff. Within 3 months of my employment, management recognized my people development & management skill set and they asked if I would accept the role of managing the employees while continually building the commercial business and I accepted.
Continually learning – I’m a creature of continual learning. I believe everyone should take the initiative to learn 3 new ideas everyday i.e. professional, spiritual and personal. I suggest to keep your life balanced and share this knowledge when appropriate within to help him or her grow as well. When I left may last employer I had many staff members tell me that I had not only changed them professionally but more importantly personally. This was significant!
Client relations – Sales is all about leverage. In order for you to convert a prospect to a client you must have a product, service or solution that they see as beneficial. You must leverage this product, service or solution to benefit their goal and I understand how to uncover and develop this value proposition solution. For example; for the commercial business I started I was calling upon attorneys to inform them of our cost effective remediation solution for their (defendant) clients. You can imagine how difficult it was to get an attorney to listen to my offering since I had very little leverage. I saw this as a challenge and created a successful solution process. I changed my offer from telling them what we can do for their clients to what we can do for them. I achieved this by offering a free on line database, which they can participate to market their services to clients. From that point they provided me all the time needed since they saw I had something for them (leverage). This strategy launched the business and built significant attorney & client relationships.
Developed partnerships cooperative relationships – For my previous employer I observed how we could create a better market position by partnering with 2 other non-competing suppliers to provide our prospects a turn-key manufacturing plant. This partnership increased our converting ratios by 60% and benefitted the company globally. This made it challenging for our competitors to compete since we had addressed the needs for the market to provide the equipment integration between the different automated equipment, which eliminated any unforeseen cost overruns.
What have you done that’s caused your department or company to increase revenues?
Created an effective selling strategy – I quickly recognized that the sales staff was acting more like customer service representatives rather then sales people. There is a distinct difference between these positions and this was developed from the prior culture created when all the business came to them and they where not required to actually sell the value to their clients. I implemented Sandler Selling techniques which are based upon uncover the persons pain and to create the awareness that we have the solution to solve the pain (selling without selling). This quickly increased the companies closing ratios by 20%.
Found untapped needs – As part of my pursuit for new business opportunities I uncovered an opportunity to offer a new niche product. I quickly developed a network of over 200+ home inspectors who paid to join within 3 months by participating in 2 industry associations, constantly communicating our value proposition to the board of directors and large national inspection firms and partake in industry blogs. This is a continually growing business with multi million dollar potential.
Created accountability program – There was very little accountability for the sale staff. Therefore, I created a clear and concise method of measurement and then created weekly, & monthly expectations. These expectations are based upon behavior and financial. If you create the behavior expectations your helping the sale person to become disciplined i.e. 20 calls/day. Setting the behavior expectation teaches them to behave in a manner, which will create the sales outcome rather then focus on the outcome and only expect them to reach it. The behavior drives the results not the other way around.
Developed an equipment refurbishing business unit – For my previous employer I recognized that the market was tight on available capital and quickly assembled an equipment refurbishing business unit. I would purchase or accept equipment in trades to refurbish and up fit the equipment for higher productivity. The equipment ranged from $30K - $300K and yielded 40%-60% net margins. This was better then our new equipment margins and turned into a $3M business.
What have you done that’s been a cost reducing measure for your department or company?
Evaluated each employee’s contribution and reduced employee count – When I started I quickly accounted for the performance of each employee and identified the non-performers. When I was asked to be responsible for all the staff I assessed the tasks of each employee and the % time allocated. I shifted responsibilities and reduced staff by 30%. During the assessment I was building, motivating the company and mentoring the top producers. This created an environment for the mid producers rise to the challenge and increase their performance. This was successful transition and the environment quickly improved as planned.
Reduced expenses – The previous culture accepted enormous amount of waste and overspending i.e. PC service contracts, purchasing excessive marketing materials that become outdated etc. I eliminated all the waste and the company operated much more efficiently.
Increased employee’s efficiency – The operation operated in an ad hoc manner so I trained the employees on the basics i.e. how to effectively conduct a meeting, the need for timelines and accountability. This raised everyone’s effectiveness and they quickly uncovered that they had more time to focus on results driven tasks. I also increased their efficiency by keeping them inspired to hit their behavioral tasks and show compassion that I’m there to help them to be better at their tasks. It was also important to be certain that they were in the right position for success. I reallocated tasks based upon their strengths so they achieve goals which makes them grow personnally and professionally. Everyone wants to feel that they are an achiever and this will typically translate directly into their work increase in performance.
Hire the right people – I’m a firm believer in hiring the right talent based predominately on their behavior. Certainly they need the basic training, education, experience and skill but I emphasize the behavior as paramount in my hiring decision. They must have the behavior to be conducive to help support the business culture. I created what I feel is the top 7 behavior characteristics they must posses before I hire which I termed The Big 7:
ü Positive influence
ü Self-motivated
ü Disciplined
ü Respectful
ü Team player
ü Cost conscious
ü Open-minded
The people I hired became the top producers in a short period and as planned put pressure on the others to rise even further.
What have you done that’s saved time or increased workflow?
Time management skills – Implemented a time allocation schedule for others and myself. This schedule was broken down to hours for reaching out to clients; meetings, planning and client follow up. This helped streamline our effectiveness by identifying timewasters and eliminating them. Also, I established that everyone should be respectful of their colleague’s time by always scheduling timely discussions. This awareness was infectious and everyone noticed that their time might not have been the best time for their colleagues.
Implemented automated SW task management tools – Added tools to our database to increase the efficiency and to make everyone’s tasks public. This creates a self-policing process/policy so no opportunity is overlooked. This exposed some of the employee’s lack of performance and corrected their behavior and increased sales performance.
Developed web purchasing and information video to minimize overhead – In order to increase our business without increasing our overhead I developed a web based informational/purchasing system to drive clients to online purchasing rather then call in orders. This maximized our efficiency and profitability since the purchase can be accomplished 24/7 and can handle multiple simultaneous purchases at no cost.
Conducted webinars to solicit and train independents – To establish the national network of business owners I Initially was traveling to various locations to present the benefits of our national network program and our products. The attendance would vary from 25-50 people. Though this process was profitable I wanted to make it more effective. I therefore, started to conduct webinars to a smaller amount of people but more frequently. This yielded a much greater effectiveness and profit.
Enhanced communication – Internal and external communications is highly important to any organization and many companies overlook the significants and the negative effects when it’s lacking. Without consistent internal communication it can affect morale and create drastic inefficiencies. I’ve instilled in my existing and past employer processes of communications to ensure everyone even our European colleagues were well informed of daily, weekly and monthly tasks and goals. This was achieved by developing an intranet informational platform for posting meeting notes with action items to ensure that not only the employees were well informed but, that they had been given a due dates to achieve these tasks. This enhanced the exchange of information, employees’ accountability and allowed projects move forward quicker with more accuracy.
Created a global business management systems for quoting and deliver to shorten cycle time, increase accuracy and track performance – For my previous global employer, the process for developing complex equipment quotations was labor intensive and required far to much time to create. In addition, once the equipment was sold the process allowed for a great potential of costly errors. Therefore, I mapped out a complex quotation, ordering and manufacturing system, which automatically developed the equipment cost, estimated installation times, costs and a bill of materials for manufacturing to accurately manufacture the equipment. I hired a software-developing firm to write the code based upon my model. The system was developed within 8 months and launched globally within 12 months. This system significantly impacted the company’s profit from, not only the efficiency and accuracy of creating the proper documentation but the system eliminated manufacturing waste by $500K caused from incorrect data.
