Category: Management

Transparency

Physics question: What is the difference between transparent and translucent? Opaque and clear? Iridescent or luminescent?

We use descriptive “clarity” words in our everyday speech. But in business, if you talk about “clarity”, i.e. being transparent, there is a difference. It is supposed to mean nothing is hidden: all the financials and agendas are open and known, and the path which has been chartered by executive leadership is easily accessed, followed and understandable by all.

Now, let’s stop laughing and dry the tears from our eyes as we discuss what really happens in business–obfuscation, misdirection, subterfuge, and outright lying. I’ve held off posting for a couple of weeks as I was observing some first hand obfuscation at a client and dealing with it. Management, in this scenario, was opaque and misdirecting with its policies and procedures. Personal agendas seem to trump corporate agendas, and covert strategies appear in hindsight to have been executed to maximize some individual’s leverage and pay.

I know this sounds jaded, but sadly, many times it is true.

First, a couple of stories around the good and the bad.

The good first. My friend owned a business which started off from nothing. Three partners came together and started a recruiting firm. They did what most startup business owners do, they hired sales talent and paid with highly leveraged compensation plans, and as the reps hustled and the company grew, the reps watched their commissions come in. The commission plan worked for the first few years, but as the company’s original business shifted and it became apparent the original commission plan didn’t fit the new path, the partners knew they had to make a change.

My friend came to me for advice. He explained where they started, where they were going and what the company needed to do to remain profitable. (In a nutshell, they were a permanent placement firm which had shifted to predominately staff augmentation in a niche market.) He did some mild railing against some of the biggest abusers of the comp plan and told me about the partner’s plan to roll out new, individualized comp plans to each rep. Their focus was on crafting plans for the senior reps which didn’t completely destroy their current commissions and shaft the newer reps with a greatly reduced commission structure–a kind of “robbing Peter to pay Paul” scenario.

When I asked how they arrived at that, the essential answer was they formulated their plan in a vacuum. The partners had met with each other and hadn’t asked for any input from their sales reps, nor were they planning on discussing the roll out with them.

What I recommended was transparency. First every rep got the same plan. Second, was a disclosure of the company numbers on sales, revenues and margins. And third, an explanation to all the reps why the company had to change the plan.

My emphasis, more than anything, was to use data to justify the “why”. If three years ago permanent placements made 90% of the revenues and that commission structure made sense but now only 10% of the revenues were placements, then that is a change which has to be addressed. But to simply move the bar on the reps without explanation creates distrust and paranoia. “What are they going to take away from me next?” I told him the reps would say. And things like, “I heard the company is in trouble.”

Surprisingly, (but happily for me) he took my advice. They gathered all the recruiters together and showed them the numbers, the trends and the future path of the company. They presented a new compensation plan which was fair, focused on the new direction, and still allowed for equal income as before by incenting the desired sales path. And they promised a transition period during implementation. After three months, only one of the senior reps had left. And the company transitioned to their new model. In the end, they survived the transition to go onto their next phase which catapulted them from a boutique to a medium-sized business.

The bad story. I’m changing some of the details around this so as not to identify any business in particular.

A company I consulted for had been holding more and more closed door meetings. The president and the VP of Sales, or the Controller, or the VP of Marketing. Individual meetings, sometimes with some different combinations of the aforementioned people, but more and more meetings. Prior to this, the company had been relatively open about its numbers and direction. A new VP of Sales had been hired, and its executive team began having more meetings with themselves than with the employees.

Soon, territories were being realigned. Specific accounts were shifted from one rep to another. Commission plans were changed and private commission promises were made. “Covert” was the operative word. I was brought in to analyze their sales operations but found (and reported–ahhh, the beauty of the consultant…) that sales operations weren’t their dysfunction.

So, what happened? Implosion. When the level of secrets met with the growing dissatisfaction of the sales force, there was a screeching halt of productivity. Why, the reps grumbled, would they work in this uncertainty? And so they started leaving.

As I’ve stated before, there are a lot of individuals which make a company run, but sales is the engine. If you don’t have any sales, you don’t have any revenue. And without revenue, you don’t have a business.

This particular story isn’t finished yet, so I can’t wrap this story up with a bow on how the company had its happy ending. It is a work in progress, and I’m watching them closely.

So, these are anecdotes, and maybe you’ve seen something similar. But my point is, no matter what the size of the company, transparency matters. If people know what they are working for, and feel valued providing value to the company, then magic happens. If people work without trust, then they will always have one foot out the door. Which do you want? Which would help your company be its best?

Thinks, Inc. is a consulting firm which specializes in Smart Sales Operations. If you’d like for us to come and assess your chaos, drop us a line at contact@thinks-inc.com

How Do You Groom Someone for Management?

There is an interesting conundrum in sales–becoming a manager.

Why is this a conundrum? Because current wisdom creates a manager one of two ways:

First: The most successful sales rep earns the opportunity to become the manager because they have demonstrated they are revenue producing machines.

Second: The person at the company with the longest tenure is tapped for management because of the number of years endured in the trenches.

Sound familiar? Have you watched the #1 sales rep get promoted to management because they’ve blown it out quarter to quarter and this is the natural reward for beating the comp plan? Or have you watched the succession of people move up to management like marbles through a straw based upon cumulative years, kind of like a “first in first out” strategy to rotate food in your pantry.

Why am I sounding negative about this?

Because in a data driven sales operation, the difference between people who aspire to management and people who become management have more reasons to be management than winning a race or outlasting their competition. This is not Survivor, we are not trying to “Outwit, Outlast, Outplay” our co-workers. We are trying to work together to grow company revenue and our compensation.

Let’s pick apart why promoting your best producer only on the metric of exceeding quota is a problem. The first, most glaring problem, is you have taken your best producer and removed them from a quota bearing position. Have you created a mechanism to fill the void they are leaving? And I don’t mean by hamstringing your new manager by asking them to continue to carry a quota as well as manage a team. Next, has the rep shown interest in managing? If you are placing them in a position which they didn’t want, you might be creating a new problem. And last, why is this person qualified to become a manager? Is it their relentless drive to achieve quota? Is it how they know how to get things done inside the company? Or is it their demeanor and the respect they garner from fellow employees?

If you are in sales, you’ve seen more than one individual who is a manager but really shouldn’t be.

Let’s look at pushing management through by tenure. This rewards someone for their cockroach survivability. It does not take into account any of the aforementioned issues, nor is it putting someone who is the most qualified into the position. They could be the most qualified, but tenure based promotion does not prove qualification.

The fact is, your company should be training people on becoming a manager as soon as they are hired. Plans for succession should be in place (like other SOP’s I’ve discussed) and those who truly want to become management will complete the tasks required to become management.

Tasks like taking some courses, getting a certificate, or even paying for them to get an MBA (there are ways to structure this to get paid back if they leave before you get any return on your investment).

Yet still, this doesn’t mean they are going to be a good manager. Allowing wannabes to succeed at some manager-esque tasks gets them to cut their teeth. And then, when the day comes, you select what you think will be your best choice. And then help as needed. Let this new hire learn from their mistakes, step into the role and manage.

Will they succeed? Who knows? But if you have been working towards the moment when that person steps into a management role, then their chances of succeeding are much greater than dropping a body in and saying, “Good luck!”

In researching for this there are a lot of articles about managing, but very few on bridging that gap between entry level employee and the first step up the ladder. Which I find incredibly interesting in light of the statistic which says the majority of sales reps leave a company because of their manager over all other reasons.

A good manager is the conduit and the filter from upper levels to the trenches. As I’ve said before, this position is a critical “promote from within” role as you are enabling your front line’s success. Make sure you promote wisely, and as I’ve heard said, wisdom is simply knowledge applied well.

Thinks, Inc. is a consulting firm which specializes in Smart Sales Operations. If you’d like for us to come and assess your chaos, drop us a line at contact@thinks-inc.com

Commissions – Fair Compensation

In the levels of Sales Operations, behind streamlining the selling of products and services and then getting paid, a perennial topic discussed with my peers is compensation. And, sadly, most of it is negative. The usual stories fall into similar categories: the comp plan is unreasonable, the territory unmanageable, the accounts duds, management doesn’t get it, etc. And while sometimes what they complain about really isn’t an issue, it is amazing to me HOW companies pay the people who actually provide the foundational cash to keep the business running and the lights on. It baffles me that leadership regularly declares it wants, no, demands excellence, and then strategically and negatively manipulates those very incentives which they believe lay out a path for the sales person to achieve that excellence.

Where am I going with this? First, let me back up and talk about balloons.

Many years ago, one of my brothers had a drinking buddy who did well financially. He pulled in great money and had a nice lifestyle. People were always chiding him that he made his living off a bunch of clowns. When I probed why they would say this, I was told he sold balloons and was one of the top sales people in the region. As usual, this sets my thoughts turning about sales and the processes of sales, and I realize 1) people are needed to sell anything–from balloons, to computer hardware to fake vomit. For every product, there is someone out there selling it. And 2) there is someone who is doing it well and getting compensated well for it.

Back to the story…the rep had been successfully selling balloons for years. New management came in decided they paid their sales people too much, so they changed his compensation plan. After deflating his metaphorical balloon, unsurprisingly to an outside observer, management sees he was suddenly no longer selling as many balloons. Management decides this is a sales performance issue, and eventually the two part ways. The company’s onetime top rep is now no longer with the company, and, again unsurprisingly, soon afterwards the company was struggling financially.

What happened? While I don’t actually have the skinny from inside the company, my guess is a newly hired executive looked at the rep and thought he made too much money. Or maybe, because I have seen it happen, didn’t like that the rep made more than him. So, to stop this egregiousness, the company structured his plan so they captured more profit and paid the rep less. In essence, they dis-incented the rep.

Story number two. Top rep in the company year over year. The rep continues to sell more, and the company continues to pay more. This continues year-over-year for his tenure. At one point, the sales rep’s revenues represent over 10% of the companies annual revenues, almost $100MM, which on his own would make him a medium sized company. In his last year he is paid exceptionally well on his sales of $100MM, and then a management change occurs. The previous year, the rep’s quota had been set at $75MM, and even he will admit, because of external circumstances, two of his customers represented about 80% of his number. The other 13 customers represented the other 20% of the $100MM. He hit and exceeded the accelerators the company had put in place. He literally “cleaned up”. So, begin this year, with new management and a new plan and what did they do? They raised his quota to $100MM, and (!) cut his On-Target-Earnings (OTE) by half. They have actually dis-incented the rep to work harder–essentially saying his effort was worth less this year than last.

Companies are in business to make a profit, and they need to compensate their salespeople to sell more, not less. Capping plans, creating barriers to success through complex percentages on sales, negative compensation on not meeting minimums do nothing but create bad blood among the people the company relies upon to provide revenue.

Sell more? Get paid more. That’s incentive. No fine print, no caps.

One more story to hammer this home…My wife’s grandfather sold for a paper company starting back in the 1930’s. He was old when I met him–88 and not as spry–but he was a legend among his friends for his salesmanship and his golf game, and there were some pretty legendary stories about him. Being an incredible salesman, it is said he sold ten times what his nearest peer did, and also made A LOT of money. A LOT. (Apparently at one point he belonged to three country clubs being the avid golfer he was.) One day, after a particularly good month, the president of the company came to him to personally deliver his commission check.

The president was apparently fidgeting with an envelope in his hand. He leaned over in a very patriarchal way and said, “George, I just want you to know that this is A LOT of money.”

George laughed while removing the check from the president’s hand and politely responded right back, “Sir, that means I sold A LOT of paper.”

And he was right. He sold a lot of paper, and he should be paid for it. Unless I’m misunderstanding it, the more paper he sold, the more profit the company made. The president shuffling over to tell George how much money he was “giving” him implied that he was somehow doing George a favor. And really, it was George who had performed the favor for the company.

What’s the takeaway from all this? Pay your reps–if you practice incentive based compensation, then don’t forget the more they make, the more the company makes.

As Smart Sales Operations go, setting quota is important, and I will be covering that topic periodically, but the reason for a quota is not to set expectations on how your reps will be paid, but to set expectations on how much money the company should make.

Look at how you compensate your sales people and earnestly evaluate if you are compensating them in the company’s interest, or theirs. There is a delicious, soft chewy center for both.

And remember: If the sales rep is making money, then the company is making money.

Thinks, Inc. is a consulting firm which specializes in Smart Sales Operations. If you’d like for us to come and assess your chaos, drop us a line at contact@thinks-inc.com

Promote from Within or do Without.

What happens when a person from outside an organization is brought in for a higher level position, e.g. executive vice president, vice president, or first line manager?

Well, it depends…but I will say, based upon anecdotal evidence, that depending upon the level which the new hire is placed, it can be anywhere from transformative to strategic to downright disastrous.

And why? Because the lower in the food chain of an organization, the more important someone is who knows the company. Especially first line managers, since they are really “information encyclopedias” for their direct reports. That first line manager is there to help bridge that gap between company knowledge and company culture and the rep.  If you place an outside hire in position as a first line manager, then starting the position they have two tasks, not just one: they have to learn the company culture as well as learn the company knowledge. And when it comes to making those in the trenches successful, understanding where to go to get things done is invaluable to the front line. If the manager has to go and find out how things are done and then report that back to the rep(s), then there is a delay and a burp in the process of getting things done.

Let’s set up a scenario. A small manufacturing company is looking to expand, and they decide to promote the current manager into an executive role, creating a new position, and now need to fill his or her role as a first line manager.

The company has had good people work hard for them for many years, helping to build the company to get it to this point. The employees have worked hard–people who have produced products, sold them, created marketing, balanced the books, straightened up back office messes, managed crises, and led the company to prosperity.

And then, because the company believes it needs to change, they hire someone from outside because they have “experience”.

What does that mean, they have “experience”? In some instances, it means the new hire brings skills to the table which the company needs and their current employees do not have. But in usually it means they bring in someone who’s managed people before. The owner/president/decision maker decides to bring in an outside party because s/he doesn’t believe anyone on the front line is capable of “managing”.  But how did this person who is brought in gain their experience? Someone took a chance on that person, promoting them to a management position, and more than likely, from within their company. I have never seen a company hire a manager from outside a company who didn’t already have management experience.

As an example: in one company, they had gone through several marketing people. They had hired an intern who quickly proved her value, who understood social media, worked hard and had great ideas. She worked for the current VP of Marketing who had troubles not only with the fundamentals of branding and messaging, but also with the newer things like social media. Basically, the intern began to save the VP’s bacon on a regular basis. The president, realizing her worth, hired her full-time.

She then proceeded to lead their social media campaigns, e-marketing campaigns and anything else the VP didn’t understand. She continued to save his bacon and she was given a new title and a raise.

When the VP decided to leave, the president, instead of looking at who had helped the company and supported its growth–i.e. who was up and coming and understood the company’s needs–hired someone outside the company whose resume was impressive.

The new VP proved scattered and ineffective, and was replaced by another outside hire with an impeccable looking resume. Marketing foundered for several more years. And here’s where the wheels fall off the bus. The rising marketing star realized she would never be considered for the top job so she left. And suddenly there was a giant hole in the company’s marketing as all of that experience walked out the door. And not just her insights and understanding of the space, but her contacts and the relationships she had built for the company. The president, of course, groused at the lack of loyalty the ex-employee showed. That, sadly, is irony.

There are a few times when companies need to look outside their walls for talent. Ford was a good example when it admitted to itself it needed fresh eyes to look at the problems created by an insulated familial succession. But on the other hand, GM saw that hiring Mary Barra was the right move as she knew the systems and had proven herself while coming up through the ranks–which is what GM needed to straighten out the messes created by their siloed decision making.

I’m not saying “never”, as absolutes simply don’t exist in our world. But I am saying look closely at your people. Step outside of how you see them, and see how they could benefit the company. Many times building a mentoring program is a great step so that someone is prepared to step into a role that needs to be filled. In sales especially, I see this as an extremely important step, as most small companies promote the best performing sales rep to management. This will be addressed in another post, but two things here: 1) Just because a rep sells the most doesn’t mean s/he should become or is qualified to become a manager and 2) if you take your biggest producer out of the field, what have you done to your sales?

In the end, promoting from within provides continuity. It enables culture building and a sense of safety to the employees. And, ultimately, it allows for employees to grow.

If you give them the chance, they will succeed.

Thinks, Inc. is a consulting firm which specializes in Smart Sales Operations. If you’d like for us to come and assess your chaos, drop us a line at contact@thinks-inc.com

PS The Infrastructure Guy  and Smart Sales Operations are Trademarks of Thinks, Inc.