Overcoming Pains Organizations Inflict on Themeselves

by Michael Pearce, Interim Management Executive

There are a host of pains organizations inflict on themselves that present clear and present dangers to their very viability. Among those we often see are:

• Goals and objectives that are out of sync with job descriptions and employee expectations

• Compensation plans that don’t reflect the will of the organizations executive leadership

• Management who believes it is their prerogative to manipulate sales compensation plans, changing quotas, territories and commission schedules mid-stream

• Sales automation/CRM systems that are installed to provide management reporting with sales productivity as a by product

• Few understand the complicated nature of channels, how to avoid conflict, and how to motivate organizations they don’t own, yet many businesses just can’t grow organically fast enough. Effective committed channels are a necessity.

So what can companies do?

• They must learn to hire for a season. Recognize that a significant percentage of employees will move on within a few years. Call it out confront it and embrace by designing the job description accordingly, and eliminate confusion and contention. Hire the very best for the tasks at hand. It’ll require a bit more thought and planning, but it’ll be worth it.

• Dedicate themselves to serving their employees and to making them successful; not managing them for compliance, rather leading them for significance; leading them rather than directing them

• Embrace technology. Many managers are digital immigrants leading digital natives. They resist it and demean it with comments like “I’ll never text”. We must immerse ourselves in it, admit our fears and frustrations, and join the ranks of the next generation who takes all this technology as a matter of fact and can’t understand why their management doesn’t.

• When we employ systems we must think first of the impact on the employee. Implement a CRM to make the sales people more productive, and have management reports as a byproduct. It’s the only way they will embrace it and the data will be accurate and timely.

• Hire scientifically. Success at a previous company is no guarantee of success with the next. It can no longer be acceptable to give an employee 9 months or longer to see if they will succeed. Thai’s as much as 1/3 of their tenure. They must be positioned to contribute much quicker.

• Build support tools like the company web site that personalize the web experience, allowing the inquirer to truly understand how your products and services can met his unique needs, and build it a way that leaves a thumb print behind so more and more can be turned into customers. It’s not the number of web hits that counts, it’s the number of customers that are generated.

• Have a mission statement that is meaningful, measure ideas against it, reward innovation, and create the opportunities that demand transformation versus incremental improvement.

• A soft economy can be the best time to gain market share. It’ll take a non-traditional approach, but embracing a win/win mentality, a servants heart for employees success, an acceptance that each employee really wants to make the best decisions possible, combined with an ability to accept effort and failure will help turn a business, even where the economy is having a negative impact, into a consistent winner.

Michael Pearce is an experienced interim management executive and has worked with several leading companies such as Citicorp, Boeing, Weyerhaeuser, Singer and EMC. His expertise is in building high performance sales teams and generating revenue and margins with repeatable, dependable, and predictable results. You can contact Mr. Pearce at michael.pearce@oneaccordpartners.com or at 425.830.4156. He also blogs at http://michael-pearce.blogspot.com/.

Photo by papalars

Interim Management Question: Will Decreased Consumer Spending Habits Last?

Will the recession lead to a lasting change in buyer behavior (in B2C) or will consumers revert back to old buying habits when the recession ends?

I think it will be all over the map. If you are an individual who prefers to buy a Pontiac, you will not have the choice of returning to your old buying habit. But this really isn’t the answer to the question, it only serves to demonstrate a point. The recession will change what options may be available and will certainly impact individuals perception of risk. Buzzwords such as value and frugality are currently in vogue. High end shoppers have most recently preferred that their newly purchased items be packaged in generic, no name bags. Along with an economic crisis there is a big spotlight on the condition of the environment. Living with less is being paralleled with a commitment of making less of an impact on the environment. There appears to be so much chaos occurring in the financial markets that a focus on individual financial fiscal management appears to be a focus for “not only” the more prudent/educated and knowledgeable types, but there appears to be a concerted effort on the part of the various government agencies to protect the less informed and uneducated populace. The surge of activity related to finding economically viable alternative energy will yield many new options for transportation and basic energy grid requirements. I don’t believe that we’ll go back to vehicles of the past just because we get pockets of reprieve from OPEC.

Bottom Line – Don’t rely on consumers to revert back to their old buying habits because by the time the option exist, they’ll probably forget what those “old” buying habits were. Will people start buying houses again, certainly. Will new house designs and sales strategies be different from where they were 18 months ago. You bet. Will consumers in conjunction with government watch dogs take a more conservative approach to credit card debt? I think so.

Max Clough
Interim Management Executive
seattle@oneaccordpartners.com

From an investment perspective… I hear deal makers speak as though the recession is episodic and therefore that we’ll revert to previous approaches to buying/selling companies.

The fundamentals got distorted the last 10 years and the norm going forward for consumers to business leaders alike will be to create and consume goods and services of value that produce tangible benefits.

Peter Klinge
Interim Management Executive
peter.klinge@oneaccordpartners.com
801.755.6820

Our basic economic order is built on a Keynsian Economic model – basically a “debt mentality”. As long as our economy has access to capital…it will spend. Yet, given the radical financial changes, a conservative approach will likely influence consumers, and more importantly businesses, for years to come. Ultimately – debt, yes, same old habits…not for a long time.

Jeff Rogers
Interim Management Executive
jeff.rogers@oneaccordpartners.com

This economic downturn is termed a “recession” but there are structural changes that make the “recession” different. There are some fundamental & dramatic shifts in banking practices (% equity to credit) that will change real estate and purchasing requiring loans. Also credit card companies are actually losing money due to non-payment so expect a tightening on credit applications, more discipline on payment dates & higher interest rates to offset non-payment losses. So bottom line as people go back to work & their disposable income recovers they will go back to previous low dollar consumer habits, but on higher dollar purchases requiring credit there are structural shifts in the credit providers that will ultimately restrict demand on goods and services permanently changing their habits. What we will not know for awhile is the degree of negative affect this structural shift will have.

Dale Hintz
Interim Management Executive
dale.hintz@oneaccordpartners.com
972-824-6923

Consumers have changed. They’ve been shocked by the reality of their situation – trees don’t grow through the sky…everything has a topping out and consumers now see that they are broke!

Consumption will be less conspicuous and savings will continue to grow as a percentage of GDP.

Jackson Weaver
Interim Management Executive
seattle@oneaccordpartners.com

Make Lemonade While the World Chomps on Lemons

by Jonathan Gilliam, Executive Interim Manager

Those of us on the front lines of complex sales and business development have undoubtedly noticed the growing abundance of webinars, blogs, and articles from various pundits on how to develop accounts in a slump.

Even industries and individual businesses that are still doing well are shell-shocked by the avalanche of bad economic news and consequently are taking a “wait and see” attitude.

Unfortunately our employers and our families can’t afford to just wait and see. They need us to close business. Now.

The last few downturns have averaged 1.5 years in duration. This one may last even longer, and not everyone agrees on when this one even started. Uniquely, the lack of credit availability is truly frightening to sales and business development folks because of the potential impact on customers’ ability to finance their purchases.

Yes, reality bites… and also presents opportunities. The basic truth is business must get done and your customer still needs you. In fact, as headcount gets slashed within your customers’ organizations, those who survive are taking on the responsibilities of those who are let go and consequently have even more on their to-do list, with even less in time and resources.

This means opportunities for salespeople who can truly help customers face their own challenges and weather the storm.

*Excerpted from the SBDP Newsletter article “Staying Relevant in the Downturn.”

This article was republished with permission from Business Developments.

Jonathan Gilliam is a interim management executive for OneAccord and is based in the Austin area. Jonathan has a deep background in business development, market analysis, opportunity development, relationship management and C-level sales. Mr. Gilliam welcomes questions at 512.775.7566 or Jonathan.Gilliam(at)OneAccordCorp.com. Jonathan also blogs at Business Developments.

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Interim Management Staying Relevant in the Downturn

by Jonathan Gilliam, Interim Marketing Executive

We need to remember the current anxiety extends to our clients and their concerns about their company, staff and their own positions. We must help them justify their own roles by helping them stay relevant.

Key to this concept is learning more about solving our clients’ immediate problems. Discerning and analyzing those issues and how our product or service fits is critical. We need to be able to address client pain immediately and work to make him or her more effective.

With budgets drying up, the interim management’s role has now shifted. We are no longer here merely to help companies with cutting edge technology or driving future revenue by investing in multi-year projects with far-off return scenarios. If our customers are concerned about making their own quarterly numbers, they are less likely to be impressed with your product’s ability to automate their perfectly fine manual processes.

We can no longer “drop in, hand off and move on.” Rather we must remain in front of our customer, providing new ideas and unquestioned value.

Jonathan Gilliam is a interim marketing executive for OneAccord and is based in the Austin area. Jonathan has a deep background in business development, market analysis, opportunity development, relationship management and C-level sales. Mr. Gilliam welcomes questions at 512.775.7566 or Jonathan.Gilliam(at)OneAccordCorp.com. Jonathan also blogs at Business Developments.

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Interim Executive Question: When Will the Economy Turn Around?

When do you predict the economy will turn around?

I am working with companies that are both forward-thinking and courageous to change around their economy rather than waiting for the rest of the water to float all the other boats.

• Look at how much time people are spending today keeping up with their own personal technology. Those who value their time/sanity/priorities will get help – not by wasting time going down to Geek Squad but with progressive personalized service like www.BluePhone.com which I helped launch for my client last year. This service is going to eclipse their first line of business, just watch.

• I wrote yesterday in my blog (www.60-Second-Marketing.com) about a deal automaker Hyundai just came out with: return your car within 12 months if you lose your job. They’re putting the ear to the ground, listening to the market conditions, and being more creative about serving the customer than any of our Big Three.

• NPR just featured a toy company that had 100 SKU’s (product offerings) at the $3.99 level. Their sales are up 60% over last year because, in this challenged economy, most everyone can still afford a few bucks for some fun!

Oh, your question was “when”. My current perspective is that everyone’s economy will change when they are ready.

Paul Travis is an interim marketing executive at OneAccord. Mr. Travis is based out of Seattle with 25 years of experience in high technology, marketing, and consulting. He can be reached at Paul.Travis(at)oneaccordpartners.com and at 206-910-2222.

Bailout Approved on Round 2

As reported from The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives gave final approval on Friday to the $700 billion bailout for the financial system, reversing course to authorize what may be the most expensive government intervention in history.

At 1:21 p.m., applause and cheers echoed through the House chamber as the number of “aye” votes crossed the threshold needed for passage with just seconds remaining in the official 15-minute voting period. The vote was 263 to 171.