Month: April 2020

One that comes to mind is that at my previous job, a staffing company, management created a situation that stomped all innovation or good ideas, and was even inconsistent with the rest of the culture and policies of the company. We had one client that was absolutely terrible and flaunted all of the rules of how we ran things; unfortunately, this client was also the highest volume (i.e. they ordered the most employees weekly) and so a disproportionately large percentage of income for the company. The margins were low on this account and it was entirely volume-based; it was a miserable company to work for, so we had to staff 10 times to fill one position for more than a couple weeks due to turnover; the management at that client was petulant, rude, and borderline abusive to the employees; and, most damaging perhaps, it took complete priority and kept other accounts from growing or being serviced adequately because they threatened to leave as clients all the time, and gave absurd timeframes so they became an urgent priority multiple times a week regardless of what was going on elsewhere.
I guess to avoid this, a company would have to be more selective about identity and whom they want to work with, and diversify clients a bit more so you can “fire” the bad ones like this.

Another example was not creating a culture of discipline and results; my first time in a management role in a small marketing company I founded involved having various interns and employees to help work on our clients’ accounts. Unfortunately, I was very lax and almost had the feeling that I owed the employees and interns something, like I was constantly convincing them to stay or something; some were internally driven which was fantastic, but I think, with many, they got very little out of the experience and we certainly got very little quality work from them.
Expectations needed to be set better, and I can’t have the perspective that they are doing me a favor by doing what they are supposed to be doing.

I feel that as far as selling, it’s one of those things that most people may know what to do but continuing to do it on a consistent basis may feel akin to banging one’s head against a wall. What this course has done for me in this sense has reassured what I knew about sales (it helps for the motivation if you feel confident in your methods), reinforced that the setup and whatnot is important but at the end of the day you just have to sell, and made me feel comfortable that my sales style – more authentic conversations and relationships that isn’t just the “shotgun” approach of selling incessantly to a ton of people until I get a sale – can work with the proper plan end execution. I want to continue to develop the skill of having those productive business relationships that don’t feel forced or fake.

Some of the big takeaways for me in this course was the closing with a quality proposal stage; I felt that in the past, I had sort of bumbled into closing sales, also frequently building the relationship to the proper level but not being aware or confident with proceeding forward to actually getting the contract inked. I’ve learned also that with my background I have an above-average sense and creativity with Marketing (most folks studying OD are not coming from this background) and I’m looking forward to using that. The Marketing in Action and Article Critique groups were something I had been dreading to a certain extent, but they’ve proven to be my favorite parts of the course and quite enjoyable!

 

 

• Paragraph 1: Have you ever been in a situation where you approached someone new and they rejected or ignored you? How did that experience impact you? Did you give up or push forward in order to overcome the initial reaction?
• Paragraph 2: What has this experience taught you about being persistent that you can leverage in your future as an OD professional? What has this class taught you that could have helped you handle the original situation more positively?

Part 1:

I have participated in a franchise trade show, so I think it goes without saying that I was on the business end of many, many rejections, some of which were by folks who had long given up on being polite that day. I did not give up and continued pushing, mostly because my bosses were present and very, very intensely of the opinion that one must be aggressive and volume is key. To be fair, there was some data backing this up that they were privy to – i.e. they knew the approximate numbers for a “funnel” to convert into a sale for what they were selling: a franchise. However, this is a pretty blunt instrument of measurement, and the “funnel” mentality is arguably not very accurate these days (or was ever) and makes a few key assumptions, one of which being that you need QUALIFIED leads not just leads. Long story short, I persevered with everyone who would talk to me, because we had to reach a number to be allowed to go home. Probably not the best. We got a few quality leads I think, but in general I don’t think any sales were made from the 3 days of leads from the trade show. However, they did something right (maybe changed methods?) because, although I left the company for something else, I hear they actually did close some sales a few months later in different locations.
This experience, and talking with one of the bosses who felt that the volume method was probably not best, solidified my opinion that a more targeted, authentic approach is probably better. Granted, just being at a trade show qualifies the lead somewhat, but it heavily depends on industry etc. “Pushing through” usually just resulted in someone giving you contact info to leave them alone.

Part 2:

I learned that it’s important to have a good process, and do it until it works (to a certain extent). It appears the bosses knew what they were doing, as they have been successful since – it probably just needed some refining and perhaps a different approach to whom they were selling to. It’s not always fun, either. I did sales with them (staffing company) that were not franchise related also, and I hated to admit it, but a lot of it was just volume. People kind of needed what you were selling, or they didn’t, and you couldn’t become disheartened because they might need what you were selling, just 6 months later than you had originally reached out. There is a lot going on with other companies, and catering to vendors and sales is frequently not their priority, even in the most functional of companies (and many are not very functional in certain aspects). For larger accounts, the relationships were absolutely key. You had to target a certain decision maker and work on it for months, hoping they stayed with their current company long enough to buy your services. In that sense, persistence is key.
One of the bosses was incredibly pushy and just fish-in-a-barrel when it came to sales; I hated that style, but he actually succeeded just through sheer force of will many times. That is definitely something I could have integrated to this original experience, including the aforementioned lessons – sometimes it isn’t glamorous or doesn’t feel particularly smart or innovative, but you just have to sell consistently over, and over again until you figure out what works or get lucky with the right target. Sometimes. SOMETIMES. At the very least, use the “no” as a learning experience and figure out your best chances for a yes.