Front - AZ Teambuilding sro

PUSHING TO THE FRONT
of missed or delayed appointments with these customers could have on
the future success of the organization, they may have acted differently.
Sales representatives complain about the proverbial ‘fire drill.’ “Don’t
they respect our time?”... or “Do they think we are sitting around waiting
for something to do?”… or “I guess I’m really not a sales person?”
If sales representatives feel undervalued or unappreciated it is only a
matter of time before they start a job search looking for a company that
appreciates what they have to offer.
Here is an example of a ‘fire drill’ a sales representative recently shared
with me. The entire sales force was contacted and instructed that they
had to go into their CRM system and review and update every contact,
and it had to be completed the day of the request. In the case of this
sales representative, he had over 850 contacts to review and update for
the accounts that were assigned to him. Now let’s do the math, if he had
completed the review of one contact per minute it would have taken
him over 14 hours to complete the request. This representative had to
cancel all his appointments for that day to give it the attention that was
requested by that company’s management team. Based on the limited
time frame, he did not give it the detailed review it deserved.
To avoid the problems associated with the ‘fire drill,’ ask yourself if this
really needs to be completed today or tomorrow? If not, slow down long
enough to give your sales team a week or more to complete a new task.
This gives your sales representatives the ability to adjust their schedules
in a way that will not have a negative impact on your business. Experience
has shown me that the data you receive from your sales force will be
more precise when they have been given enough time to complete a task.
If you insist on a reply the same day, you may not get the information
that you really need. Ask yourself: is it more important in your decisionmaking
process to have the data now or to have it right? If you are like
most managers, you want truly accurate information.
In addition to ‘fire drills,’ many organizations will schedule a conference
call or a web meeting on short notice. Even those who schedule
these meetings a week or two in advance don’t think about the time
they hold these meetings. The location of the management team tends
to drive which half of the country ends up having to sit in a home office
waiting for the meeting to begin. Yes they can be doing paperwork,
218