Before we had CRM, what did businesses do?

Only a few of the companies or sales reps who called on our family jewelry and giftware business had any records related to what we were buying. Even sales managers (a misnomer, if there ever was one) who occasionally made the rounds had no idea what we were—or were not—buying. I found them trying to sell us things we already had. Because my mentors had set up good hand-kept inventory control records, it mattered not that they did not have this information with them. (Well, it did matter. We looked upon them as a nuisance.)

Those salesman—there were only one or two women—who did have information with them kept it in all sorts of different formats. Each one had his own peculiar system. It was, remember, far before CRM was another word for automation.

Is the goal to make technology work for salespeople or should it be to help the salesperson's customers? Salespeople, after all, are the face of the company for the customer, and it's their job to help customers help their customers. This is important, whether the technology is directed toward wholesale or retail customers. For wholesale customers, they are looking for several things to fill several needs. Retail customers are looking for one thing to fill one need. In my world, it is the end customer that is the primary customer.

As a buyer for our retail store, what I wanted to know from my vendors' representatives was which items were on back order, when could I expect them and, if I were to write an new order, how soon would I receive it.

All businesses, no matter what they do or sell, have three types of customers:

• Product customers: the people who buy their products/services
• People customers: employees
• Profit customers: the people who have invested in the company and are expecting a return on their investment

But too often, as I will explain, businesses concentrate on having a profit customer-centric strategy at the expense of the other two types of customers.

I spent 25 years of my adult life in a product customer-centric business. Although my fathers and uncles did not call it a strategy—because they had not been told it was one—it was. The easiest way to describe it would be to say that the display of all the merchandise followed what I have titled the Watchband Theory of Display. Let me explain.

Make It Clear to Employees What You Expect of Them—and Your Business Will Benefit

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Posted on Feb 18, 2008

When I was in retailing in our family's fine jewelry and gift business before I went into consulting in 1983, something took place that I had not thought of or intended to have happen. It related to employee job reviews.

Let me set the stage. In a casual conversation, one of our young employees, who had been with us for about a year, asked me what we family members believed were the criteria for employees to keep their jobs. My answer was essentially this: "Either be so proficient that we can't afford to lose you or be so versatile—have working knowledge of the product—and good that you could fill in where you were needed and, of course, make sales. This young woman, luckily for us, was extremely versatile.

One day, after we had completed her performance review, she asked if she could be frank with me. Seeing that she was hesitant about stepping on my toes or being critical of me, I asked her what she had on her mind.

‘Do you realize that you expect us to do a lot more than our job description says but you have never communicated any of this to us?’

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The Little Things Count When You Recognize Your Employees as Company Ambassadors

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Posted on Feb 11, 2008

Whether you realize it or not, your employees have been ambassadors since they first interviewed for the job. Yes, it goes back as far as that because even before the interview takes place—in the time between when the appointment is made and the appointment—the prospective employee has been telling family and friends about why he or she wants to go to work for the firm.

It is the beginning of the employee's feeling of pride of association. Hence, what that prospective employee says, be it right or wrong, will be making an impression on others about the firm, its products and services. Certainly, all prospective employees doing more than just peppering firms with resumes will have investigated the firms they'd like to work for. However, they still need to know more about the particulars of job than what was in the job announcement or ad, and it is the particulars that the prospective employee will be asked about once an interview date has been set.

‘It did not take long for them to voice their disappointment to family and friends,’

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What You Get Out of Viral Media Depends on What You Put Into It ... Remind You of Anything?

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Posted on Jan 21, 2008

Viral social media is the talk of business today, but when you get down to it, is this new phenomenon so very different from plain old networking—all the things executives have done for years by joining social and athletic clubs and trade associations; going to meetings morning, noon and night inside and outside their industries; and being active in their communities, churches, schools and, yes, in politics?

Is it really, as the younger generations would say, a new way of networking for getting to know other people in business who may become potential suppliers, customers, alliances? Why is it the talk of the town? It is because the Internet has opened up the world to what was almost impossible to reach. Being able to reach is one thing. Reaching new business is another.

There are two aspects to viral media networking. The first is the myriad of programs for people to sign up to for, some just social and some for business purposes. The other is writing or replying to articles such as this one. The same but different: putting yourself before others.

‘Only once did I find business from anyone else in the groups.’

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