March 29, 2024

You’re the Boss Blog: Getting Sales Representatives to Sell

She Owns It

Portraits of women entrepreneurs.

Deirdre LordEarl Wilson/The New York Times Deirdre Lord

During a previous She Owns It business group meeting, Beth Shaw, who owns YogaFit, said she realized she had to ramp up her sales efforts. Toward that end, she brought on a sales manager with a 60-day contract that is up in February. So far, results have been lackluster, leaving Ms. Shaw to wonder whether her expectations are realistic and whether she is offering the contractor the proper incentives to sell sponsorships of YogaFit’s conferences and its branded merchandise. She asked the group how quickly they expected new sales representatives to sell and what type of learning curve they expected.

“I used to create sales quotas, and then assume people were going to hit them immediately, which is totally unreasonable,” said Deirdre Lord, who owns the Megawatt Hour, a start-up in the energy industry. Now, she said, when forecasting — especially when working with new sales representatives — she builds in a three- to six-month period for them to get up to speed.

“Do you pay them a small base plus a large commission?” Ms. Shaw asked.

Ms. Lord replied that her two sales reps were paid only on commission. She added that it was important to set targets because salespeople are competitive and want to know what they must do to succeed. She said that should drive how you manage them.

Ms. Shaw asked Ms. Lord if she had trouble finding good sales people willing to work for commission only.

It’s a challenge, Ms. Lord replied. She said the sales reps she considered typically require $100,000 to $125,000 in total annual compensation. “You have to map that out for them — if you do X, Y and Z, that’s how you get to those numbers,” she said.

Depending on how successful her outside sales reps are, Ms. Lord said she would switch things up — ultimately giving them smaller commissions and larger base salaries.

This surprised Susan Parker, who owns Bari Jay, which manufactures bridesmaid and prom dresses. “When they’re more successful, you give them lower commission and a higher base?”

“Yes,” said Ms. Lord, who is also engaged in selling for her company, “because they like to have the security.”

Ms. Parker said, “But I feel like a good salesperson always wants commission because —”

“Of the unlimited upside,” Ms. Lord jumped in. But, she explained, “We’re competing for salespeople so we need to be able to offer them greater stability.”

Ms. Shaw said, “Throughout the years, I’ve had salespeople on and off, some more successful than others, some as employees, and some as independent contractors,” But the current arrangement, a 60-day contract with expectations, doesn’t seem to be working. She said that, in a month and a week on the job, her new sales manager hadn’t done much selling.

She said she gave the sales manager clear goals. “One is to sell, two is to do sales training with my staff, and three is to handle some inventory management,” Ms. Shaw said. “Inventory management hasn’t been handled, sales training started for a while and then stopped, and she hasn’t pulled any numbers.”

Ms. Shaw wondered whether it was time to admit defeat. After all, the sales manager has sold no YogaFit conference sponsorships, which range from $5,000 to $15,000 and offer her a 10 to 15 percent commission. “I’ve given her a tremendous amount of leads,” Ms. Shaw said. These include pro shops located in health and fitness clubs that offer YogaFit trainings. Maybe, she suggested, she should just have the sales manager finish out her contract by handling incoming customer service calls, with the hope that she might manage to sell something extra to the callers.

“What was her background?” asked Jessica Johnson, who owns Johnson Security Bureau.

“She supposedly sold cars,” said Ms. Shaw. And supposedly, YogaFit’s former chief operating officer checked references.

“I guess one question would be, How important is experience in your industry when you are looking at a sales professional?” Ms. Johnson said.

“I think you’re either a salesperson or you’re not,” Ms. Shaw said.

Ms. Parker agreed.

Ms. Johnson, who worked in pharmaceutical sales before taking control of her family business, described herself as a “recovering salesperson.” “I can sell anything,” she said.

Ms. Shaw agreed: “Me, too. My background is advertising sales.”

Still, Ms. Johnson said she knew of sales reps who thrived in one context but not in another. “Some people are more relationship-driven, some are more technical,” she said.

But what’s a reasonable amount of time to give a salesperson to get up to speed? Ms. Shaw asked.

“I think it takes a while, particularly in our industry, to establish relationships,” Ms. Lord said. Unless someone comes with a book of business, it takes time to generate leads. Still, she added, she would not expect zero progress after one month, and asked: “Is there any way you can track who she’s calling?”

“I still don’t have an adequate C.R.M.” — customer relations management system — “in place,” Ms. Shaw said.

“Do you give her checkpoints to meet, like ‘For this month I want you to have 100 new touches?’” Ms. Johnson asked.

“Not in terms of daily calls, I would hope she could figure that on her own,” Ms. Shaw said. She noted that the sales manager was receiving a “pretty generous base.” With hindsight, she thinks she probably should have paid her half of that and increased her commission.

What do you think?

You can follow Adriana Gardella on Twitter.

Article source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/getting-sales-representatives-to-sell/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Off the Charts: Car Sales Continue to Fall in Many Developed Countries

The Federal Reserve Board reported this week that its industrial production index climbed 2.2 percent in 2012. That represents a slowing of the growth rate from 2010 and 2011, but still left the index slightly above the 2006 average.

That index peaked in December 2007, just as the recession began, and remains below that peak. There have been only two periods since 1921 in which it took longer for production to recover fully. One, lasting just over six years, came after production peaked during World War II. The other, lasting more than seven years, came during the Great Depression.

The accompanying charts show the trends in the two indicators in the largest developed countries. The constant, if slow, increases shown in the United States since the economy hit bottom in 2009 have not been matched in any of the other countries. German industrial production is above where it was in 2006, but has been declining for more than a year.

In much of Europe, the idea that there has been a recovery at all seems doubtful. Car sales did spike higher in 2009, but that was largely because of temporary government-financed incentives that provided money to buyers who traded in older cars for new, presumably more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Britain also announced a tax increase that could be avoided if car buyers acted quickly, and many did. Sales fell off sharply in most of Europe after the incentives expired, and have continued to decline.

New-car sales can be a particularly sensitive economic indicator because few people really need to buy a new car, and thus tend not to do so when they feel uncertain about their economic prospects. Even if a car purchase can no longer be delayed, a used car is an alternative.

The charts show car sales over 12-month periods, compared with the figures in each country for 2006. They exclude light truck sales, a category that includes sport utility vehicles and minivans. Such vehicles are normally included in the United States when counting car sales but excluded in other countries, where they are more likely to be used by businesses than families.

In 2012, car sales in the United States were 7 percent below the level of 2006. Sales in Japan had recovered to within 6 percent of the 2006 total. But in most European countries, sales are well below precrisis levels and are continuing to fall.

A couple of years ago, the periphery of the euro zone appeared to be in a recession, but the core countries of the zone seemed to be doing relatively well. That has changed, and not because the periphery has improved.

Germany reported this week that its economy declined in the final quarter of 2012, and France also seems to be in decline. But in neither of those countries have car sales and industrial production plunged as rapidly as they have in Italy and Spain. Spain’s car sales are now less than half the level of six years ago.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/19/business/economy/car-sales-continue-to-fall-in-many-developed-countries.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Today’s Economist: Casey B. Mulligan: Is the Fiscal Cliff a Big Deal?

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Casey B. Mulligan is an economics professor at the University of Chicago.

With their Keynesian analysis, the Congressional Budget Office and others have exaggerated the effects of the “fiscal cliff” on the labor market and the economy.

Today’s Economist

Perspectives from expert contributors.

Come January, current law provides for significant cuts in federal spending and for tax increases – and thereby significant federal budget-deficit reduction. These provisions have been collectively described as the “fiscal cliff,” which emerged when Democratic and Republican leaders could not agree on plans on spending and taxes.

The Congressional Budget Office has warned that the fiscal cliff will cause a double-dip recession, but its analysis for 2013 is based on the Keynesian proposition that anything that shrinks the federal budget deficit shrinks the economy, and the more the deficit is reduced the more the economy is reduced.

In many circumstances, the Keynesian proposition reaches the wrong conclusions about economic activity, because deficits do not necessarily expand the economy or prevent it from shrinking. For example, reducing the deficit by cutting unemployment insurance – it’s one of the programs that would be cut in January – would shrink the economy in the C.B.O.’s view.

But in reality, cutting unemployment insurance would increase employment, as it would end payments for people who fail to find work and would reduce the cushion provided after layoffs.

Helping people who are out of work may be intrinsically valuable because it’s the right thing to do, but the Congressional Budget Office is incorrect to conclude that it also grows the economy or prevents it from shrinking. Paying people for not working is no way to put them to work.

The Keynesian proposition about budget deficits ignores incentives of all kinds, so its incorrect conclusions about the fiscal cliff are not limited to unemployment insurance. Another example: the fiscal cliff would put millions of Americans on the alternative minimum tax, which Keynesian analysis said would shrink the economy solely because it collected more revenue.

Yet economists who have studied the alternative minimum tax have found that its effects on incentives to work and produce are essentially neutral, compared with the ordinary federal personal income tax.

(The Congressional Budget Office does not use pure Keynesian analysis for its long-term projections, which include labor-supply incentive effects of tax rates, but apparently has decided that incentives’ effects can be safely neglected in the short term.)

None of this implies that the fiscal cliff will expand the economy, because some of its provisions will increase the penalties for working and producing.

The fiscal cliff would cut Medicare payments to doctors by 2 percent, which reduces doctors’ reward for treating Medicare patients. This may cause doctors to work less (or to work more for non-Medicare patients). The fiscal cliff would end the “Bush tax cuts” provisions, some of which have been enhancing the incentive to work (but beware – not all laws labeled “tax cuts” enhance incentives).

Perhaps the incentive-reducing provisions of the fiscal cliff outweigh its incentive-enhancing provisions, in which case the Congressional Budget Office has arrived at approximately the right answer for the wrong reasons.

But even in that lucky case, the C.B.O.’s quantitative estimates of the fiscal cliff’s economic effects are not reliable until they fully incorporate economic incentives.

Article source: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/is-the-fiscal-cliff-a-big-deal/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Economix Blog: Video: Private Sector Gets Job Skills; Public Gets Bill

When companies are deciding where to build new facilities or whether to expand in places where they already have factories or offices, states compete to shower them with incentives like tax breaks and help buying land. Increasingly, companies have come to expect that state and local governments will pay for job training, too.

For Sunday’s paper, I wrote about a $1 million customized training program that North Carolina designed for the benefit of Caterpillar, Inc., the global industrial equipment maker. The company opened a new plant in Winston-Salem in November, and the state is paying to train nearly 400 workers who will make axles for mining trucks.

North Carolina is also spending about $1.5 million to train workers for a new Honda Aircraft plant in Greensboro. About 163 workers went through training at Guilford Technical Community College in various areas including jet assembly and electrical system installation in the hopes of securing a job. Because Honda delayed the opening of its production lines, some of those workers, like Kent McDaniel, featured in this report from the video journalists at Purple States, decided to seek work elsewhere. Others, like Linda Merritt, stuck it out and are now working at Honda.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=d044acc381cb2498ac7f8be72792fbc3

Preoccupations: 25 Years in Stage Role, Actress Still Adds Variety

ASK people to describe a typical day at work and some will say it’s impossible — each day is different. But there are other jobs where people do the same thing every day, like driving the same bus route, or performing the same role in a play year after year. I’ve played the psychiatrist Margaret Brent in “Perfect Crime,” an off-Broadway play, for almost 25 years, ever since it opened.

Friends ask me: “How do you do that every night? Doesn’t it get boring?” “Never,” I tell them. There are always external events that affect the performance, and there are things I do myself to make each performance a little different. I believe that anyone with a repetitive job can do things to make it more interesting. Traffic cops who dance while directing traffic are one example, and subway workers who broadcast entertaining announcements are another.

I’ve heard of employers coming up with ideas to stave off employees’ boredom in certain jobs, such as offering incentives, but for me, the audience does that. Audiences differ: some laugh more than others, for example, and that alters what I do. Near the end of the play, I tell the detective who is trying to make me confess to a murder that I love him. Sometimes the audience laughs, sometimes someone murmurs “Oh, my God” and sometimes the audience is silent, waiting to hear what the detective will say next. Each audience response changes the energy in the room — and our performances.

Then there are the decisions I make to change the role slightly. I say the same lines and stand in the same places show after show, but one night I might decide to be a little nastier to the detective who suspects me, for example. Or I might ask myself: Does she really love him when she says “I love you?” Depending on the night, my mood, the audience, and the particular actor playing the detective, that line changes. There are hundreds of ways to say “I love you,” and I have tried them all.

Just like other kinds of employees, I’m affected by things that have happened during my day. If I’ve had an argument, or if I’ve received good news, it affects how I perform that night. I think I instinctively incorporate my mood into my performance in subtle ways. When I have gone through emotionally difficult times, the comforting consistency of the work has helped me enormously, and I get to cry and to slap and kiss people, which is very cathartic.

Some jobs are more repetitive than you might think at first — even in professional sports. Last spring I posed for a publicity photograph with Cal Ripken Jr., who played for the Baltimore Orioles for 21 years, appearing in 2,632 consecutive games. People magazine called me “The Cal Ripken of Broadway” because of my long run in this play.

I’ll bet that people with repetitive jobs will tell you that they grow with the work if they’ve done it for a long time. I like to think that I’m a better actress after playing the role all these years, and I hope that I bring maturity to the role now.

I enjoy challenging myself to bring something new to the role every single time I play it. It’s enormously satisfying to know I can do the job well over and over. These types of jobs allow you — or perhaps even force you — to use different parts of your brain. I think employees are happiest when they can do that.

On the other hand, some people love rote or mechanical or mindless tasks because there’s still a sense of accomplishment after completing them. I’ve known people to find tasks comforting that others label busywork, especially when they’re going through difficult times. When I have that kind of work, it helps me clear my mind.

A  REPETITIVE job is a trade-off, too, because it can provide stability. That’s an intrinsic reward. I crave constancy in a field that doesn’t have a lot of security. I’ve missed only four of our more than 10,000 performances and those were for family weddings.

We had an unexpected night off during Hurricane Irene this summer and I almost didn’t know what to do with the free night. I’ve never had a vacation during this run, but that’s O.K. Doing the same thing over and over gives me pleasure.

I have done some television and film work, and although it is fun, waiting around on the set before you are called to perform makes me crazy. I love the idea that every night at 8 p.m. I will be onstage doing what I love. If I found it boring, I couldn’t do it. My job fills me up and makes me happy.

As told to Patricia R. Olsen. E-mail: preoccupations@nytimes.com.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/jobs/25-years-in-stage-role-actress-still-adds-variety.html?partner=rss&emc=rss