S&MM SoundOff

Switching Fields

Cheerleaders are migrating from the football field to the sales field, reported the New York Times earlier this week. Pharmaceutical companies are recruiting graduating college cheerleaders as their newest sales reps, hoping to strike hiring gold. Sales managers say cheerleaders’ outgoing personalities and exaggerated enthusiasm, used to motivate crowds, can also motivate doctors to buy new drugs. It doesn’t hurt that the cheerleaders are all good looking, either—and that has been a source of controversy.

Critics say using attractive reps to influence doctors is no different than fancy dinners or golf outings used to woo clients--selling tactics the FDA frowns upon. And that’s not the only problem pharma companies could face. Cheerleaders may have personalities suited to sales, but they don’t have any sales experience. Some recruiters don’t even ask about their potential hires’ majors.

Whenever you hire new reps, you’re taking a risk. Cheerleading or other activities can be good indicators of potential, but are they enough to make a hiring decision? Hiring an experienced rep from another industry can have its own set of problems, but hiring someone with no experience is a much bigger, and potentially very costly, risk. Have drug companies really found a gold mine, or are there better ways to make a successful hire?

Take Your Personal Issues to Work?

I don’t know about you, but I would be pretty uncomfortable telling my boss that I'm grieving the loss of my cat or that I really need to take a "mental health day." I'd probably keep all that to myself. You always want to appear on top of your game right?

However, I just might start carrying my personal baggage to work. A recent study by WorldatWork suggests bosses are more willing to let you handle your work/life issues during office hours.

In my career, I've found that many employers expected me to leave all my personal troubles at the door. At one job in particular, I found it very hard to even take a sick day, much less share a story of hard times with a supervisor. It seems pretty cruel, but it's the reality of many workers.

But the study suggests that either the workplace is changing or insensitive bosses are fading away. Both are a good thing.

Please tell us what you think. Do you share work/life issues with your boss?

For more reading, check out S&MM's finding balance section.

Reeling in New Revenue

Who isn't wild about seafood? As much as I frequent Red Lobster, I'm surprised I don't already have my own reserved booth at the restaurant.

And now, you can read all about seafood in each issue of Wild Catch. You heard right! It's a new business-to-business magazine for the wild seafood industry. This new publication was created to provide retailers, restaurants, and sellers of seafood with information on the industry so they may in turn, effectively market wild-caught seafood to the consumer.

Publisher Peter Hurme discovered an untapped market -- the wild seafood industry –- and provided a niche product to reel in a money-making opportunity. What is your company doing to find new streams of revenue?

In the pages of S&MM, read how sales leaders are opening new avenues to growth. Plus, learn how to gain market share by connecting with a new customer base.

Cultivating Loyalty

Employers can relax a little: Employee loyalty is on the rise. Thirty-four percent of employees plan to stay with their company for two years or more, according to a recent survey by Walker Information. That may not sound like much, but the number of committed employees has climbed steadily from 24 percent in 2001 and 30 percent in 2003.

I worked at a moving and storage company last summer that worked hard to keep employees happy, and I would bet its dedicated employees far surpassed the 34 percent mark. After the spike in gas prices from Hurricane Katrina, every single employee received a $20 gas gift card—including temps like me—just in time for Labor Day weekend road trips. It was a nice surprise that didn’t depend on meeting numbers or any other performance criteria.

With over 100 employees, I’m sure that gift cost a pretty penny, but loyalty doesn’t always have to be bought. This company also gave preference to employees’ college-age kids when it hired extra summer help, published a newsletter recognizing star employees, and hosted monthly "coffee with the chairman" meetings, which seemed to be just as effective at motivating employees. How do you show your appreciation? Do you provide incentives, such as gift cards or monetary rewards, or do you have other methods that don't break the bank?

For ideas from S&MM, check out some articles on the latest in gift cards and socially responsible incentives.

Bonus Humbug

I guess Ebenezer Scrooge is alive and well in Corporate America. According to a recent survey, 59 percent of companies say they won’t be giving out holiday bonuses of any form this year, and of those who are giving them out, only 13 percent will give cash.

There are two things that jumped out at me when I read these survey results. One was that it’s a great thing that companies who are giving bonuses are getting more creative and giving out diverse gifts such as food, gift certificates or the popular gift cards. But the more glaring issue to me is eliminating the holiday bonus altogether.

I’m going to give these managers the benefit of the doubt and assume they worried that if the gift wasn't going to be substantial, then it wasn't worth giving, period. Well that’s wrong!

Case in point; My staff and I have been working really hard lately and we know we aren’t getting a holiday bonus, but our manager treated us to a long, well-deserved lunch out. We didn’t talk about business either—we just had time to catch up, which we rarely have time to do anymore. It wasn’t a Tiffany pen, but it made our day—and that goes a long way.

Motivating your staff is always important but around the holidays it takes on another level. It keeps people smiling and builds loyalty to your company. So instead of pooh-poohing gifts altogether because you can’t afford large cash gifts, why not be a rebel and get creative? Send their families fruit baskets. Get a new parent a gift card to Babies "R" Us. Give a golf enthusiast a free game. In the end, if a manager is truly great, he or she will know the little things that will keep a smile on the team’s faces come holiday time.

Sick, or Just Sick of Your Boss?

A recent study proves what most employees already know: Bullying bosses are bad for your health. According to the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, workers who felt their bosses treated them fairly had a 30 percent lower risk of heart disease than those who said their bosses mistreated them.

In the sales field especially, where a boiler room mentality can still exist, negative motivation may be just as common as dangling an incentive. While researching this story I discovered one manager who was unapologetic about spurring results via rants, rather than raves.

But I can say from personal experience that having a Bosszilla isn’t much fun. My first job out of college was as an assistant in a marketing department. My boss was outgoing, creative, and successful—but her management style was akin to a snake eating its young. Sure, there was the occasional praise, but those flowers our art director received from her once? They weren’t for a job well done, but an apology for making her cry.

After less than a year, I couldn’t take hearing the open-door berating of staffers any more. The final straw was when I finally got chewed out for something that was out of my control. I didn’t even have another job lined up—I would rather risk missing my rent than become one of those who received a regular dressing-down from the big cheese. I was asked in my exit interview whether I felt I was treated fairly. My answer? A resounding “no.”

So while you can’t go blaming your manager for every health problem you have (you should probably put down that double-cheese pizza slice, too), I’m pretty sure the churning in the pit of my stomach that I got every morning wasn’t from eating bad leftovers. Perhaps if more managers created a workplace of realistic expectations that accentuated the positive, workers would be healthier—if not physically, then mentally.

Built to Last

When you think of team building, what comes to mind? Ropes courses, cooking classes or other one-day experiences? How about walking across hot coals? More than 75 percent of 235 executives surveyed by S&MM in 2002 had participated in team building events like these, but many still doubted their lasting impact. There is no quick fix for creating an effective team, they said. Were they right?

Instead of expensive and time-consuming events, why not leverage what you already have? According to a Wall Street Journal article (available to WSJ subscribers only), Richard Couch, the chief executive at Hypertherm Inc., just shuffled the seating arrangements to encourage on-going discussion and collaboration. He created product-development teams with members from every department in his metal-cutting technology company, including engineers, researchers, marketers, and salespeople, and just made them sit together. After some initial complaints, they eventually found ways to share their insights and expertise from all angles.

If rearranging the cubicles isn’t feasible, something as simple as holding a meeting with different departments to encourage honest conversation might get you started—that’s essentially what Couch’s strategy accomplished, except on a daily basis. Or perhaps team-building events just need more follow-up. What strategies have you found effective?

The Personification of Cross-Selling

I weeped when Martha Stewart got busted last year. No, not really!

But I am a big fan of the domestic diva and regular viewer of her television shows, Martha, and The Apprentice: Martha Stewart.

Recently, she graced the cover of Fortune magazine with the telling quote "I cannot be destroyed."

Since Martha's release from a prison camp in Alderson, West Virginia, she's proven to be resilient and also a great example of cross-selling.

For instance, she's plastered her name on several home goods at Kmart. Faithful viewers even logged onto marthastewart.com to purchase knockoffs of the infamous poncho Martha wore upon her release from prison. Ever wonder what kind of music Martha fancies? She's releasing a trio of Christmas collections through a partnership with Sony BMG.

I've always dreamed of living at one of Martha's lovely homes. And now, I can get pretty close. She's teaming up with homebuilder KB to create a line of Martha-branded homes in Cary, North Carolina.

Not everyone can be like Martha Stewart, but we can learn a thing or two from her playbook. Martha banked on her homemaking expertise and made herself the brand. It's a risky branding strategy, but she did it.

Is your company cross-selling a product or service in a clever way? Tell us how.

Plus, check out our sales strategy section on S&MM.

Lessons from the Boob Tube

This week, I actually got something educational out of watching TV.

Tuesday’s episode of NBC sitcom The Office actually had a few sales lessons hidden in the hyjinx. Regional manager Michael plans a client meeting with his supervisor, Jan From Corporate, who insists that she take the lead on the sales call, as Michael is known for putting his foot in his mouth. However, while planning the meeting, Michael pooh-poohs Jan’s idea to hold it at the Radisson, saying it’s too “snooty” for the customer, insisting instead on Chili’s (which he claims will be the new hotspot for closing deals, once an article he wrote about this “trend” gets published in Small Businessman magazine).

And then, instead of talking shop right away, Michael warms his prospect up with some monster-sized mojitos and off-color jokes, much to Jan’s chagrin. After what seem to be a few hours of singing the Chili’s baby-back ribs jingle and downing fluorescent-green drinks, Michael eases into his pitch. If I remember correctly, he observes how, as a born-and-bred member of the community, he has seen how the big companies have come in and pinched the local businesses (like the prospect’s), and how his company, Dunder-Mifflin, understands the pressures the client’s business faces. The prospect, who initially said budget constraints meant he had nothing to spend, admits he could give them his business, but that they would have to “meet him halfway.” After agreeing to that, Michael closes the deal. Jan is speechless.

The first lesson? The show demonstrated—in a farcical way, of course—the importance of finding common ground with the decision maker you are meeting with and understanding how his business works, something S&MM addressed in this story about solution selling.

The second lesson? Sometimes, it’s best to let those who are closer to the front lines—and thus, more familiar with the customer—take the lead on how to approach a prospect. The episode reminded me of a real-world story I heard a sales executive once tell: To gain a huge discount retail chain as a distributor, this executive took along his company’s CEO on the sales call to demonstrate how important the client’s business was to him. Unfortunately, the CEO revealed that, incidentally, he’d never even stepped foot inside one of the retailer’s stores before. D’oh.

While Michael may be the embodiment of every single incompetent worker or manager you’ve ever dealt with, he somehow knew the client’s preferences and pain points and used them to seal the deal. Now if only he would stop telling dirty jokes in the office and challenging employees to karate matches…

Rethinking Goals

If you’re going to be successful, you have to set goals. At least that’s what we’ve always been told. Stephen Shapiro, author of Goal-Free Living, disagrees. After 150 interviews, he determined that the most satisfied and successful people are the least goal-oriented. In "Are Your Goals Holding You Back?" in the current issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, Shapiro explains that successful people and companies are "getting out, playing, and trying lots of new things." He doesn’t advocate aimless living, but rather thinking very broadly, with several possible paths to success.

It seems that goals are still useful—you just have to set them the right way. Take sales, for example. There will always be numbers (aka goals) to meet, but if that is the only focus, bigger long-term opportunities might be overlooked. And what about personal career goals? S&MM interviewed a sales executive who was happy and successful but might well have passed up the job if he'd had narrowly focused goals. We also published a list of steps for setting goals a few years ago, but maybe they need to be re-examined. Maybe the short-term goals are still necessary, but should be more flexible over the long haul. What’s your take on goals? Are they helpful, harmful, or just an optional means to an end? What Shapiro seems to be saying is that goal-setting is not compatible with outside-the-box thinking—but can his approach even apply to the numbers-driven sales profession?