February 2008

BUSINESS OF WEARABLES

Take Charge of Your Career

The lack of a strong sales staff could be the one thing holding you back from hitting that next level in your business.

By Greg Muzzillo

Once you’ve established a thriving wearables distributorship, there’s one major challenge ahead: taking that business to the next level. Whether you want to reach $200,000 in sales annually or close your first million-dollar month, what can really slow or stop your growth is building and maintaining a successful sales staff. If your sales staff isn’t producing, sales won’t increase and your business won’t grow.

To hire or not to hire
Distributors who have sales staff challenges often ask: How do I find a top-performing sales associate? They’re frustrated because their sales staff isn’t producing and they see other distributors with star salespeople who rake in the sales. It’s natural to want to find and hire a top performer, but it’s not the first step toward building a sales staff that produces the numbers you want.

"Lots of sales professionals say motivation is a key component to their success."

Before you look for a top performer, answer this question: Why isn’t my current staff performing as well as I’d like? There’s always the possibility your employees aren’t well-suited for sales or aren’t good employees in general, but another possibility is that they’re not being managed effectively. In wearables sales there are four key management concepts you should master to build a great team.

1. Education. Can your employees explain the difference between screen printing and embroidery? Can they accurately describe color matching and fabric features? If you answer, “No,” then you have an obvious and serious problem. Ensuring your sales professionals are adequately trained in this industry is paramount to having successful sales production.

"Ask the sales professional to sell you the product they sold previously (whether wearables or something else) as if this was a sales appointment and you were a prospective client."

If they’re competent in their knowledge of wearables, then ask: Are my sales professionals capable of explaining complex wearables concepts to a non-industry person, such as a customer? Your salespeople might know everything there is to know about performance fabrics, but if they can’t translate that technical information to make it appeal to the customer, the customer won’t want to buy. Ensuring your sales staff is well educated and capable of translating technical information to customers is the first step toward building an effective team.

2. Expectations. Set realistic sales goals for your sales team. If the expectations you’ve set are unreachable, your staff will be demoralized and won’t try to meet goals. Start by examining current sales numbers for each staff member and use those benchmarks to set goals for next month, quarter, half-year and year. If a staff member exceeds his goals in the first month, reevaluate the remainder of his goals for the quarter and so on. Hold public celebrations to recognize achievements when employees reach and exceed their goals.

3. Motivation. Lots of sales professionals say motivation is a key component to their success. Your sales staff is more likely to strive for goals if they’re motivated by recognition, awards and incentives. If your sales force is paid on commission, you might think your employees have adequate motivation because their pay rate is determined by their performance. Even employees who are paid on commission crave recognition for their good work and need that extra motivation to perform at their full potential. Be sure you have a system in place to reward employees. Whether you offer a Christmas bonus, additional paid vacation days or logoed gifts, having an incentive program for your employees is crucial.

4. Evaluation. Do you set measurable and reachable goals for your staff and continue monitoring their progress on a monthly or weekly basis to evaluate and update those goals? If not, you won’t be able to change your organization. Constant evaluation of the first three concepts I’ve discussed is also important. Is everyone on your staff progressing appropriately in their wearables education? Do sales expectations and goals need to be adjusted to fit the organization? Are the motivational tactics used in the office effective in motivating the staff? Additionally, are you evaluating your own performance as a manager on a regular basis? It’s important to encourage your employees to give you feedback, which can be helpful in your own growth. Create a system to evaluate the important aspects of your business and schedule time to complete those evaluations.

The hiring process
If you’ve taken the time to evaluate and build your sales staff using the four key concepts above and they still aren’t producing, it may be time to consider hiring a new sales professional and removing those who aren’t capable of producing the sales numbers you want. Finding seasoned sales professionals in the wearables industry who are interested in joining another business can be very difficult, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find a top performer.

1. Prepare to hire. Many distributors overlook this step when they decide to hire a new sales professional. First, determine how this new hire will be compensated. Review other job postings and research other businesses to discover what a competitive salary is for excellent sales professionals in your area. Know ahead of time how you plan to structure the pay (base salary vs. commission) and what you can afford to pay.

Evaluate what benefits and vacation packages are competitive, as these can mean more to prospective employees than salary alone. Then, consider what the expectations and responsibilities are for this position. Do they match your compensation package? If the answer is yes, then it’s time to post the job.

2. Post the job. Creating the job posting is one of the most crucial parts of looking for a top-performing salesperson. Communicate exactly what the job responsibilities are in the body of the posting, and then carefully identify the qualifications you want. If you write, “a sales professional with 10 years in the wearables industry,” you may not get many responses, but if you write, “a sales professional with 10 years of experience, a creative/design background and evidence of proven sales success,” you’ll get more quality responses. Consider what qualities a person who’s not currently selling wearables might have that would make her a great wearables salesperson.

Finally, request that the candidate send a cover letter and resume. Reading a person’s cover letter is an excellent way to preview their writing skills and ability to communicate their own qualifications.

3. Prepare to interview. When you’ve narrowed down your candidate pool to one or two candidates, it’s time to interview. Ask the sales professional to sell you the product he sold previously (whether wearables or something else) as if this was a sales appointment and you were a prospective client. If he can’t describe the product in detail, explain it clearly in terms you can understand and convince you why you need the item, he’s not a top performer and lacks sales expertise.

Also ask the sales professional what she did in a difficult situation. For instance, “Tell me about one time when you failed to meet your sales goal and how you handled it.” Be specific about the situation you want to hear about, because if you ask about a time she failed, you might get a story about a college course. The answers to these two questions should give you important information about whether or not this person will be successful selling for you.

Survey: Employees Value Green Habits A steady paycheck used to be enough. Then there were benefits, 401K and dental insurance. Now add environmentally friendly practices to the list of employee demands as a way to entice top performers to your company. According to a new study, about 64% said their decision to work for or purchase a product from a company was influenced by its environmental policies or practices. “It’s an influence question, and the majority of employees said they were influenced by a company’s environmental policy or lack thereof,” says Van Hindes, vice president of communications for Corporate Express, which conducted the study and is the parent company of Corporate Express Promotional Marketing (asi/168786). About 7,600 office employees ranging from administrators to CEOs were polled online last year. This is reflective of a larger trend, says Harry Hawkins, CEO of West Hawk Industries (asi/358230). The U.S. population has made great strides in terms of being green. “Everybody recycles now,” he says. Sixty percent of the people polled said their companies incorporated new environmental policies over the course of the past decade. The survey also contends that concerns about a company’s “greenness” filters down all the way to what kind of cleaning supplies a company uses. Eighty-three percent of respondents said they’d like their companies to use environmentally friendly cleaning products in their offices. Nearly 33% said that their office environment triggered allergies. Many distributors keep the environment in mind, says Douglas Heath, CEO of GCI Promotions (asi/199866). Still, “sometimes the follow-through gets lost. We all have a set of ideals, but sometimes we get lazy about achieving them,” he says.   This is especially true when it comes to picking one job over the other. “I think most people in Michigan would be happy just to have a job” considering how much the American automotive industry is struggling, Hawkins says. “I don’t think most employees care about what the cleaning lady does. If the office smells fresh, it’s a good thing; if it doesn’t then it’s not.” – KH