Need to increase sales? Think small...

A manufacturer with 300 dealers has approximately 1000 dealership salespeople that offer its products. Those salespeople also sell other brands, sometimes competitive brands. If you could crawl inside their heads, how much of their focus and attention is on that manufacturer's brand?

I'd guess that the answer would be: not very much. So logically that manufacturer figures it needs more salespeople. But that isn't true. They need less. Far less.

They need one or two dealership salespeople per dealer that are steeped in their brand, that think of their brand first. If each of those 300 dealers had one die hard dedicated salesperson focused on their brand, they could move mountains.

In conjunction with our client, we focused on one salesperson per dealership--we trained, motivated, and incentive-ized that one person. The result: that one person helped increase sales 35%. That one person made a lot of money. That one person also woke up the other salespeople to how viable our client's brand was.

We have to fight logic and think small--think about the difference one person (who is totally engaged) can make.


Barry LaBov
LaBov & Beyond
www.labov.com

Unemployed Specialist/Employed Generalist

When the economy booms, so does the concept of specialization. The more specialized your position, the more job security.

But when the economy slumps, what happens if we don't need 11 bio-chemical environmental engineers? What if we only need three of them and a few generalist environmental engineers?

Well, if you've shown you only do the specialized stuff, then your job is at risk. You want to make it as easy as possible for your company to find work for you.

n a booming economy, it's easier, more fun and maybe more satisfying to be the specialist. But when it comes time to decide who stays and who goes, the generalist fits more often then not in this economy.





Barry LaBov
LaBov & Beyond
http://www.labov.com/

What Will Happen with Less Dealers?

Estimates are that there will be somewhere between 25% to 60% less dealers by end of 2009. That means less stores, dealerships, outlets and salespeople to buy cars, planes, boats, toys, appliances, and other products and services from.

This could be good. Before I share why I feel that way, I want to stress that I am a fan of good dealers, distributors, sales channels, etc. In fact, I think the good ones should be rewarded with the opportunity to represent bigger markets and sell more products and services at a higher level to more customers.

Years ago, my company helped Audi create and launch a dealership sales specialist program. First, my brave client reduced the number of dealers by 30%, which concerned his boss. Then we did the unthinkable. We appointed only one salesperson per remaining dealership to specialize on our product, Audi. Let's do the math...less dealers, way less salespeople. Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

Amazing things happened. Sales went up. Salesperson retention went way up. Customer satisfaction skyrocketed. Profits leapfrogged.

It seems that having one dedicated salesperson (at 30% fewer dealerships) who acted as if they "owned" the Audi franchise was superior to having hundreds of salespeople (some engaged, others disengaged) at hundreds of dealerships (some dedicated, others not) "playing the field" trying to sell whatever brand was easiest to sell at the moment.

What can happen if thousands of dealers disappear? A lot, if the ones that remain are the focused, passionate ones.