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The Stimson Group Newsletter
Feb 2008
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Vol 2 Issue 2
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Welcome Back,
2008 has started with a bang. Business seems to be brisk wherever I visit, but the dour economic forecasts are on everyone's mind. Is it too soon to make an adjustment? Email me your thoughts.
In This Issue:
In the Best Practices installment we take a look at Quality Control. Sentimental Journey talks about a new website for sharing Corporate Show war stories. (Perhaps one of my Integrator friends will be inspired and start their own stories site?) And in Reader Feedback I respond to the number one question I get from business owners.
Don't forget to come see me at the R&S Roadshow in Orlando on Feb 20th! The is the best networking event you will find this close to home.
Enjoy,
Tom (TR) Stimson, CTS
My Direct Email
Website
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 Orlando Roadshow - Feb 20!
The Roadshow continues on to Central Florida. Once again I will be presenting my keynote on The One Trend That Really Matters and showing you how to use that knowledge to grow your business. I am also adding a new seminar called "The R&S Survival Kit" with some great tips from my Best Practices series. The Roadshow also features top staging product manufacturers in a casual setting. But the highlight of the Roadshow is the opportunity to network with friends, colleagues, customers and yes - even the competition. Learning, knowledge, food, drink, fun - it beats working! Put Feb 20th on your calendar and register now.
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R&S Monthly Trends Survey
January '08 Results
How do stagers feel when it's time to sub-rent to a competitor? How dependent are we on B2B suppliers? How has the growth of wholesale rental companies affected your view of the industry? This month's survey reports responses to these questions. The good news is that friendly competition is alive and well. Over 70% of the respondents feel that relationships are more important than price when it comes to sub-rentals. And over 60% would rent to a wholesaler - suggesting that these suppliers are in many ways peers. Only a small percentage (15%) said they would withhold a sub-rental to hurt a competitor. And 75% said they strive to have mutually beneficial sub-rental relationships.
I think you will find that the highlight of this month's report is the fifty write-in responses to our query about changing opinions of the wholesale rental industry. Download the results and decide for yourself.
February Survey Preview
This month's survey asks which marketing techniques you use and how efffective you think they are. We will compare these results with similar questions asked last year at this time.
Share your views and learn what everyone else is thinking. Take the survey at this link.
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Best Practices Installment
Quality Control: Getting Your Priorities Straight
The discussion of Quality Control usually starts after something bad has happened. And Bad often means the customer was affected. It's unfortunate, but most companies would never have any kind of standards, best practices, or quality control if there wasn't a pivotal customer "moment" that says this can't go on any longer. Of course, for many companies QC is also a matter of pride and company morale. Regardless of what prompts the topic of Quality Control, rest assured it is worth the time and expense to initiate some QC best practices into your product.
Where to Start?
There are four steps to implementing a Quality Control process for any task.
1. Identify the expectation
2. Agree on the standard
3. Design the process
4. Monitor the implementation
You begin by making lists of what is good and what is bad for a given task, product, or result. For instance, if the topic is rack building, gather the great minds of your company around a rack (either a good or bad example will work). Setup a flip chart and draw a line down the middle. On one side write good and the other bad. Now list the qualities you discuss on one side or the other. For each quality you describe as good, challenge it by asking, "Is this a reasonable expectation?" You will have varying expectations for standards in any group of individuals; the goal is to identify the standards of the company. This often becomes a debate on good versus perfect. I suggest that referring the discussion towards an acceptable level of good will be more productive than agreeing on what perfect is.
Step two is to take these definitions of good qualities, and identify what it takes to reach that standard. Another flipchart another line dividing between right and wrong. The right way to reach a standard is your Best Practice. Again, there can be much debate on whether one technique is better than another as long as the outcome is the same. Take into consideration that some methods are less prone to mistakes - making them preferable over other methods. List all the best practices needed to reach the standard for that particular product or output.
In step three you define the process for verifying that the Standard has been met. For instance, some best practices are tasks that would have to be observed to know if they were followed. The byproduct is efficiency as well as quality. This would apply to cable termination techniques, for instance. Other best practices lead directly to the quality outcome itself. Quality Control in these cases is simply the verification that the standard has been met. Is there the right number of tie-wraps or is the label in the right place can be objectively verified.
In rental applications, quality control takes on new levels of meaning, as the product is more subjective and the process more fluid. In the discovery process, the team has to think in terms of customer expectations. It is also vital to remember that the customer may be internal. Very often I find that stagers focus on the end customer and assume that employees don't warrant the consideration that quality control represents. In fact some of the biggest benefits of a tight QC process is increased employee morale from fewer frustrations, fewer reasons to apologize to the customer, a greater sense of pride, and a confidence that reflects upon the entire company.
The final step is to monitor the implementation. This starts with sharing the QC standard and teaching the process. Then assign someone to observe and monitor employees' and subcontractors' ability to meet the agreed upon expectations. In a small company this can be a community effort with feedback loops to report challenges. Larger companies actually have QC monitors and instructors who move from place to place to instruct and verify.
Sometimes I hear managers say that quality doesn't cost more. I have to disagree. Quality Control and high standards are inherently more expensive. It is a commitment in time, resources, and focus for which the direct benefits are initially hard to measure. However, most companies can point to an overall cost savings from fewer mistakes and re-do's because potential problems are caught in the QC phase. Don't be discouraged because better quality requires an investment in training and tools - the benefits will be apparent soon enough.
Tom Stimson, CTS
Comments or Questions? Send me an email.
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Q&A
A large portion of my consulting work revolves around incentives, commissions, and most things related to getting the results you pay for. Coincidentally, the number one question I hear from owners and managers is not how much, but how long should sales goals take? Specifically, owners want to know when they should expect their new commissioned sales person to be bringing in the big bucks.
Q: Tom, I hired a veteran staging sales guy who was handling $1.5 million at his previous company. He's been with me for six months has only sold one $100K show. How long should it take him to ramp up and when should I give up?
A: Of course there's no hard and fast answer on timelines. Every business is different and it all depends on whether the person was selling the exact same products and services to the same customer pool. Here's some important guidelines to remember as you approach these hiring opportunities:
1. It is exceedingly rare to hire a salesperson "with accounts" in the AV industry. The person may have one or two projects that they can pull to a better supplier, but the era of salesperson-owned business relationships is pretty much dead. Past sales volumes of your hiring prospects are indicators only. Look at salesperson prospects in context of the company they have worked for. How long did it take them to reach that level there? What was the avaergae transaction size? Remember that you are hiring a salesperson's capacity.
2. A common mistake when hiring a veteran salesperson is to let them continue to sell they way they've always worked. Training in how you do business is absolutely critical. I often see new salespersons trying to sell at too high or too low a price for the services of their new employer. This hurts their credibility with their past customers and they miss the emotional connection of the qualified leads you give them. Another common mistake is selling the wrong size of project. If your average company transaction is $5 thousand and the new sales person is shooting for $100 thousand projects, then it will take a lot longer to for him or her to make their numbers.
3. Make sure that your compensation plan gives the new sales hire a living wage throughout the ramp up period. Unreasonable commission goals often lead to failure and will invariably cause the salesperson to start looking for another job before you get any results.
The Answers
You want a hard and fast rule for how long should it take? Here it is:
For Systems' Integrators: Expect a veteran sales new hire from the AV industry to need a minimum of ten to twelve months to reach a volume that justifies their salary. They should crest in another six months. Experienced sales folks with little or no AV experience will need another six months on top of that. A huge investment, but potentially worth the wait.
For Rental & Stagers: Veteran sales folks from the same market channel should start to see salary-supporting results in six to nine months. The fourth quarter of their employment should see them hitting their stride. Newbies need a lot more time - often eighteen months - to effectively meet your sales goals. They are much more dependent on accounts you assign them to gain experience and credibility.
Of course we all know of some wild success stories, but I find these time expectations to fit the average (mid-sized) AV company.
Have a comment about anything you've read? Email it to me.
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Sharing Memories
Recently I received an email from an old friend that I wanted to share with you. When you visit the website he has setup, you will start to understand the power of networking and viral marketing in our industry. -Tom Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I was in Orlando this week doing a show and it gave me an inspiration that needs some assistance from you.
One of our panelists was a web 2.0 guy who created a video of himself dancing and he sent it to 17 of his friends as an invite for a birthday party. Within 4 days, a million people had hit his website through a viral campaign. Also while I was at the show, I spent a couple of nights in the bar with our creative and show directors telling war stories about corporate industrials.
The thought hit me to put them together and see what could be generated for our industry and thus, I've created a web site called ShowStories.net Now, while I don't expect to get a million hits to the site, the concept is simple. Share your war stories of the corporate industrial world and they will be gathered in a common place that we'll all share together. I'm starting this off with a small distribution list but in order for it to be successful, it requires two things.
While the design and interface of the site is still a work in progress, to make it effective, it needs content - from all of you
First, share a story. It can be about a show, a pitch or anything else related to our business. It can be an experience that was funny, great, terrible, unbelievable or anything else in between. There are some rules about what's fair game and you'll see them on the web site. Feel free to include photos or video and they will be posted as well. You'll see a few examples already posted on the site to get you thinking. I'll gather and post them but I also have shows to produce so I won't be doing a lot of writing or editing on them. Make them good and not simply an email to me saying "remember the time?".
Second, this needs to be viral to work. After you send a story, think about the different people your work with in our industry and send them the link. They can be on the technical, creative, production or talent sides of our business. They all have stories to tell and share and the broader the reach, the richer the content will become. Help me spread the word and let's see what we can collectively generate. If you want to be on a distribution list for updates, send me an email and tell me. Otherwise, I'll leave you alone.
We all gather at shows and we all share war stories when we do -
let's see if we can work together to gather them in a central location for all of us to enjoy!
Best,
Michael Trovalli
Executive Producer Join Mike's Show Stories Campaign by visiting the website. |
Another Must-Read Book
Mastering the Rockefeller Habits
The subtitle of this book is "What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Firm".
It doesn't get much more important than that! Verne Harnish skips to
the chase in this strategy handbook - this is not theory, it's a how-to
book. I particularly like his emphasis on core values as the foundation for growth. Every entrepreneur that wants to grow their firm beyond their own personal limitations needs to read this.
Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Growing Firm
by Verne Harnish by Select Books (NY)
Hardcover
List Price:
$24.95
Our Price:
$15.57
Buy Now
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 About Thomas R. Stimson, MBA, CTS
Tom
Stimson is celebrating over twenty-five years in the communications
technology industry. As a Consultant, Tom helps companies build
smoother operations, focus sales, and increase profit. For more
information visit the website.
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