As mentioned in previous posts, our sales culture needs to be better; it needs more balance actually.  Things are on the rise and we are making good progress.  So, how are we doing it?  What’s the plan?

We are hitting Sales Culture high and low. You might even think of it as in the face and in the gut.

I am trying to live out our sales culture by exhibiting the desired behaviors.  I am continually reinforcing the desired behaviors when I see them.  This is a little easier task at the moment since we are still without a full time sales manager, making me the interim.  This has been a great experience and fortuitous timing for this initiative.  It forces me into many more situations where culture can be addressed.

From a practical sense, I am changing the conversation at every opportunity.  Our weekly management meeting has new sales content early and often in the agenda.  Every project meeting I have with engineering is peppered with discussion of how their progress aligns with sales needs and customer communication.  Sales meetings no longer focus solely on responsiveness, but on being proactive for our customers.  We are trying to think from the customer’s perspective, anticipating their needs, then communicating on that level.  Progress updates read more like conversation than technical bulletins.  In many cases, these are little things that are adding up to significant change.

We are also attacking sales culture at the grass roots.  A cross functional team of sales, scheduling, engineering and quality personnel has been formed to improve purchase order processing.  This is especially complicated with new purchase orders.  Since our business is built on customization even of small details and oftentimes has long development cycles, many people are involved over a long time span.  This puts multiple players with varied interests into the equation and all must fit together seamlessly.  Since this too seldom happens perfectly, it can lead to conflict and delays.  This is what the team is addressing, conflict and delays.  We do not want them internally and definitely do not want our customer to experience them.

This dual approach is absolutely necessary for success.  If we did not address the process and personnel carrying out the process, the daily activity would never align with our goals.  The people in the process would not buy-in making any progress short lived.  If we did not address the culture from the top, anytime conflict between cultural norms arose, they would either be allowed to fester or revert backwards.