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Solutions May 2006
Cover
Story
Continued
Masters
of the Game
Master
of the Mental Game
Listening
closely to clients and employees
has boosted Steve Visio’s
sales growth.
IN
BRIEF
This
sales rep/manager, who may nearly
double his annual sales growth,
explains his approach:
•
Empathize with the customer
•
Communicate with your staff
•
Re-examine outdated processes
•
Investigate the customer’s
needs
Every
Tuesday morning until lunch, Steve
Visio, head of Executive Data
Control Inc. (EDC), sits down
for an informal chat with his
three sales reps. In one-on-one
sessions, they advise Visio about
problems with EDC’s top
120 accounts, and they work as
a team to resolve the issues.
Then, Visio holds a midday management
meeting, which is complemented
by a Friday marketing meeting.
Although
Visio’s been spending more
time in meetings and less time
in sales the past two years, business
is booming for the Springfield,
Mo.-based distributorship. This
year, EDC is on track to nearly
double its expected sales goal.
By selling less, he’s selling
more. How does he do it?
The
Approach Shot
Ask
Visio the secret to his success,
and he laughs. “I’m
very empathetic,” he says.
“Everyone in my family is.”
But don’t let him hide behind
modesty or genetics. Visio’s
success is partially due to detailed
study of his management style,
the company’s production
process and client interaction.
He cites two business gurus –
Dirk Beveridge and Ben Graham
– with helping him improve
office communication and streamline
the back-end steps.
Visio’s
first big success came with Bass
Pro Shops in 1992, originally
one of EDC’s largest accounts.
The outdoors outfitter had been
a client since the ‘70s,
but had just closed its in-house
print shop. Visio promptly leased
copiers and set up a quick copy
shop, adding to the company’s
forms and labels business.
“It
was like the light went on with
them, then. They started turning
to us for all of their problems
– flags, hangers, warehousing,”
Visio explained, because EDC was
willing to listen to the client’s
problems first, then solve –
instead of making a sales pitch
and hoping for a buyer.
“That
year, we grew $100,000 with them.
It worked really, really well,”
Visio says. “We’ve
grown $100,000 every year with
them since 1992 – last year
we did $1.4 million.” Listening
to the customer has been key to
EDC’s growth, he says. “It’s
shocking how many people out there
don’t have it; don’t
follow the golden rule. And it
makes all the difference.”
The
Fairway Shot
But
to sustain success, he had to
learn to listen again. In 2003,
EDC had sales of $3,130,200. The
next year, they sold only $200
more. “It made me crazy,”
Visio says. “We hit this
plateau. People said, ‘it’s
the marketplace,’ or ‘it’s
our products,’ but the truth
is, it was our management. There
was no management.
“I
took myself and all the sales
reps to Dirk, and I said, ‘Guys,
we’re just going to do whatever
he says,’” Visio remembers.
Dirk Beveridge, a Barrington,
Ill.-based sales management consultant
and popular DMIA speaker, held
an intensive, 6-month training
program for EDC.
“With
Dirk, I learned I had to devote
70 percent of my time to management
responsibilities. Before, I wasn’t
doing any of that. I carry all
these ideas around in my head,
and I know I have to share it
with people. I also have to listen
to my people communicating with
me.” And thus, the Tuesday
and Friday meetings began.
Out
of the Bunker
In
November 2004, Visio heard opportunity
knock again. EDC’s clients
were ordering business cards online,
which he assumed was a speedy,
modern method. Once the order
was approved, the web site would
send an email to the EDC CSR staff,
which would inform the print shop.
One day, an email turned up missing,
although the server indicated
an order.
“It
was getting more and more unreliable,”
Visio says. The CSRs would call
the IT office and have the email
orders recreated. “And then
I asked, ‘Why the heck are
we using email? It’s just
more steps we don’t need.’”
Visio
began to examine the business
card ordering process using the
Ben Graham Method, an organizational
analysis technique that sprang
from ‘50s industrial process
engineering pioneers Frank and
Lillian Gilbreth. It’s a
systematic approach that involves
observation and flowchart development
to streamline routines.
“Our
IT guy wrote a standard program
for the business card ordering.
When an order appears on the server,
files are automatically generated.
The guys in the print shop can
just push a button and out they
come.” Formatting the cards
once took two hours. Today it
takes minutes and involves 54
fewer steps. CSRs have been completely
removed from the process. “In
the first week, we saved 15 hours,”
Visio says – two hours per
day from customer service and
an hour in the print shop. He
decided to apply the Ben Graham
Method to his clients’ side
of the process, too.
O’Reilly
Auto Parts, a nationwide business
with 1,500 locations, was placing
60 business card orders online
per week, Visio says, and the
method was becoming problematic
for O’Reilly. “To
be fair, I didn’t even know
what their problems were,”
he says. “So I sat down
and found out, to a mind-numbing
degree, exactly what they do.”
For
an hour, Visio observed O’Reilly’s
HR receptionist ordering business
cards. He spent another two hours
drawing up the flowchart and developing
suggested improvements. He returned
the following day. A 24-hour turnaround
time is key, he asserts. The new
method Visio proposed includes
instant proofing, eliminates emails,
and delegates approval to individual
store managers. “This woman’s
phone rings every 45 seconds,”
he says. “She really doesn’t
have time to re-enter orders.
Now she just has to check them
on the server.”
When
Visio presented his flowcharts
to O’Reilly’s IT department,
they responded enthusiastically
and even offered additional changes.
Final
Putt
The
important lesson, Visio says,
is that you must know your customers
inside and out. The better you
know them, the more you’re
in a position to help. The more
you help them, the more business
you get. And that, he says, comes
back to empathizing with the client’s
needs.
“You
just want to help their people
get better at their jobs, and
that’s what you ask them.
I’ve never had people tell
me no. They’ll put me off
for several months, sure, but
never outright ‘no.’”
The flowchart method, which Visio
also calls “work simplification,”
is currently used as a customer
needs analysis tool only for his
largest clients, owing to the
time invested. In the future,
he may approach new clients with
the concept.
“It’s
a different way of thinking,
of doing business. When we get
you as a customer it isn’t
because you like me and we play
golf together – it’s
because I actually solve problems
for you.”
Cover
story continued...
