Q: I need everybody at my company to be thinking about sales. How do I encourage activities that help bring in new business?
Make those goals part of your modus operandi. At Scientific & Engineering Solutions, in Annapolis Junction, Md., "the company culture is to have everyone bringing in business," says CEO Reggie Daniel. No matter that most of his 130 employees are tech heads, not sales jocks. Through the initiative of one technical staffer, Steve Newcomb, the company turned a small contract into one that landed $700,000. Newcomb's reward? A trip to the Super Bowl. And oh yeah, he collected the commission on the sale. Daniel says he had no problem paying Newcomb a large bonus check. "He did it all, and it's not his job to sell," Daniel says. Newcomb recently got a promotion, too. With employees like Newcomb it's no wonder the company has grown so fast -- 30% last year, to $21 million in revenues.
REGGIE DANIEL: "Our company culture is to have everyone bringing in business."
"I like to see technical people spread their wings," says Daniel, "and they should have access to the business world." His three salespeople and a selected 15 nonsalespeople get paid commissions or bonuses based on the profitability of the sales they help close. While salespeople rely on commissions for about 50% of their compensation, the tech folks have much less income at risk -- at most 25% of their yearly pay. "At first it makes them nervous," Daniel admits. "But for some people once they taste [incentive pay] they do very well."
Q: How does a young company get a break in this environment? Clearly, having a good product isn't enough.
You're not kidding. Talk to Jana Machin and Julz Chavez, of Get Real Girl Inc., in San Francisco. Their product line -- sports-action dolls that look as if they could give Barbie a run for her money -- has won kudos in the toy world. What's more, some of the best independent reps in the industry are pounding the pavement for Get Real Girl. In the past year the sporty dolls (Skylar, the Snowboarder, and others) have blazed their way into national chains such as Target and Toys "R" Us as well as onto the shelves of hundreds of independent toy stores. And yet Machin, the company's president and CEO, and Chavez, its conceptual designer, will quickly tell you those accomplishments are not enough.
A few years ago, when Chavez first dreamed up the doll business, she and Machin couldn't have imagined how apropos their company name would be in a downturn. Both women are out doing floor demonstrations at stores like FAO Schwarz every chance they get. In fact, most of the company's seven employees are actively selling or making contact with customers. Just after Thanksgiving, four of them tag-teamed on the telephone to reach 500 independent specialty toy stores to make sure those retailers were stocked up with the Get Real Girls for the holiday rush. Machin says such outreach efforts "help the small stores want to make you a success."
"Having the best reps is most important."
--Jana Machin and Julz Chavez
Unwittingly, Get Real Girl has adopted the strategy pushed by prestigious consulting firm McKinsey & Co. In a recent report titled "Selling in a Downturn," the essential message was this: you've got to work all the angles. Most successful companies are successful in more than one sales channel. The problem is, of course, if you try to be everywhere at once, you could end up just spinning your wheels.
Machin and Chavez, who worked for large toy companies in their previous lives, knew what they had to do first. "Having the best reps is most important," says Machin. "You want the ones who talk to retailers most often." Rather than building a sales force from scratch, Get Real Girl hired a sales executive and signed up 15 well-known independent-rep groups employing about 75 salespeople.
Since signing up the reps, Get Real Girl has pursued sales channels as far away as Ireland and as close as its own front door. Last fall the dolls started selling at Smyth's -- Ireland's answer to Toys "R" Us -- as part of a holiday test with Hasbro International. Now Get Real Girl is negotiating an expanded deal with Hasbro for distribution into other countries. In a more unusual twist, the company also forged a holiday deal with Avon and its network of door-to-door sales reps. But bigger isn't always better. Realizing that Get Real Girl wasn't then ready for the inventory demands of Wal-Mart stores, Machin instead sold product to Wal-Mart's online operation in San Francisco, where her company "could break in gently." In early December, Machin personally set up hundreds of dolls for a one-day sample sale that took place with other companies sharing space in an industrial building in San Francisco. She sold some 350 dolls. "It gave us some cash and lots of exposure," she says.
Q: Are my salespeople feeding me a line? How do I know? How does anyone do accurate forecasts these days?
