Do Your People Have the Right Skill Sets? Take This Survey to Find Out
Early results of a Growth Wizards’ Survey are indicating that people in the industry have trouble assessing market share and competitors in a territory. This is the primary input to strategy. Salespeople don't know how to create key account penetration plans and management doesn't know how to coach them. Inside salespeople are not good at negotiating price on the phone and don't understand why nonstocks need to be priced higher than 20% margin. Here are some other troubling trends we have detected in our survey results:
- Not all distributors understand the importance of getting higher Gross Margin Percentages on slow moving items, either.
- Neither inside sales or outside sales really understands effective tie-in and suggestive selling.
- Branch managers don't know how to measure productivity by position or improve it.
- Online courses are not effective for certain topics
- Managers are generally not held accountable for ensuring that employees complete training assignments.
These are Business Training Issues. They are not product issues or learning about the industry. They indicate that your people may have trouble executing the key drivers of your business success: Volume, Gross Profit Margins and Productivity.
Want to Solve This Problem?
The first step is getting your management team recognizing the same issues, and then creating the system to educate people. You can do this by taking this survey and discussing it with your managers.
Click here to take the survey and enter this password: feedthebranches
You can also paste this web address in your browser and then enter the password “feedthebranches” in your browser:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/betterbranches
Password: feedthebranches
