|
|
This website provides an informative overview of my consulting practice Freestanding WorkshopsThe "Distributor Selling Skills" territory sales training program is a highly trackable, pretax enhancing, results driven workshop. Designed for both entry level and experienced sales reps, this course provides a quality education in time and territory management, route profitability, and selling alternatives to price. The "Sales and Marketing Management in the Distribution Industry" workshop is about monitoring, managing, training and documenting the performance of a sales force. Also included are significant purchasing, marketing, and general management overlays. The "Helping Hand" sales and sales management training program is a unique industry award winning workshop (Innovator Award, Institutional Distribution magazine) designed for manufacturing sales and marketing managers, territory sales representatives and their counterparts in the brokerage community, and independent sales agents. As the name of this sales training course implies, this one day program helps them to deeply understand their distributor customer's business. Workshop setup and scheduling information. Direct ConsultingA significant amount of my time is spent helping distressed companies, through a combination of hard skills training in support of business plans, and hands-on consulting at all levels within the distributor organization. Areas of expertise include:
Additional consulting information:
A Typical Consulting Relationship From an email received from a company who was referred to me... “My father started the business right after WWII. We have an older sales force, that has become complacent, and we are not meeting our sales goals. We have hired several new reps over the past couple of years, but progress in developing territories has been slower than expected. Our sales manager has been with the company a long time, but frankly, he has the position more from who he knows, rather than being strong in administration or in training the newer reps. We also have two district sales managers, that have good hearts, but they lack skills. Our company needs definition and direction. Can you help us?" Background and HistoryI've been in wholesale distribution over 35 years, with half of my career as an independent consultant. My line experience was in territory sales, sales management and marketing management. I also served at the corporate level of a major international foodservice manufacturing and distribution company, in the areas of development, training, and special projects. As a management and distribution consultant, I've had the opportunity to work with over 600 wholesale distributors and manufacturers (including an extensive, long-term relationship with many foodservice distributors) from niche to broad line, in all 50 states, plus Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and Japan. Over 15,000 sales reps, sales managers and business owners, in a variety of industries, have attended my pretax enhancing training workshops. A fee schedule, career summary, and a reference package which includes an extensive corporate client evaluation of the "Distributor Selling Skills", "Sales and Marketing Management in the Distribution Industry", and The "Helping Hand" training programs are available upon request. Frequently Asked QuestionsWhy haven't I heard of you? On the consulting side of my practice, I'm privy to huge amounts of confidential information. I enjoy deep and mutually beneficial relationships with many of my clients, because it's well known that I don't release the names of consulting clients to the public. With that level of confidentiality, a fairly low key industry footprint is inevitable. However, references are certainly important, and you should talk with some of the companies I've worked with. Two individuals in the reference package, due to their positions, have knowledge of approximately 400 of the 600+ companies I've done training with. Many consulting clients are also included in that base. If they are privy to consulting work that I have done with a particular company, where I might feel uncomfortable in providing detail, they may not. In addition, one of them authored a detailed analysis of my freestanding training programs involving over 50 two day workshops to approximately 1500 attendees. A copy of that study is included in the reference package. Concurrent with my training and consulting with individual companies, I also work with banks within their distressed loan portfolios, to provide direction and help in defining workable and results driven business plans. How is your sales training different from other offerings? When asked to present a custom two day workshop, I do add some classic sales training topics, such as time management, handling objections, and cold calling skills to the mix, but my core one day course deals strictly with territory management and route profitability issues. In my initial conversations with clients, I ask them about any sales training they have had, and what were the quantifiable results of that training. If there were no hard numbers expected, it was just generalized training, and my "Distributor Selling Skills" course will blend with, and will not conflict any previous programs that they have had. Areas of accountability include, increasing the direct contribution to pretax by average order size, increasing lines per invoice, increasing the average drop size, increasing the average gross profit dollars per stop, increasing the overall margin as a percentage of sales, reducing the cost of goods by item or category, and maximizing territory productivity in the areas of new accounts and strengthened relationships with existing accounts. From a management perspective, all training is good, but training that is expected to enhance the pretax performance of the company is better, and should have priority. What do you like most about doing what you do? When I see young sales reps come into training workshops struggling with putting shoes on their babies, and they leave with a twinkle in their eyes, that they "get it", and have a plan... I get a lot of personal satisfaction from teaching. What do you dislike most about doing what you do? Consulting clients who spend a lot of time learning new tools and techniques that will make a tremendous difference in their companies and their lives, but through a lack of commitment and/or pure laziness, do not implement the changes. Management consulting, time and territory management training, territory sales training, sales management training, purchasing and marketing training, and broker and sales agent training, in the wholesale distribution, foodservice distribution, and manufacturing communities |