I remember being a toddler and not wanting to brush my teeth. In an effort to keep my teeth clean (and to save thousands on dentist fees) my parents made a chart. They went and made my younger brother (who always brushed his teeth) a chart also. When we brushed, a sticker was placed on the chart. When we brushed two times a day for a whole week we got a really big sticker placed on the chart. By appealing to my competitive side, my parents managed to get me to do the unthinkable; they got me to brush my teeth.
While I am not a dentist, I never understood why little children needed to brush their teeth. Weren’t they going to fall out anyway? I am sure that there are medical reasons why children must brush, but I am also confident that proper routine as a child will save that same child thousands of dollars on dental fees as an adult.
A few years ago, I was working at a telemarketing sales office that was selling a “long sale” product. Out of laziness (and because every agent gets overwhelmed for their first few work days) agents were not using the CRM properly. After a few months, management stated feeling their salaries tighten since the salesmen were not closing enough deals. After considerable research, management came to the conclusion that the low closing ratio was not due to lack of training; rather it was simply because the salesmen were not following up with their clients. Every sales agent had tens if not hundreds of potential clients who had “slipped through the cracks”.
Management put a HUGE push towards using the CRM that was offered during each agent’s initial training period. At first, they offered bonuses to anyone who had every client in their CRM by the end of the workday. As that started costing significant resources and the sales ratio did not yet justify such an allocation, they changed their plan of action. Management implemented the following rule, “Any client who was not in your CRM was not your lead. That lead became fair game to any other sales agent. But to their dismay, even after agents were retrained on the CRM software, agents were not able to seamlessly incorporate the CRM into their everyday use. Some would come in early and enter all of their leads from the previous work day, while others would stay late to input that same information. Some would even take a break between calls to input the information on the spot so that they would have a clear description of the call and the client’s needs. Management’s plan worked for a few weeks. What every agent had in common though was that after a week of work every agent became lenient again with the CRM data input.
The agents were not able to break their bad habits. For reason unclear to me, the business eventually closed down. It is possible that the product was no good, or even that the business model was off, but one thing is for sure, we will never know. All I do know is that the salesmen let themselves down by not trying to close every available deal. To this day I am a bit confused about what happened at that office. Particularly in a sales office every employee must do everything in their control to make as much money as possible. By simply inputting their sales information into the CRM each agent would be increasing their chances at closing deals. Why weren’t the agents able to break their previous bad habits?
I have found that setting correct routines always pays off. Even in situations where that might mean working twice as hard for the initial few days of a new job. While it may take an agent longer to make their first few sales, that agent will be creating a proper routine with will help them generate success down the road. An agent’s ability to build a proper foundation is what will protect that salesman from the intense sales turnover found in the telemarketing industry. Similarly, a company that enforces initial proper routine and discourages sales shortcuts will be around to see the success of that simple decision.
