|
 Many companies have great ideas that never reach implementation. In 2003, Cee Kay Supply developed a process to make sure that does not happen. The process, called “Top 5,” has made us accountable for completing projects and accomplishing company goals.
Each member of Cee Kay’s Senior Management Committee must have five goals every month. These “Top 5” goals are written down on a standard form and shared with all members of the committee. At a regularly scheduled management meeting on the first Tuesday of the month, we discuss the projects we are working on and planning to complete in the next 30 days. We also go over the previous month’s Top 5 to assess how we performed. The achieved results are written down (Exhibit A).
This process accomplishes three things: 1. A goal is not a goal unless it is written down and shared with others. 2. It creates accountability. No one wants to share a cupcake goal or to report that they did not complete the previous month’s Top 5 goals. 3. Managers are made aware of what is going on in other company departments.
The Top 5 process provides the Senior Management Committee with a culture of accountability. It makes us aware of starting and completing projects. All of us are accountable for completing the goals we’ve set, and all of us know the goals the others have set. I have eight direct reports besides the Senior Management Committee. They too submit a Top 5 for review and discussion.
Value Documentation and Sales Force Accountability We started noticing a trend with some customers. The salespeople were getting frustrated. When a salesperson lost an account, he or she often complained, “I can’t believe that customer is leaving despite all the things I have done to help/bail out that company.” Sound familiar? As a company, we rarely lost business based on service or at the shop-floor level. We lost business as the result of a decision made by someone in the front office not involved in the daily operations of the customer. We lost business because that someone did a spreadsheet analysis based on commodity prices.
 We decided to use Value Documentation with the salespeople as a way to help the customer understand the value Cee Kay Supply brings to the table. It has proven so successful that it is now a formal part of our sales process. Value Documentation accomplishes two things: It holds salespeople accountable for their activity; and it becomes part of the value proposition that we deliver to our top customers at the end of each year. Most of all, it’s become an effective way to address the commodity selling versus value scenario with customers.
If you don’t have any documented value, customers may be making the right choice by switching to the commodity supplier.
There are two phases to the Salesperson’s Value Documentation/Accountability process. The first involves a hybrid call sheet that requests basic customer information. Each salesperson turns in the sheets weekly to document the customers visited, contact, code by purpose and special notes (Exhibit B).
The information from these sheets is put into our CRM database and can be sorted many ways: Customer, Salesperson, Data Range, Call Code. It is now a resource viewable by all personnel within our CRM module.
This data become the key component of Cee Kay’s Year-End Value Report.
Value Report
At the end of the year, the salesperson, along with his manager, meets with the customer contact and his manager to go over a “Value Report.” The goal of this report is to document Cee Kay Supply’s delivered value over the course of the past 12 months. It also outlines our commitment to the customer for the new year. The Value Report contains three things:
1. The Numbers
2. Call Activity
3. Goals for Next Year.
Numbers are broken down according to the dollars and percentage of sales across several categories. Numbers for the previous year are also provided as a point of comparison.
Call Activity details the number of calls and their purpose. Purpose includes everything from Troubleshooting to Product Delivery and Inventory Management. The number of Total Calls throughout the course of the year often elicits surprise from the customer. Clearly seeing the number of times Cee Kay Supply has been in touch with the customer underscores our commitment—our value, if you will. A description of the calls for each month is also given to the customer.
The third part of the report lists the company’s goals for the customer’s upcoming year, a “Business Plan.” These goals can include improving the customer’s cylinder tracking, consolidating delivery charges, communicating equipment specials or any number of needs. They are written down and discussed with the contact and the contact’s manager.
In the first quarter 2010, Cee Kay Supply did value meetings with our top 55 customers. This process is one of the most important things we have done in the past seven years. This is our defense mechanism when competitors are throwing around low prices. We have to document the value we deliver. If we don’t have any documented value, they may be making the right choice by switching to the commodity supplier.
The Value Documentation process enables us to produce a list of services and expertise we have provided that do not fit into the low-price spreadsheet analysis. We want to be the best value, not necessarily the lowest price. The numbers prove it.
|