Management 101 - The McDonald's Birthday Party

During the early 1990s - I worked at McDonald’s . Being in Grade 9 - I was invincible - and of course too cool to be working at Rotten Ronnie’s . Nonetheless it was a Part Time job - and I was earning $5.20 an hour .

My store location was labelled as a “poor performer” - and based on the amount of store managers that rotated through there - it’s wasn’t hard to see why . One week-end I was introduced to Ming - the new store manager . He was apparently a great “organizer” - and was sent there by Head Office to turn around our store . It was a challenging weekend as 3 staff members called in sick - so Ming turned to me and said: “Jason - I need you to run a birthday party.”

This sent shockwaves to my teenage brain . I was only there to earn enough money to buy Nike basketball shoes and Nintendo games . I told him I wasn’t trained - to which he replied: “What’s there to know ? It’s a birthday party - you take food orders at the beginning - deliver the food - and light candles on a birthday cake afterwards.” The 90’s were a different era - clearly - as instead of refusing - I walked over to the lobby and started to “run” the birthday party .

Long story short - what I learned that day set me up for an amazing management career .

1. Greet The Customer
1. In this case the “Customer” was the parents who were paying, the birthday kid, and the party goers .
2. Establish the Customers’ Needs
1. I asked the parents if any of the kids had special dietary concerns .
2. I spoke to the birthday kid - and asked him what type of party he wanted . (No! I didn’t actually do that ! I read the situation and saw how his friends were behaving and gave them all space . Needless to say - we didn’t play “Pin The Tail On The Fry Guy !”
3. Get Help When Needed
1. I’m not a natural born singer - so when it came time to sing “Happy Birthday” - I enlisted the help of a few team members who were hiding at the back of the grill .
4. Get Feedback
1. I took every opportunity to check in with the parents

Looking back on those times now - I’d say I learned a lot from my days at McDonald’s - lol ! And the Birthday Mom tipped me $5.00 too ! (Equivalent to almost $9.00 today)

Supporting Your Distributors - What Do You Gain ?

 Everything you do for your distributors benefits you as well — your relationships deepen, and you gain more of their business, as turning to you continues to become more convenient and cost-effective. 

Greater efficiency in working with distributors translates into lower costs of doing business and higher margins for you. Automated information helps drive add-ons, opportunities for cross-selling, and potentially broader product sets (because they’re more visible to distributors), as you and your distributors expand the market and revenue.

Another key benefit is the usage data you’ll be able to gather. You’ll learn more about how your distributors work — where their interests (and those of their customers) lie — and be able to use that information to continually optimize distribution and sales. Best of all, it’s a win-win arrangement. Both you and your distributors are more successful — and with happier customers to boot!

Gaining A Distributor

 When pitching to a distributor - it’s important to always ask yourself : “How is my brand / product / service going to improve their portfolio ?”

A Handy Checklist To Consider (Prior To The Sales Pitch) :

• Am I willing to let a distributor autonomously represent my brand for me ?
• Do I have enough resources to support the distributor with time, money, and product / inventory to help generate sales ?
• Am I able to identify my brand and have I listed its key competitive advantage assets ?
• Do I have an actionable / actioned strategic marketing strategy ?
• Do I have a complete range of products / services ready for commercial sale ?
• Do I have the volumes of products/ services available for consistent, uninterrupted supply ?
• Does my company have the capacity to product products / services of consistent /improving quality - production run after production run ?
• Are my product’s / service’s priced appropriately for their target market - factoring in the distributor’s margin ?
• Have I already planned / costed the logistics of getting my products / services to the distributor ?
• Is all my packaging up to commercial standards - including UPCs / bar codes ?
• What are the short & long term sales goals that I want to achieve with the distributor ?
• Have I acknowledged (to myself) that simply signing the distributor isn’t a guarantee that sales will be consistent - or even grow over time ?
• MOST IMPORTANTLY - Have I acknowledged that the distributor relationship is a partnership - wherein we work together to generate sales ?

A Handy Checklist Of Things To Include In Your Distributor’s Sales Pitch :

• Your company’s history / milestones / success stories / testimonials
• Price List - should provide conditions / terms of the sale, discounts, credit, shipping an  trade allowances
• Samples of the product, packaging, UPC barcode and pricing
• Marketing materials - product brochures, or sell sheets that provide product information
• Capacity of your plant to prove the potential of large volume potential
• Manufacturing information
• A Copy of the presentation - leave behind samples, and your business card

Managing Distribution

 Common Problems:

In some cases distributors didn’t know how to grow their market, and they didn’t invest in business growth.

Ideal Distributor Market:

A market with many small customers and where the level of sales service required is high.

Some Key Points In Managing Distributors:

1.    Make sure to ask your distributors for detailed market & financial performance data.

2.    Always treat your distributors as long-tern – not short-term partners.

3.    Support your distributors by committing proven marketing plans to help them sell more.

a.    Educate your distributors about your products.

4.    Try and find distributors who are capable of developing new markets.

a.    Distributors who specialize in a narrow field sometimes tend to be the most successful.

"Scratch Sheet" - a simple way to track daily sales tasks

One thing that has always helped me gain killer sales at all my sales jobs was the creation of a “scratch sheet”. Essentially it’s just a huge Word document (or a plain document using your word processor of choice) where you type ALL your daily notes as you work.

Seems simple - but it’s something few people remember to do. Imagine a day where you answer incoming sales calls, make outbound sales calls, and process customer service calls - but track all your discussions down as you type. One key benefit of this is that you gain the ability to “search” anything from your past discussions. You also gain the ability to “copy” and “paste” anything from a past discussion into a current discussion.

EXAMPLE 1:

RFQ / IN GUTTER INSTALL / MR BOB SMITH / SMITH CONSTRUCTION / SITE: 1234 CHERRYTREE LANE / WVAN / 604-123-4567 / bob@smithconstruction.ca

OK - given the example above - you installed gutters for Bob Smith - at one of his sites - a year ago. Fast forward to 2021 - and one of the homeowners calls in - and asks your customer service staff about putting in a warranty claim. No worries - if your “scratch sheet” was in place - all you’d have to do is ask the caller what is their home address - do a “search” and you’d see that it was a Smith Construction job. Then a simple search in your accounting software - and you could find the original invoice - and all the relevant installation paperwork. All of a sudden you are handling customer service queries at the speed of light.

EXAMPLE 2:

A potential new client calls in asking for a quote on power washing their house, doing inside & outside gutter clean, and window cleaning at their house.

RFQ / IN & GUT CL / POWER WASHING SIDING / IN & OUT WIN CL / MR SAM RUTHERFORD / 1234 CAULFEILD PL / WVAN / 604-926-1234 / sam@rutherford.ca

Wow - great! That’s potentially a $750 - $1000 job! Not yet - what if you did a search and noticed that particular client had called in before - in fact - what if that client had called in 4 times in the past 2 years - but never booked? This happened to me at a job. However, in that case I was able to search my “scratch sheet” and then I asked the caller why he hadn’t booked with us for 2 years - yet always called us for a quote. Turns out he had a regular company do the work for him - but was calling us to keep the other company “honest”. I was able to convert him easily by offering him a one time 15% discount - and a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

CONCLUSION:

I had to cut this article short . Eventually my examples would have chartered into NDA territory - but you probably get the message. Sales reps might consider tracking their daily notes onto one large searchable document that is available on their laptop, desktop computer, phone, and tablet .

In my case I used a Word document .

 Inside Sales Reps Sending Out RFQs (REQUEST FOR QUOTE) To Outside Sales Reps:

THE RFQ is sent to the sales rep via EMAIL . The text is added directly to the subject line - and inside the body of the email .

EXAMPLE 1:

RFQ / IN GUTTER CLEAN / MR JOHN SMITH / 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE / NVAN / 604-123-4567 / johnsmith@google.ca

In the above example - the customer called in looking for a gutter clean . Fairly straight forward - it was a single homeowner looking for some work done on their house . A small job like this could be closed by the inside sales rep . If the inside sales rep emailed it to the outside sales rep - it should look like :

From: Inside Sales Rep <insidesalesrep@guttersareus.ca>

To: outsidesales rep <outsidesalesrep@guttersareus.ca>

Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2021, 08:39:00 PM PDT

Subject: RFQ / IN GUTTER CLEAN / MR JOHN SMITH / 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE / NVAN / 604-123-4567 / johnsmith@google.ca

RFQ / IN GUTTER CLEAN / MR JOHN SMITH / 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE / NVAN / 604-123-4567 / johnsmith@google.ca

Notice what is added to the subject line - and to the body of the above email . When the outside sales rep gets that email - it’s very clear what is required - and more often than not the outside sales rep can get the jist of the RFQ without even reading the email .

EXAMPLE 2:

RFQ / NEW GUTTER INSTALL / MR JOHN SMITH / 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE / NVAN / 604-123-4567 / johnsmith@google.ca

The customer wants a quote on new gutters for their house .

RFQ / PARTIAL GUTTER INSTALL / MR JOHN SMITH / 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE / NVAN / 604-123-4567 / johnsmith@google.ca

The customer wants a quote for partial gutter install on their house . e.g. A 30 foot section of gutter on the front of their house .

EXAMPLE 3:

RFQ / NEW GUTTER INSTALL / MR JOHN SMITH / SMITH CONTRACTING / SITE: 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE / NVAN / 604-123-4567 / johnsmith@google.ca

John Smith works for Smith Contracting - and he wants a quote on new gutters for a house that he is working on .

RFQ / NEW GUTTER INSTALL / MR JOHN SMITH / SMITH CONTRACTING / SITE: 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE / NVAN / 604-123-4567 / 604-234-5678 (Call Display) / johnsmith@google.ca

In this case - the Inside Sales Rep recorded the number that was on the call display . Some customers are slow payers . It’s always valuable to have a few extra numbers on hand when doing collection calls !

Another Easter egg for the Inside Sales Rep is to always run a “Google Search” on elements of the RFQ before sending it to the Outside Sales Rep .

MR JOHN SMITH - did you misspell the name ?

SMITH CONTRACTING - what are the reviews on this company ?

SITE: 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE NVAN - is this an easy place to drive to ?

604-123-4567 - is this a cell number - or a physical land line ?

604-234-5678 (Call Display)

johnsmith@google.ca

EXAMPLE 4:

RFQ / NEW GUTTER INSTALL / MR JOHN SMITH / SMITH CONTRACTING / SITE: STRATA NW 3268 - 1234 CHERRY TREE LANE / NVAN / 604-123-4567 / 604-234-5678 (Call Display) / STRATA PRESIDENT: BILL BAILEY / BILL (604)-234-5678 / johnsmith@google.ca / SEND QUOTE TO JOHN - BUT ARRANGE SITE ACCESS WITH BILL

Hooray ! In this case you received a call from your regular client - John @ Smith Contracting - but this time he has a site that is a Strata Property . In this case John wants the Outside Sales Rep to arrange a site visit with the Strata President - Bill - who will provide site access .

Ideally in this example - the Inside Sales Rep should “Google Search” the Strata Corporation - STRATA NW 3268 . Strata Corporations can be tricky to verify . As well as most Strata Corporations use a 3rd party property management company - so it’s best to track the extra names / phone numbers . Ultimately - you want to get awarded the job - and you want to get paid on time as well .

Conclusion :

Inside Sales Reps have a hard position sometimes . Thus it’s best to get them trained so they are farming out all the data so it’s readily available to the Outside Sales Reps .