The Hindu Business Line : Making a cauliflower happen

I READ Mark Twain in the fifth standard when I was all of ten years old. The one thing I remember of him was this one big quote: A cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with college education. I have ever since believed in college education! I have never wanted to be a cabbage. I passionately believe in education. In educating and equipping the sales force of corporate organisations with skills to face the new tomorrow that is dawning at their doorstep every single selling day.Selling is indeed a most critical function. A function that causes the first external action that eases up the purse strings of a customer that cascades into little streams of revenue that meet one another to form a mighty gurgling stream of prosperity most corporate selling organisations aspire for. Selling is, therefore, the most livewire activity of an organisation. Every individual who works in this livewire function is a catalyst of the entire process that generates revenue which is quite like the blood flow within an organisation.

People exercising this rather most critical function need to function at the cutting edge of knowledge. Salespeople must be right out there at the forefront, experimenting with the latest there is to learn and use to stay ahead of the other guy doing just the same old thing. An organisation that does not train its salespeople is one that is writing for itself and its sales folk a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom and obsolescence.

Salespeople working for such organisations need to watch out and plan their careers elsewhere, in environments that respect their people enough to sharpen their skills on a continuing basis for the future. The selling organisation that trains its people is actually already ahead of the race. Corporate organisations that invest in training their salespeople are actually investing in staying ahead of the competition. As brands get cut-throat in their orientation and as product categories seem to have little functional distinction, the selling organisation and its skill at front-end selling seem to be the cutting edge to aspire for.

The selling process, sales skill and its army of salespeople are the fundamentals of a selling organisation. Brand value and brand worth are indeed the sentiments that drive the market. In the markets ahead of us, while every brand will have the sentiments right and in place, very few brands will be able to boast of a selling organisation that is in place, trained right and not obsolete to face the future of competition. Training is the all important investment organisations need to make to insure their future as dominant corporate organisations.

My sales training ethos is simple. Train every rung of the ladder. Train them not once, but right through. Training is an input that must be continuous and most updated in its orientation. Every selling organisation must have a training chart for its salespeople put together right at the beginning of the year. Every single employee, starting from the telephone operator in your area sales office to the guard at the gate and, of course, the salesman in the front, must have a training chart that plans what inputs they will receive at some point of time or other during the year.

Training inputs must also span segments internal and external. As I train people with the best of front-end skills, I insist that that there are three segments to focus upon. Firstly, there is the internal employee at the top. The people who call themselves Vice-President (Sales and Marketing), their kin who dub themselves General Managers, Regional Managers, Branch Sales Managers and, of course, the whole army of Area Sales Managers in this country. This is Segment One to focus upon.

Training right is like cleaning a staircase. Good training must begin at the top and percolate to the lowest rungs of the selling organisation. Level Two training must then focus upon the internal employee who occupies the lower rungs of selling hierarchy. This is a very critical level. Selling folk who occupy this level are the most in touch with the market. The most knowledgeable segment is this! The Deputy Area Sales Manager, the Sales Development Officer and the Territory Sales Manager lie here. And the ones most prone to selling fatigue as well!

Level Three training is all about focusing on the external partners who are as critical as Level Two. Most organisations out-source their transportation, stocking and re-selling operations in the market. Level Three training must, therefore, focus on the C&F agent, the distributor and most importantly, his front-end salesperson who works the market the `mostest.' As I go through the guts of many an ailing corporate organisation, I find Level Three the most neglected. Most CEOs and heads of the selling function understand that this level is critical, but just don't know how to cross the barriers of large numbers, local language and nuances that are very, very varied while handling this segment of people.

Level Three is, sadly, the most important one to address. Many organisations attempt knee-jerk and lip service training doled out to this segment. And many organisations fault on this when they bring in trainers of repute to cater to Level One and Two and let Level Three be handled by `translators' of training programmes who just don't know their onions from their potatoes.

Training is important. Training every level in organisation is equally important. Disseminating the best to every level with a calibrated level of training input is equally crucial. Keeping the selling organisation sharp is very, very important, to say the least. Cauliflowers don't just happen. They need to be made to happen. Make it happen!

(The author is a business strategy specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.)

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