What single malt scotch and a sales upsystem have in common?
Making single malt scotch and making a great sales upsystem (software to assign salespeople to customers) have many similarities. To create the final product, both require years of patience, trying different strategies, monitoring the status and constantly tweaking the process. Yet both final products can be easily enjoyed by the customer - scotch is just poured and savored; a great upsystem is just turned on and used.
What bicycling across the USA and sales have in common?
Long distance bicycle riding and sales have many similarities. Both require setting goals and following the process of continuous improvement, Kaizen, that leads to ultimate success. One rarely finds the 'holy grail' with one idea that produces success, instead it's many small improvements building one on another that lead to success.
What coffee & sales have in common?
The search for perfection in coffee and sales has many similarites. In both cases one must start with great beans and great salespeople, then follow a carefully constructed process, measure the results, and make incremental improvements.
Coffee
Let's first dive deeper into my hobby - espresso/latte coffee.
What should be bigger: the slice or the pie?
Retail salespeople want to make a great salary and be among the top performers, but how does a salesperson get to the top? There are only 3 ways to sell more: seeing more customers, increasing your closing rate, or raising your average sales-ticket price. And the bonus question for the store owner is: will this salesperson's gain be reflected in the bottom line of the entire store?
This reminds me of a story ...
Have you ever witnessed the moment when you try to convey your point to someone, they initially disagree and then suddenly you can see in their eyes that “they got it”?
Personally I enjoy tremendously this moment. It happened to me again recently when I was training a new furniture retail customer on SalesManager, our upsystem for retail floors. Please allow me to share this experience with you.
I was explaining to salespeople how SalesManager (SaM) rotates sales staff in an intelligent way, and the answer was: 'But that's not how our old system works'.
