Dear Sales Manager: I am sure you’re excited about getting your ISO certification. The reality was that this was your idea, right? You needed it to go after some piece of business. The message of How Not to Fail at ISO9001 is important to you.
Well, I have a couple of things for you.
In my opinion, the reflex action of a salesperson is to say “yes”. In bigger companies, there is a sales manager, and for the most part, it’s their job to say “no.”
It’s their Personality to Please People
Because it’s their personality to please people, and the act of persuasion is very important, the sales people that call on customers want to accept as much business as they can. If they’re on commission, this is even more true.
You, as the sales manager, have to be sort of the gatekeeper sometimes. You have to overrule the sales person who wants to accept business that might be a net drain on your life force. It might involve getting into business that is outside of your “sweet spot.” It might involve some kind of deep discount that you would prefer not to risk. It might risk some business you have with your “major customers” whoever they might be. I can give you some examples.
By the way if your company is small enough, you may be both sales manager and salesperson. This is an even more risky situation, I think. Your reflex to say “Yes” might overcome the part of your brain that says “wait a minute, that’s crazy.”
How Not to Fail at ISO9001: Let’s start with a few things:
Accepting orders that your operations department can’t do.
Accepting orders that are so big you’re getting into cash flow issues.
Accepting orders from customers that might have credit issues, or are hard to work with.
Accepting orders for materials that are Hazmat or otherwise potentially problematic to handle.
Being overwhelmed by many orders that are too small and don’t pay back the processing cost.
Accepting projects with complexity or expertise beyond your capability.
Accepting orders for products that aren’t fully developed.
ISO will help you with Controlled Sales
Clause 8.2 of the ISO standard is about “contract review” which is setting up a process by which this whole schizophrenic conflict is resolved in a standardized way.
It allows you to set up a custom-designed set of rules as to when to accept an order, who is authorized to do so, what review process is needed, whether production or accounting needs to get involved, and a lot of other stuff I am sure you are better aware of than me. We all have our stories.
The whole point of it is buried in the middle of it somewhere: You, the management, have to all be on the same page as to whether or not to commit your business to providing an order. Having thought this through beforehand will help you depersonalize it a little bit.
But you like orders.
Of course you do. And, if you want to set up your system so that it says “accept 100% of all orders no matter what they are” you may do so. I have seen that too. And, the beauty of the system is that you can refine this “rule” if you want to .
The system gives you a chance to set up a new set of rules so that you can turn your young aggressive sales people loose into the world, and have a set of guidelines. It also lets you change these rules whenever it suits you, as long as you do it consciously, and there are rules for changing rules too.
I know what you’re thinking.
I can read your thoughts. “I can do all that myself. I can make my own rules for my sales force, and do just as well.” Well, of course you can. But you won’t have any third party guy coming in to check up on you.
Think about this: what if you get success, expand, and you grow, and have 5 assistants? They all need to be accepting orders based on some underlying logic or you’ll end up shutting the place down. I have seen it happen. After you hit the lottery, your replacement will have to do the same thing.
There is a business reason for all of this.
I won’t keep you too much longer except to say one more thing. The reason your customers want you to be ISO certified in the first place is to keep you from overpromising and underdelivering. I know that’s in your DNA too, but it drives the customers nuts.
Anyway that’s all for now. Do the best you can on the ISO thing, and just remember there is an underlying business reason in this, which is to protect the customer. You are committing to satisfying customer requirements, aren’t you?
Later
Jim
PS: I know you’d sometimes prefer not to get the boss involved, but here he is:
