Hot News re Advisor Feedback Seminars

[golfsthegame]

So pleased to see that something is at long last happening. I must admit that I have not made many postings of late but I have been disillusioned by the amount of negativity that has been posted recently. We will be going to these seminars with strength because I feel that at last the higher management has realized that although it is they who provide the means, without us there would not have been the tremendous growth that Hillarys has seen over the past 10 years. We are all (or should be ) interested and keen to see our own businesses flourish and grow and through this growth Hillarys benefits. This is good because it provides them with the wherewithall to invest in future developments. To those of you who are moaning about SAM the costs that we have had to bear are miniscule compared to the costs born by the company. My turnover has increased by 33% since adopting SAM fully, and this is the key to the matter. To make it work to your benefit you must use it as it should be used.We will all have niggles that upset us but we must see beyond these and look at the overall picture. Without Hillarys we have no income. Without us Hillarys have no income. There has to be an end to this us and them and this would seem to me to be the beginning of the end.

[russell]

im with disdobs wheres farmer ?

[JoY]

To All the Advisors who haven't been "invited", and would like to attend the meetings, I would suggest they simply ask to be allowed to attend. I'm guessing that the number would be few, and therefore not a problem.

I think it is important that a list of the advisors who ARE going to be there, is posted on this site, using their Advisor names, and the area they are from. They need to be known by all of all. (Not their nicknames on the site - if they wish to keep that secret for whatever reason).

[russell]

yes joy worries me that they remain anon because the anons among us usually are yes men hideing behind a nickname i myself think i will go if we dont find out whos going and whats their agenda

[cherokee]

Happy New Year to one and all, advisors and all the helpful staff at H/O (not all of them are serious jerks, only some!!!)
It's brilliant that at last that some notice is being taken of us the front line troops,I must admit to feeling like 'Golf' about posting as all the negativity is doing my head in.
But to the main point in question, the seminars. I feel as most seem to that to go into these meetings with a negative attitude to the 'suits' will be most damaging for our cause as a whole, please don't forget that whatever the outcome those self same 'suits' hold our future in there hands. Pithy comments and put downs = 'where's all my leads gone and who's that new advisor down the road from me??'
As for my own gripes about the company, I think my major problem comes from the 'charge the advisor for EVERYTHING' point of view. I choose to do this job, I cover a large area and so cost myself a fortune in fuel etc but that is my choice, I like a big motor ( yeah I know it's a substitute!!!) What I didn't choose to do is go back time and time again to D.O.R.s that were no fault of my own and effectively have to pay for the dubious privilege of doing so!!! QUALITY CONTROL NEEDS SORTING sooner rather than later.
I'm sure that there are advisors out there who have done this job a lot longer than I have and who are an awful lot more elequent than me in putting a point across especially the chosen few who are attending these meetings (that is meant with no slur in mind for being chosen) so I look forward to reading more posts on this subject and wish the moderators and the attendee's my wholehearted thanks and good wishes for making the whole thing possible.
Cherokee.

[JoY]

My Top Ten Suggestions..

1. Increase commission rate by suggest 2% to cover extra costs to Advisor involved with SAM, (and reduced costs to Hillarys.)

2. No clawing back of commission when Hillarys offer a discount/refund after the sale due to no fault by Advisor.

3. Payment for all service calls when not due to advisor error. Suggest £20 and customer signs receipt on completion whether charge made to them or not.

4. Payment for extra work involved in DOR's not of our making to cover time/petrol. Suggest £20. Again signed receipt from customer.

5. Some tolerance for human error in Advisor mis-measures. Say no fine for first 1% of errors per month and then £10 per blind.

6. Increased quality control for Woodens. Every blind checked before leaving the factory, and the checkers name recorded.

7. Simplify the pricing. Suggest..

3 price bands for all products
3.5" and 5" verticals the same price
15mm and 25mm venetians the same price
35mm and 50mm venetians the same price.

8. Simplify the offers/sales..suggest..

Buy 2 blinds get cheapest half price on selected blinds in all types.

Buy 2 get 5% discount on ALL blinds.
Buy 3 get 10% discount
Buy 4 get 15% discount
Buy 5 get 20% discount
Buy 6 get 25% discount

9. Give customers a voucher ( M&S ?) for recommending a new customer. Value of it 10% of the new order value on completion, to replace the current 10% off next order voucher.

10. All Advisors, current and new, to be made aware of this forum.

Ooops...thats 10 already. ;D

[Augustus]

Hi guys,

Sorry I'm late

I think this is massive and brave step for HQ to take so we need to embrace it.

I will be going to the meeting in Leeds and am looking forward to the dinner the night before the other 11 to make final arrangements.

What we really need to do is have a couple of extra sections on the forum to discuss this properly.

Title will be 'Agent Meetings' .

Sub-sections will need to be defined, so what ever people think - I can have it setup by tomorrow.

the top 10 issues will have alot of candidates so it might mean a poll for this before we move forward.

It would also be nice to keep the nature of this as positive as we can. So, let's see if people can offer ideas and/or solutions for each issue.

Not sure if a list of the advisors is needed ?

I don't mind standing forward - Paul Mottley South Leicestershire , but others might prefer to announce themselves rather than a list posted.


So, if the people who want to take on each section ( might even need a few for the 'top 10' ) I can make them mods so they are able to move posts to keep them in the right thread if things go off topic.

Together I'm sure we can bring alot to the table.

Maybe this is the way forward ?

P.

[desmorse]

I agree commission should be on the agenda, but with some of form of scaling or incentive.
I think there are 3 basic agency types, full timers who rely on Hillarys for a living, long term part timers who use Hillarys to augment their full time job or pension, and the new kids on the block who rarely last more than a few months. I don't think all 3 should be treated equally. It's the long termers, whether full or part time, who see their income drop, then have to clear up the mess left by short termers.
Perhaps there should be a starting commission (17.5% of ex VAT) rate which increases after a certain level of business has been achieved - say £20k. Whatever level, it must be clear and beyond the means of FSMs or anyone else to manipulate. After this, either a higher commission level, or realistic incentives kicks in. The incentive could be based on lead effect or something similar, but must be fair - giving a bonus based on conversion or lead effect to advisors who still get home phone advertising is simply wrong.
Past incentives, based on wine or football matches have limited effect (I won and never went - football=boring to me). There is only one common thing thing that motivates us all - money, and this should be available to all who achieve target, not just the top ten. And perhaps a few awards of Hillarys Workwear vouchers for near misses?
If FSMs bonus is linked to ours, they won't screw anyone, as they're just screwing themselves.
It's also been suggested many times that Hillarys is now run by bean counters, and they would want to just keep using cheaper, short term agents. I disagree. Accountants are usually good at identifying costs - it must cost far more in both money and manpower to recruit, train, support and lose an advisor in a short period than pay slightly more to long term, experienced advisor.
Sorry new advisors, I have nothing against you - I was new once, but it's a fact that if you've been with Hillarys less than 3 months and are still here in 9 months, you will be the exception.

Paying existing advisors more, by any means, will trigger a knee jerk reaction by most Hillarys senior management, but they've shown the money is there by reducing prices - if they can reduce an order value by 10% and stay profitable, they could increase commission from 17.5% to 27.5% and be profitable.
And how many sales forces do you know that don't have some form of regular incentive scheme?

[RED]

hereticus said:

red - many thanks for your very positive and supportive comments. You have volunteered yourself to help but not picked out a task for yourself, so can I make a suggestion. If you can find an hour during the next week can you run a search through all past postings on the subject of SAM - ignore the postings about whether we should accept it, what it costs to run, etc., because these are already well known - but pick up and summarise all the positive suggestions about what SAM could / should be able to do for us i.e a possible wish list for future SAM development. We can then present that as one of the 'ten best ideas'. Is that a reasonable suggestion - what do you think ?

Also, anybody else out there who would like to do a similar search on any other subect, your help would be fantastic. Pick a subject you have strong feelings about or a special interest in, but make a brief post to let us know what you are doing so that nobody else duplicates the same exercise.

Many thanks to everybody who is being supportive.

Will do Heriticus.
Will post results on the board and send direct to yourself.
I will try and do a few others but I am in hospital tomorrow for an op so may be a little slow.
Red

[JoY]

Sorry Motters...

A list of those attending the meetings (their REAL advisor names) seems to be VERY important to me. I can't think of a single reason NOT to list them!

I am not one of them.... Advisor Redhill. ;D

[Augustus]

Sorry Joy, mis-read your post.

I think the agency name would be ok.

Re- commissions. I think we should not push for too much, so I suggest something that's realistic.

Extra commissions on self gen orders ? It wil cost HQ far more to give cross the board % increases. But the self gen orders don't cost HQ anything in advertising to generate, so I think it could well be a winner for us.

Even my own fsm agreed with this.

P.

[mendipmagpie]

First I say thanks to Herticus and Motters.
We have come a long way since this forum started.
I will read all the comments then add my thoughts. If I can be of help with a particular subject on previous postings just let me know. Dont mind what .
MM

[desmorse]

Motters,
not suggesting for 1 minute that we ask for commission to be increased to 27.5%, I was just making the point that reducing price by 10% or increasing commission by 10% has the same net effect to Hillarys, so money is available. And let's be honest, anyone who rings H/O and asks will be told they can have a 10% discount whether order has been placed or not.
An incentive scheme paying an extra 5% is realistic though. Any well run incentive pays for itself for both the saleman and the company. My area lead effect is £215, so I maybe I should get say 1% extra for achieving that, rising to 5% for achieveing £300+ (Russell now has a big smile on his face)

admin said:

Sorry Joy, mis-read your post.

I think the agency name would be ok.

Re- commissions. I think we should not push for too much, so I suggest something that's realistic.

Extra commissions on self gen orders ? It wil cost HQ far more to give cross the board % increases. But the self gen orders don't cost HQ anything in advertising to generate, so I think it could well be a winner for us.

Even my own fsm agreed with this.

P.

[hereticus]

Nice to see so many of you active on the forum last night – mostly positive stuff as well.

Motters – good to see you posting on this. I didn’t see you online yesterday and was beginning to worry that I had upset you or upstaged you by taking the initiative on this. That was never my intention – it was you who gave us the means to start this ball rolling – so very pleased to see you posting and that you are firmly on board and in agreement with the general sentiments and the approach to these meetings.

Red – nice to see that you were happy to pick up my suggestion and have thrown yourself into it in such a proactive way – many thanks, and look forward to the outcome.

Dibsdobs (and others) – note your comments regarding commissions and agree that my opening comments yesterday may have given the wrong impressions. I simply want to collate everybody’s thoughts so that we can put forward representative views, so if there is a strong feeling that commissions and incentives should be on the agenda then on the agenda they will be !

Mendipmagpie – many thanks for your offer to research a subject but please pick a subject and then let us know what you are doing. I could make suggestions but I am but one of 23 agents attending these meetings and I am only trying to motivate everyone to get on board with this, not trying to take control.

All other postings and comments noted and appreciated – please keep them coming. More volunteers to search and summarise subject threads would be very helpful. Also, if you are in contact / have phone numbers for your neighbouring agents please give them a call and prompt them to log in, pick up this thread, and have their say.

[hereticus]

There seems to be a general feeling that you would like to know who has been invited to these seminars, and I certainly haven't seen any postings to the contrary. I agree that it should be up to each of us to decide whether we want to declare ourselves openly and come out from behind our forum pseudonyms (though I have no problem with this myself) but advisor names only would not break any anonymity. I think it is only fair to know who will be attending meetings that may influence the future direction of the company / advisor relationship so I'm going to stick my neck out and publish...here goes

The Reading (Southern) Meeting will be attended by advisors :

Persia
Thame (that's me)
Etna
Whale
Tallis
Washford
Strauss
Romford
Orchard (phugly)
Raymond
Bradley

and the Leeds (Northern) meeting by advisors :

Withyside
Scotton
Grindon
Mango
Twickenham
Roman
Nursery
Wolds
Mottley (think we know who he is)
Basil
Rapley
Accrington

Hope this information helps and if you know any of these guys personally then give them a call and get them to join the pre-meeting debate on this forum.

But please, I implore you, no negative personal comments.