Forced Availability

[JoY]

desmorse said:

What a good idea for a bonus. Get more FSMs out there selling and giving away their commission. As previously said, any new ideas coming out, try them just in case they work

Only question, if 20% increase equates to 1 more sale a week, that means you're only doing 5 orders/week at the moment.

One other thought, whoever gets her commission, be sure you don't get her mis-measure fines too

If the FSM is hoping to earn £750 in commission by going out selling......whose leads is she pinching? Is she cherry picking the best ones or going out on the 3 for 99's?? lol

[hereticus]

Blindmansam....thanks for copying the message from your FSM, but interesting that you didn't add your personal thoughts. Are you sitting on the fence waiting to see whether the majority opinion is positive or negative ?

I find your FSM's approach quite refreshing. A little simplistic, verging on mildly patronising, perhaps a litlle gung-ho, but what the heck....here is somebody trying to motivate rather than wielding threats, and actually prepared not only to service difficult (to allocate) leads herself but to pass on her earnings as an incentive. My guess is that your FSM is new to Hillarys, bringing in her own ideas and enthusiasm, and not (yet) bludgeoned into working the 'Hillarys Way'. Go for it, get that prize at the end of the month, and then come on line and tell us all about it.

Certainly, from a conversation yesterday with my new FSM, it is clear that the heat is on for September. Sales and conversion rates are being monitored daily rather than weekly or monthly, FSM's will be phoning advisors continuously, so somebody really wants to hit that £ 100 million turnover. We can co-operate by doing our best to accomodate more leads, convert more quotes, and follow up anything in limbo (ie. outstanding queries), or we can be party poopers ! As the saying goes 'you use more facial muscles to frown than to smile' and you would probably expend more effort and stress trying not to co-operate than making hay.

And then, in October, we await the Hillarys 'roadshow', a series of regional meetings to launch a whole raft of new products. We are clearly entering an interesting couple of months.

[greenpesto]

I wouldn't actually expect that this FSM is really going to go out & sell or fit blinds.
This is a sales incentive masked by cheerful spin!
It is a great idea however & the tone from all FSM's in the past 10 days have been better.
This happens to be at a time when a new FSM has started therefore giving the appearance of a fresh idea when in fact there is a general swing to this approach from all FSM's.

I wonder if our favourite son of Hillarys Mr. Kenny will be seen to be as cheerful & smiley too!
Perhaps ... but I bet it'll hurt him like Hell!!!!

As far as paying out on this incentive, it would be in Hillarys interests to award this bonus payment by way of a cheque at the next area/regional meetings.

This will give us a clear message that Hillarys are genuine in their intent to motivate whilst giving Advisors the incentive to try harder to be the next one standing up collecting this accolade!

Lets hope they don't expect us to accept 'Vouchers' or 'days out' as incentives either as they've done in the past! .... Very 'NAFF'!!!

Let us also hope that the 'winner' is not the one that had booked 3 weeks holiday & came back to 'one' busy week as happened on a previous incentive when the percentages calculated made them look as if they had a massive growth in business for that month.

[dolly]

HERE HERE GREENPESTO
The incentive scheme last time was a slap in the face for those of us who work 5/6 days a week 10-12 hours a day. I was often up for a prize according to my FSM, i didnt work any different in that time, just as hard. But come the meeting it was always a part timer doing 10 leads a week who won with "excellent figures"
The only true incentive is to work hard, earn money to pay the bills and try and enjoy what you do. Give us a commission rise as an incentive not a day at the races which still costs us money anyway.

[thelloydgang]

Hello everyone

Just had to say that I worked exactly the same during the last incentive and Alan and myself thoroughly enjoyed a day out at the races for free.............well just petrol to get there! I don't know how many "part time" advisors were there but good for them if they achieved a trip too!

Ate wonderful food and drank champagne all day.......(Alan had a beer as he was chauffeur for the day!!!), bet £100 (supplied by Hillarys!), between us on the gee gees and came back with £12. (Actually, that covered the fuel cost)!

Has taught me one thing tho.........not to bet with my own money!!

Karen ;D

[grumperbear]

My diary is largely empty.
Do you think l am going to do anything different just for these 2 weeks. l think not.

lf they had wanted to hit the £100million turnover they should have thought about it from the start, and not left it till now. lt just goes to show what a management we have.
They should be filling my diary up with appointments so that l can sell throughout the year. Some days in the last year l have had no appointments and they still wanted extra forced avaiability.

l don't want to sound negitive, but what about the other 50 weeks of the year.

[russell]

blindmansam said:

Todays E-mail from FSM, i copy it here for your perusal , it reads as follows.........



"Make Hay while the Sun Shines"



Dear All, I can hear you saying now "what is she on about?!" Well let me explain. What I really mean is "Sell blinds while the sun shines". As you know September is the last month of the fiscal year, and I would like us to go out with a big bang!

To cut a long storey short it has been identified that with the current level of leads coming in and the way the lead to diary is at present, there is definitely an opportunity to maximise on sales in this last month, hence my new sales objective!! We believe that it's possible to increase sales by 20% over the original forecast. Now I can hear you say "Impossible!" but actually it isn't. When broken down its only one extra sale per person per week, now that sounds achievable already doesn't it? So how am I going to convince you all to help me achieve this? Here's my plan

Firstly we need to agree that we will definitely need to do things a little differently over the next few weeks. Doing what we've always done will get us what we've always got!!

I will be speaking to you all individually over the next couple of days, and if you will be supporting this initiative I will give you a sales objective based on your sales for September last year, plus the extra required to achieve the new figure.

OK, so now you want to know what's in it for you, if you achieve the objective. Well this involves me going out and selling (In the area's where we are struggling for cover) and the more I sell the more commission I raise, which will be awarded in the following way:

There will be only one prize, no prize for 2nd or 3rd! To be eligible to win, you will have achieved the objective by the end of the month.
The winner will be the advisor with the biggest sales growth over the objective e.g.

Objective Actual Difference
Advisor 1 £8,000 £9,000 £1,000
Advisor 2 £8,000 £10,000 £2,000 Winner!!
Advisor 3 £8,000 £8,500 £500

So if I sell £10,000 worth of blinds you'd be looking at a prize of £750 (If I've got time to fit the orders myself the prize will increase as I wont have to pay anyone to fit them!!)

Well I'm sure by now you're starting to think about what you could do with an extra £750, so lets have a look at the tactics to help us achieve our goal.

* Sales only week 3 & 4 - all around the UK we are gearing up for selling only and referring any fits to week 1 & 2 of October, this will give you the opportunity to increase your availability to take on the extra leads to achieve your objective, so please leave wk3 & 4 free for sales. I will discuss this with you over the phone.

* Quotes - If you leave a paper quote, don't send it to the quotes dept, send it to me and I will follow it up on your behalf. I will be looking to convert these with no discount or as little as possible. Also you may be sat on a few quotes that you haven't had time to follow up, there maybe a few quick wins for you here, or send it to me and I'll follow it up for you! (Details of how to send the quotes to follow)

* Orders in Query - Having checked my latest report, there are 28 orders in query throughout the counties, this could equate to £8,500 of sales based on AOV. So you could be only a phone call away from an extra order!

* Self generated leads - You may have friends and families that have been asking for you to pop round and sort them out with some blinds, well this month would be a perfect time to fit them in! Also don't forget the other tools you have available to you for generating leads e.g. the new home cards.

* More tactics you can use:
o Interest Free Credit - a great conversion tool
o Present the range - This will help you up sell a few verts to a few romans
o Ask if there are any more windows that need doing at the time of the fit. How many times have you had a phone call week later from a satisfied customer asking you to call again? So asking at the time of the fit could result in another sale, but one less visit!


I'm sure your brains are already ticking over, planning how to win that prize, but if you need any advise I will be more than willing to help.

I will be receiving county results daily and will share them with you on a regular basis, and don't forget your prize depends on my sales, so I will be expecting a few phone calls asking me how I'm doing. I will share my results with you regularly, so if you think my conversion or AOV isn't good enough, then call me and challenge me, or give me some advise! The more I do the more you win.

"Good Luck Everyone"

Here's the fax no. to send your paper quotes to: 0115 852 2947, I'm looking forward to getting them.

I will speak to you all over the next couple of days.

Kind Regards

I like this way of thinking rewarding for working that bit harder i won two red letter days this way but missed out on the races day :'(its nice to see new ideas from new fsms after all they are judged as much on there performance as we are

[desmorse]

greenpesto said:

As far as paying out on this incentive, it would be in Hillarys interests to award this bonus payment by way of a cheque at the next area/regional meetings.

This will give us a clear message that Hillarys are genuine in their intent to motivate whilst giving Advisors the incentive to try harder to be the next one standing up collecting this accolade!

Lets hope they don't expect us to accept 'Vouchers' or 'days out' as incentives either as they've done in the past! .... Very 'NAFF'!!!

A previous FSM did this when we were an AOE, presenting M&S vouchers and bottles of champagne at team mtgs. It was popular, and a nice little pat on the back for some. What was nice, was that different people got it, not the same faces each time.

Whilst I think it's a good idea, because all sales teams have a degree of rivalry and wanting to be the best (even Oxfordshire), we must be sure of the data it's based on. Just before Tony Boyd left, I asked him why he didn't ring to find out why my conversion rate was ZERO. He didn't know that's what the SMR report showed, or was even concerned "because I know that's wrong". OK, but that's what was published. Even now, I apparently take over 80% of deposits by credit card, but only 40% of balances. Nope, I take 80-90% of ALL payments by card.
One other problem I used to suffer was "mismeasures". When these KPIs were published to the whole of the Hants team, I was nearly always top. None of them were mine, but everytime I dealt with one for another advisor, it went on to my account. In fairness I think this has now been resolved, but it's the sort of thing we need to keep an eye on.

[dolly]

Sorry RUSSELL and others if this is boring you, but i believe this is a rather important topic.
It never stops. Another email arrived today from FSM asking us to ring him at customers house if its a quote so he can give you a lower price to offer them.This is how Kirby hoovers and some double glazing salesman work. "I will just ring my boss to see if i can get you a better price". They will have us cold calling next.
If word gets out we do this even just for a few weeks people arent going to accept our first/normal prices, offers or not.

[greenpesto]

The 'Telephone Close' can be very effective when done properly, but has little credibility on orders under a 5 figure sum.

I've done my time 'Cold Calling' thank very much for asking, & have no intension of ever doing it again!!!!!

I can only repeat myself again & stress that you can discount by what ever you want in order to secure the business.

Hillarys will always make money from a sale.

So, don't waste time phoning an FSM who probably wouldn't know a 'Close' if it came up & smacked him in the 'Willy'!!!!.

You'll only have an FSM pulling you up on your discounting because in truth he/she/it can't find anything else to actually fault you on.

This month all H/O are concerned about is conversions.

Discounts may come up for a week or two in the future but even then I'd advise you to forget about it.

Nearly 30 years selling has taught me that for sure!!!!

[thelloydgang]

Dolly.....not boring at all but it's also ok to have a bit of a laugh too you know! ;D

Karen

[dmm]

dolly said:

Sorry RUSSELL and others if this is boring you, but i believe this is a rather important topic.
It never stops. Another email arrived today from FSM asking us to ring him at customers house if its a quote so he can give you a lower price to offer them.This is how Kirby hoovers and some double glazing salesman work. "I will just ring my boss to see if i can get you a better price". They will have us cold calling next.
If word gets out we do this even just for a few weeks people arent going to accept our first/normal prices, offers or not.

Haven't you got any Hillarys Price Promise cards? If customer has a better quote, and you want the job, show them the HPP card, just to prove you're not making it up, then BAQ.
If they haven't got a quote, but you've a pretty good idea what price they will order at, well it's down to your conscience as whether to use this or not?

[blindmansam]

dolly said:

It never stops. Another email arrived today from FSM asking us to ring him at customers house if its a quote so he can give you a lower price to offer them.This is how Kirby hoovers and some double glazing salesman work. "I will just ring my boss to see if i can get you a better price". They will have us cold calling next.
.

Ha ha - an FSM answering you from a customers house , weekdays , evenings or weekends Who,s Kidding Who !

[dolly]

Dont worry folks ive no intention of doing it. Just thought as no one else had mentioned it, that i would disclose all to you.

[hereticus]

dolly said:

.
Another email arrived today from FSM asking us to ring him at customers house if its a quote so he can give you a lower price to offer them.This is how Kirby hoovers and some double glazing salesman work. "I will just ring my boss to see if i can get you a better price". They will have us cold calling next.
If word gets out we do this even just for a few weeks people arent going to accept our first/normal prices, offers or not.

Oh, dear....just when we were beginning to see some refreshing ideas coming from the newer FSM's ! So my prophecy a few days ago is coming true - they are no longer customers, they are simply punters.

My FSM has not suggested anything of this sort and I hope he doesn't, because my reaction would end what is starting out as a good working relationship.

This is simply a form of pressure selling, which may win the ocassional sale but makes the salesman look an idiot, undermines our credibility, and does not win long term customers. If this is the new game in town, I'm not playing.

What's next ? Should I book a pitch down the local market to sell blinds off a barrow ? Or boot sales....now there's an idea !