The Roles of the Sales Manager at Customer Conferences

Posted by admin | Sales Management | Wednesday 27 April 2011 12:36 pm

An excellent opportunity to intensify your contact with customers is customer conferences. You can use them to find out how your customers are using your products and services and what problems have arisen. These are covered on any good sales management course. Usually held once or twice a year these can also used to reach occasional clients and link them more closely to your company.

Include your sales team

Include your sales department in the planning of client conferences. It will motivate your salespeople if they are allowed to have a say. In the run-up to the conference inform them of the main goals of holding the conference. Make a written note of what tasks need to be carried out and to whom you are assigning these.

The welcome is important

Plan to have sufficient staff to be there at the welcome reception and register the names of the participating clients. A welcome cocktail will round the reception off nicely. The entire sales department should be there – every client will automatically search out the face of salespeople they know. Introduce clients to other clients. Who should be introduced to whom naturally takes a great deal of tact. Do not spend too long talking to regular or favorite clients.

The opening of the conference

You can wait fifteen minutes. Then carry out the official opening. Naturally, you should speak without the aid of notes. Any important personalities from your branch or related associations should be welcomed and mentioned by name, but not all customers need to be individually mentioned.

It is advisable that the opening speech be kept to between five and seven minutes. Guests will stand throughout this and will only be seated for the subsequent speeches. The opening speech should include an announcement of the programme and the agenda for the day.

It is your personal task to select the different speakers.

A public relations exercise

Although you as the sales manager carry out the opening speech, this does not mean that you hog the limelight. Leave the limelight to the specialist speakers you have lined up. Your role is more of presenter – keeping an eye on timing and audience participation. Good organization is imperative as taught on any good management course.

You are in charge of the press reception

A client conference is a good event to gain publicity in the specialist press. Editors would no doubt be interested in a report of the conference and any interesting photographs, which accompany it (black/white).

Consider arranging for a group photograph of all the attendees taken. Perhaps at the welcome ceremony?

Take a look at publications in the specialist press covering other similar events. How is the competition looking? The presentation and length of contributions can give you ideas. If any members of the press attend at the conference, meet them personally. The people from the press are just as important as your clients.

You could send your clients a copy of any articles published, particularly including those who did not attend the conference.

The post-mortem

At the end of the conference do not plunge straight away into the paperwork that’s been waiting to be done. First of all, sit down with the salespeople who took part in the conference and carry out a post-mortem. You will need certain data in order to assess the conference. The best thing to do is to take notes during the conference.

On the one hand you need to ensure that client wishes are fulfilled, orders placed, visits planned and contacts intensified. On the other hand, you need to find out as soon as possible if the whole event has paid off for you, or whether it has turned out to be a costly failure. What went wrong? What corrections are to be made? When doing this, do not look for people to blame – instead look for solutions to the problems which occurred.

About a week after the conference a letter or email of thanks, to acknowledge all those who took part should be sent. This is just one element of being a successful sales manager. For other hints and tips or to develop your skills further, attend a good management course.

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Risk Management Consultant And What Do They Have To Offer?

Posted by admin | Risk management | Friday 23 July 2010 10:43 am

We live in a very unsure earth. On a daily basis in our schedule work, and lifestyle, we are susceptible to a variety of risks, and liabilities. We can handle, and keep away from many of these adversities individually. Even though, like environment, our businesses, things, and us that are fundamental for our continued existence, are also at risk at most times from diverse recognised, and unidentified factors. This is where Risk Management comes into consequence.

Risk management is the detection, assessment, and ranking risks, followed by synchronized and cost-efficient submission of reserves to reduce, manage, and to be in charge of the possibility, or contact of unfortunate proceedings. Risks can get nearer by imprecision in monetary markets, plan crashes, permissible liabilities, credit threat, calamities, natural reasons, and tragedies as well as planned attacks from an adversary.

Techniques, characterisation, and ambitions vary extensively according to whether the risk management method is in the framework of project management, security, engineering, industrial processes, financial assortment, actuarial assessments, or public health, and safety. The line of attack to manage risk include reassigning the risk to another party, avoiding the risk, reducing the downbeat effect of the risk, and accepting some or all of the penalties of a meticulous risk.

People who study, or work in the Risk Management sector are usually referred to as RM Consultants. The post of risk management consultant is one of the main arrangements in the resourceful panel of any business venture. While they may not be as eye-catching as the other supervisory in the office, risk management consultants are employed, and are paid high-quality money to be the intellect behind precise promotions for improving company procedures.

The job of risk management consultants is to expose, analysing, and evaluating risks. They make recommendations regarding various business sectors. These cover business improvements, administrations, loss controls, and various financing mechanisms. In addition, they manage marketing and selection of business insurances, and hazard related services.

In accumulation, they make available ongoing counselling, and dedicated services such as claiming audits, and review, over viewing of safety programmes, serving as expert witnesses, litigation support, and assessment of third party administrators. Other services comprise enslaved probability studies, captive management, loss amendment aid, broker selection, broker review, agent selection, agent review, disaster planning, employee benefits, and providing evaluations of possible risk, and losses to business professionals.

As autonomous professionals, risk management consultants supply perspective, and objective analysis, and are not concerned with financial profit, or loss. They provide reporting regarding market factors to their client, in addition to working with other business professionals such as accountants, and lawyers. Mostly there are no commissions involved in a risk management position.

Similar to any sports or game, people investing in businesses if do not take bigger risks, they cannot go further on. It may be advisable for to play safe for sometime, but risks have to be taken now, or then. It is up to risk management consultant.<p>

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Project Risk Management – - Assessing Risks – Why the Buck Stops With You

Posted by admin | Risk management | Thursday 15 July 2010 7:38 am

What should we make of the Bernard Madoff scandal?


The very idea that for decades one of the most visible pillars of the American investment community had been, in effect, running a gigantic scam is hard to believe. Even harder to believe is the fact that so many investors were duped. The total amount lost was first reported at $50Bn, but this number may rise as more and more institutional investors own up to having lost money to Madoff’s scam. Hardest of all to believe though is that US regulators allowed Madoff to get away with it for so long.

A failure of due diligence and regulation

    The collapse of Madoff’s investment funds has revealed:

  • That individual investors failed to carry out due diligence checks, either because they put their trust in their brokers and advisers, or else because they just did not care so long as they continued to make money;
  • That regulators failed to investigate Madoff even when serious concerns were raised that fraud was taking place.

Losses from project failure – much bigger than Madoff

You may be asking yourself what this can possibly have to do with the subject of managing project risks? Two things:

  • 1. The amount of money lost — $50Bn — is only about one third of the money lost to project failure in the European Union every single year.
  • 2. No-one seemed to conduct a proper risk assessment before committing huge sums of money (sounding familiar?).

Assessing risks: your personal responsibility

So what can you learn from this that will help you manage your projects better? Here are three lessons you can take away from this awful tale:

  • 1. Become a disbeliever. When something looks too good to be true it is because it is not true. This piece of advice applies as much to investments that promise 10% or more every year, no matter what, as it does to project reports that forecast no problems.
  • 2. You are personally responsible for assessing risks. This is something that you cannot overlook, skimp on or leave to others to do for you. Remember, the buck stops with you.
  • 3. Do not take risks that you do not understand. This may seem drastic, but it makes sense. Better to stay away from projects if you are not equipped to manage them.

Conclusion

However bad the Madoff collapse looks right now, it represents a small amount of the money lost each year to failing projects. The next time you are asked to take on a project, remember that it is a high risk venture. Take personal responsibility for assessing risks. If you do that you will increase your chances of success and get a positive return on your investment.

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Do You Have a Usable Business Development Growth Strategy?

Posted by admin | Strategic Planning | Wednesday 9 June 2010 9:44 am

Whether your business is in the UK, the United States, Asia, or elsewhere, you need a business development strategy. You need a living and breathing strategy that you can adjust as time progresses. Improvement has to be a culture rather than a task. It’s no longer enough to simply service your existing customers. Complacency has never been a good thing in business and it is a dangerous trait in the 21st century. A strategy to continually develop will help you in several ways.

Beyond servicing your existing clients, you need to develop your business for two reasons:

To keep the loyalty of existing customers and retain their business

To be able to attract new clients.

Growth is important. Your market place and consumers continually evolve. By looking at this on a regular basis you can make sure you make the most of your ability to compete.

Brand loyalty isn’t as common as it once was. For that reason, business development has to be a constant. Many businesses now hire development specialists. Some prefer to use a consultant and in that case they will hire consultants to help them strategies and then execute those new strategies to develop existing clients, get repeat business from them, and go after new clients and new market segments.

Are You Ready to Grow?

A lot of small businesses want to grow but many aren’t ready for a surge of growth. If you want to grow, a consultant can look at your business objectively to help you figure out how. In many cases, companies want growth but don’t have a lot of capital to help them expand quickly. A strategist can help you grow not only at a pace you can afford but also at a pace you can keep up with. Manageable growth is vital. An explosion of growth that happens too fast could become a fail due to the fact that your business’s infrastructure might not be able to support it. Some companies that don’t manage their growth lose business and are worse off because of the way that their reputation can be damaged through being unable to meet demands that they have created. A business development consultant could help you make and then execute a plan that doesn’t just look good in terms of profit potential but that also looks like a feasible plan because it can be done in stages, helping you win and keep customers.

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Risk Management – Safety and Design Considered

Posted by admin | Risk management | Wednesday 9 June 2010 9:30 am

The procedures and processes in your business must be efficient, and you should have methods of operation which take into consideration risk management. When you are designing these processes safety is something which may not necessarily be a major consideration for you, but it definitely should be. There are all sorts of OSHA standards, and I don’t recommend that you break any – however, sometimes OSHA standards in certain circumstances can create unsafe situations.

The reality is that you need to keep your business model and processes within the boundaries of OSHA law to prevent lawsuits, and regulatory fines. Nevertheless, let me explain to you one case study and example, something in my own company prior to retirement which always bothered me. We used pressure washers and steam cleaners to clean fleets of vehicles under contract.

We would wash Rent-A-Cars, company fleets, school buses, post office jeeps, patrol cars, car sales lots, and trucks for trucking companies. When you use a pressure washer over 2500 PSI you are supposed to use a long wand with a 15-degree or greater tip on the end. This allows the water to spray out in a fan so you don’t cut your finger off. That makes sense right? Sure it does.

However, we found that often times school bus yards had school buses parked way to close together. In doing this you could not clean them with a long wand and maneuver between the buses. And if you tried often the wand would catch on this side of the bus, and it would jab the gun into your body. Not good. Especially when it was cold out with ice, or when there was diesel fuel that had leaked on the ground.

That is an accident waiting to happen. Therefore, it made sense to move the buses out to an area where they could be cleaned. Of course trying to get in between buses, and open the door of the engine compartment to start them up, and bleed the system, could have the door coming back and sandwiching your head, while you were on slippery ground. We chose the lesser of two evils and shortened the gun wand length for safety. By doing this we never had another accident. I believe this is a good case study in risk management. Even if we technically violated OSHA rules, safety first I say. Think on it.

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Project Management – Dealing With Information Overload

Posted by admin | Project management | Monday 7 June 2010 6:21 am

You probably are aware by now how indispensable project management is for your bottom line. Organizations everywhere are tuning in to the effect of project management to meet it’s shortcomings in the face of increasing demands posed by the internet era.

Right now professionals are required to perpetually learn the most advanced project management techniques including perhaps pursuing the project management professional status or PMP for short.

This identification involves a rigorous examination process as well as difficult course of study. Experience levels within the actual field of project management itself is also indispensable to attain this coveted status. Once a professional has attained it, he or she must renew it every now and then in order to be able to continue to use that designation.

This certification was created by the Project Management Institute which is considered the world’s leading authoritative organization when it comes to the business of project management.

So as a current or future PMP, how does one keep up-to-date with such a vast array of information that’s available and growing (beyond the internet, intranet, and proprietary knowledge)? One thing you can do is use RSS readers to coordinate and keep up to date with your favorite blogs and news feeds which allows you to keep up to date with the entire industry within a glance.

The nice thing about reading blogs from various project management and PMP certified professionals is that you will get a second hand account into various cultures, industries, and corporate policies as it relates to the application of the Project Management body of knowledge.

Be sure to join local networking clubs within your area to pick the brains of some of the thought leaders and executives who are focused on this stringent discipline. This is one of the best ways to stay ahead and learn tricks of the trade that will literally save you hundreds upon hundreds of hours of time through learning by reinventing the wheel.

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How Project Management Software Helps To Plan A Project

Posted by admin | Management | Saturday 5 June 2010 1:11 pm

Project management software is software programs that support with applying knowledge, skills and techniques to control the resources, costs and schedules. Management software is focused on work structure. It means that each project has selective and detailed set of tasks that need to be completed for the project. The overall goal of project manager is to execute, track and accomplish the projects. It empowers you and your most pivotal asset, your employees and they stay up-to-date and they also organize data on all of your projects. Web project management facilitates your company team in accomplishing projects, keeping within you budget, stay on track and collaborating etc. Moreover, effective management software helps you to handle the complex projects without any disturbance and abeyance. It collaborates with your employees, execute your project team and make your project successful. Web based project management software lets you collaborate with project resources. It analyze risks, assign tasks with organize schedules and make your project a success at anytime in the world.

To become experienced in planning a project, you must be able to think imaginary and conceptually. To plan the project successfully you have to start with defining the results that can be estimated rather than the details of each individual task. Once the project is actually in improvement then the task can change from one person to the other. When you plan the project as project manager then you cannot authorize everyone on your team to have their own vision. The perception should match with the client. A clear vision must be authorized at the beginning and the success of the project will define before it starts. So, if you are the project manager, you will be authoritative for raising difficult questions with the sponsors. The most pivotal thing of planning a project in management software is you should understand very carefully what they are looking for.

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