Problem Solution: Intersect Investment Services Corporation
Intersect Investment Services needs to make an internal sales transformation to add value to customers, employees, products and services. Intersect provides a broad set of products and services to individual consumers and small businesses. In the past Intersect made quick sales calls, this technique was based around numbers. The more potential customers they contact the more sales possibilities. This technique provided no room for personalization or trust. Therefore, CEO Frank Jeffers identified a new vision, “Provide a broad set of products and services to consumer and small business customers using a model of customer intimacy that will build long term relationships based on trust and value to the customer.” This vision clashes with the current standards within the company and will be resisted by some employees.
Frank Jeffers, Intersects CEO was forced to let go of Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing because he did not support the new philosophy and failed to lead his organization with the new vision. Frank expects this new vision to springboard their company to success, by giving customers what they deserve. Intersect will improve brand image and begin to establish long-term relationships with clients. In addition, this should prove to Wall Street that Intersect Investment Services ethical behavior will never need to be questioned in the future. However, there is tension within the workplace. Employees are not convinced the new vision is effective.
However, how can all this be accomplished and still be successful? To begin Frank hired Janet Angelo, the new Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales. She has years of experience developing “customer intimacy” models for companies. However, none of these companies were quite an investment firm. One was a bank, and others were in the technology industry. Another change implemented was the training of the internal sales force. However, they are resistant to change due to past years of success with the existing organizational strategy. The issue also resides with the management not trusting the new vision. This is misleading employees and building mistrust with managerial decisions. The overall culture within the sales organization is lost in space. The sales format is following previous sales techniques while attempting to incorporate the new vision without proper guidance because the managers are also mislead and not convinced that the new vision will be successful.
In light of an evolving market, faced with new competitors, and after a careful analysis of their current customers, the Vanguard Group (hereinafter referred to as “Vanguard”) realizes it must rethink its entire marketing strategy. However, in order to protect and leverage their competitive advantage, which is their low management fees, and to optimize the loyalty that their customers continuously demonstrate toward their organization, they must now target the most profitable segment for them, and develop the best way to serve and delight these customers.
...bjections. Once the customer is reassured and agrees to the sale, initiate the sale process immediately and shift the attention to paying and completing the sale. Keep away at all costs from cell phones, TV, and god forbid at his phony wife calling him into the other room (red flag). That should be the bones of the operation and the basis of our model. The guys will learn how to adapt to objections and learn effective sale patterns and routines with practice. The successful salesmen get promoted and manage their team in ways they know to be effective and growth will become exponentially with us at the top of the pyramid.
Song, P. H., McAlearney, A., Robbins, J., & McCullough, J. S. (2011). Exploring the Business
Three realistic process and outcome goals that I feel would be valuable for Chern’s to in act for staffing of sales associates are:
Thomas Green was experiencing a growth point in his seven month history as Senior Market Specialists at Dynamic Displays. The division Vice President Shannon McDonald had requested a written statement from Green giving his perspective on resolving performance discrepancies that had developed and he was already forgetting her instructions and wondering if he should schedule a meeting with her to explain the situation. Somehow Green needs to assess the train wreck that has developed in his career and effectively translate an action plan to correct the situation before he loses his job. (Beckham, 2008)
A lot of organizations initiate change programs and action plans that vanish after a while but have had, it’s hoped, some impact on performance, even though one cannot be sure. The first challenge when initiating change is to make sure that every employee understands that this business system is not an action plan; it’s a faith that is about what should characterize a really good company, and there are no option to this faith. It is important to put a lot of effort into making everybody understand this (Ahlberg & Nauclér, 2007).
In today’s ever changing world people must adapt to change. If an organization wants to be successful or remain successful they must embrace change. This book helps us identify why people succeed and or fail at large scale change. A lot of companies have a problem with integrating change, The Heart of Change, outlines ways a company can integrate change. The text book Ivanceich’s Organizational Behavior and Kotter and Cohen’s The Heart of Change outlines how change can be a good thing within an organization. The Heart of Change introduces its readers to eight steps the authors feel are important in introducing a large scale organizational change. Today’s organizations have to deal with leadership change, change in the economy,
...world has become extremely fast and full of change. If the leader can’t adapt to changing conditions, it is very possible for his firm to be kicked out of the game. How can the firm change, though? The most effective way is to go through new ideas. Here, it reminders me Welch’s famous saying: "Change before you have to."
Ramp up sales efficiency by training sales professionals to spot their customers buying styles and offer customised sales pitches.
Andrews should look into changing performance objectives to putting the customer first, as this will help to ensure better customer service and customer focus. He could also look at introducing selling standards that all customer facing colleagues need to adhere to. Colleagues should receive proper training, have
Management should accommodate a more learning model and act on the changeable variables instead of the actions. Both sales team and management should actually start to create understanding and acceptance towards each other. Currently everyone communicates and reacts on the outside. Every remark or email can possibly result in more irritation and frustration, because “the bucket is full”. With MBTI profiling and discussing them openly amongst the team, the inside will come more to the surface. Resulting in more acceptance for every personality type and behaviour in the team. In doing so, the culture of Storck will not have a reinforcing effect anymore.
Under CEO Philip Purcell’s management, Morgan Stanley’s infrastructure and systems did not grow with the needs of employees and customers, nor did it apply future technologies to their current systems, it’s focus was reducing overheads to maximize profits in the short term. Many brokers resigned, taking with them valuable portfolios and profits. In June 2005 Purcell resigned, and John Mack provided new leadership. The firm then began to change its information systems and provide better services for clients, which saw stronger ethos and integrity within the employees.
For a successful change agent to succeed one must sell the change. The senior level executive failed to achieve this during the initial briefing and the ex-Goodrich Director never attained the positive attitude required to champion the
...on John McCracken as the new VP of Sales in Q109. What steps should McCracken take to mitigate the problems in sales?
Wiersema, M. T. a. F., 1993. Customer Intimacy and Other Value Disciplines. Harvard Business Review, p. 92.