Apr 01 2010
Featured Company Q&A: Springwise
This month’s Featured Company Q&A is with Bob Micunek, Director of Sales for Springwise, who shares with us his focus for sales success in 2010, why mentors are important in life and business, and strategies for success for any sales team.
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That it’s a fast-paced highly entrepreneurial company with huge growth potential in the competitive but splintered facilities management and maintenance industry
What unique quality separates Springwise from your competitors?
- There isn’t just one unique quality that separates us, there are several. It’s our approach to running our business by combining transparency, technology and continual process improvement. We are the eyes and ears for our customers, since we help them manage their facilities. We’ve harnessed technology to increase productivity and we’re the first facilities company in
We are all coming off of a challenging year, how has Springwise handled it?
- Fortunately, the maintenance services we provide like snow removal, landscaping, parking lot sweeping, generator and electrical repairs still need to be performed even in economic downturns. We’re coming off our 3rd consecutive year of double-digit growth. We invested heavily in an experienced sales team, key personnel to lead some of our departments, technology and process improvements over the past few years which has yielded great fruit.
- We’re proactive, adaptable, resourceful and accountable. We call this philosophy On-Demand since it encompasses everything we do as a company. It’s a holistic approach to every service we perform, responding to the unexpected and anticipating the future.
- Increase our brand awareness.
- Standardize, simplify and refine our message.
What creative strategies have you used to encourage/influence your sales team?
- We ask them to own the entire selling process. Many salespeople fill out sales reports with contact names, numbers, etc. just to complete the task. Our people realize that having specific targets and getting to know the key people in those organizations is absolutely critical to succeed.
- Secondly, I try to lead by example with regards to the sales process. Since I also have direct sales goals in addition to managing a sales team, I make cold calls, send prospecting emails and information packages. Therefore, I run into the same selling obstacles they face whether it’s overcoming objections from prospective customers or time management issues on a daily basis. It also gives me valuable insight as to what the real issues are facing our customers and prospective customers and how we can address those needs.
What is your favorite methodology in sales training and/or business enhancement?
- Metrics. Everything needs to be measured on a consistent basis to reach your objectives. However, you must first identify the key drivers to attaining those goals and measure those tasks. It’s pointless to measure things that don’t impact the tasks that lead you to closing more business.
Are there any books, sales related or leadership related, that you use as a guide and/or would recommend?
- There are a variety of great authors and I also subscribe to multiple industry e-newsletters and sales training e-newsletters. A couple off the top of my head are Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book of Selling. He always has thought provoking material on his website. He constantly challenges you and your thought processes and his trademark is “People don’t like to be sold but they love to buy!” An all-time classic is Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich which was originally published in 1937.
Do you have a mentor that you contribute your leadership success to? Do you feel it is important to have a mentor?
- Yes, I’ve been fortunate to have had two great mentors in my career that I still keep in touch with today. I believe it is critical to have a mentor in your business career since it can help to shorten the learning curve. Merriam-Webster defines mentor as “a trusted counselor or guide.” True mentors don’t do it for personal gain and they coach, counsel and provide constructive criticism which is crucial for personal and professional growth.
- Major on the fundamentals. We just returned from one of our industry trade shows and I heard a statistic that 80% of all trade show leads are never followed up. I’ve found the following process beneficial in increasing our percentages of developing a revenue stream from each and every contact at a trade show:
- Stay the day after the trade show ends and do a complete debrief of every person that you met face-to-face whether it was in the booth, at breakfast, lunch, dinner or cocktail parties. We then assign a lead salesperson to follow-up with each prospect.
- Send a thank you email to every person we meet face-to-face within in one week of the show closing in addition to the written thank you note. The more specific you can be in the note, the better it is received since it increases your credibility with the prospect. Generic mass emails don’t work since they are impersonal.
- On a side note, a great tool that we use is Jigsaw to compile email addresses of attendees since most trade shows won’t send this information on the master attendee list.
- Track communication with each and every attendee at the show. This takes some extra effort but is the only way to measure true ROI of each trade show.
- I look for people that are passionate not only about selling and their careers but also in other facets in their life. This type of person is typically more well-rounded, well-spoken and well-travelled. They also tend to have higher energy levels since they’re involved in many activities and can relate to the many types of personalities. I also like to look for salespeople that have enjoyed success in hunting new business each and every day.
What characteristics do you look for in a sales professional?
Do you feel a sales professional must have experience in the industry they are selling in order to be successful?
- Not necessarily but it definitely helps to get off to a good start in our industry since we’re selling services as opposed to tangible products. Since we’re a small company we prefer to hire experienced reps but it’s still important to develop people internally to sell.
If an individual or the team as a whole is not meeting goals, what is your approach to nurture this?
- The first place I look is to see if they are performing the necessary tasks to advance towards their goals, and to see if they have the proper tools and resources. Once I complete these quick assessments, I’ll coach and counsel them to see how we as an organization can help them overcome their performance issues.
How much time do you need to know if a new sales hire will “make it”? What are some indicators/behaviors?
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Typically 90 to 120 days but there are exceptions especially if the hire is relatively new to the industry or is new to sales. Some of the things I look for are the highlights of specific conversations that they’ve had with their prospects.
- I also look for the quantity and quality of the questions they ask me and if they’re willing to ask me or the other salespeople for help. If they don’t ask me many questions, it raises a red flag that they may not be making progress towards the key milestones in the selling process.
