President's Club

To be successful at Runzheimer, you had to be proactive, persistent and patient. Proactive because we had new competition who had worked for Runzheimer and knew all our vulnerabilities. Persistence was needed to keep the deal moving forward. Understandably, patience was important as deals could take years to close as we were changing the way the Sales Team was being compensated. 

As an example, the largest deal in Runzheimer history, Coca-Cola took three years. After we won the deal, I was told we won because of the way we held the site visit. Coke brought a Team of seven for a site visit. I paired those seven with our matching department heads. For the group presentations, I asked each department head to present their department. Some weren't comfortable with that idea. I had to coach and encourage them. While a few were nervous when the big day came, all went very well. After the presentations, the grouped pairs were able to spend the rest of the day building relationships.

A year after we implemented the program, my Coke contact told me that our competition was the vendor of choice going into the site visits. However, the competitor's strategy for their meeting was to have the Sales Rep do all the talking. Even after Coke asked to meet his Team, he brought the department heads in to stand beside him while he did all the talking.

To close big deals you have to be comfortable with your Team and be willing to coach and encourage them to do what is needed to win.

"Best In Division Award"

Abbott promoted me to lead the Atlanta Service District. About half the Field Service Reps (FSR) were apathetic about their job. While Abbott had defined performance standards and goals for each FSR, they either didn't know or didn't care. At the first Team meeting, I reviewed the goals and set the expectation that everyone was accountable.

During individual field travel, I noticed there was no attempt to improve productivity. This gave me the idea to build the "FSR Best in Class" program. I had won the National FSR of the year by doing all I could to be productive. My thought was to go to other FSR's who had won the award to get a "best in class" productivity tip from each of them. The tips could be as simple as completing the paperwork while the equipment was doing a self check.

I combined these actions and presented them to the Team. Then held them accountable during field travel. The program was so successful Abbott launched it nationwide. To measure the success we looked at admin time, number of calls taken along with the timeliness of preventive maintenances and modifications. The result was a 17% improvement in productivity, which won the Atlanta Team the "Best in Division Award."

$720,000 Expense Reduction

It doesn't take many 10 hour round trips to only spend 30 minutes on a customer's site before you start thinking there must be a better way. The 30 minutes was the time it took to do a pre-site visit. Pre-sites were needed to ensure the large diagnostic equipment could be delivered to its location. Also, ensure the power and water met proper standards. 

Occasionally, when I would arrive, the local Abbott Sales Rep would be there. I thought it would be better to have the local Sales Rep, who is in the account weekly, do the pre-site. After pitching the idea to Leadership, they agreed to pilot the idea in the Omaha Sales District before going nationwide. 

I developed the plan and training. While the Omaha Sales Reps weren't excited about it, I was able to get them engaged and the training went very well. After the trial period, the program was rolled out to all 1200 Abbott Sales Reps.

A year after the program was fully in place, we multiplied the average cost of a pre-site with the number of instruments shipped. The savings was $720,000. Even better was that this plan allowed the Service team to be more productive freeing them up to respond quicker to service calls or to complete preventative maintenances and modifications in a timely manner.

Over the Years...

Sherri and I are blessed with two great daughters, Andrea and Chelsea. 

Sherri loves taking care of the flowers in her garden.

I like to say our daughters give us rest when we travel and light up the world. Andrea is a Corp Communications Manager at International Hotel Group and Chelsea is a District Manager for IRBY Electrical.

As a Christian, my life verse is 1 Peter 3:15 (NIV) - “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect."