MIS And Feedback

....
Ha-ha. Does the pic seems funny to you?  It does to me. Now, if you are  thinking that ' the bastard is about to go in a long, sanctimonious lecture, again..Help :-) Lol!
 You need not be scared. I just want to tell you or "share with you" something about "Management Information Systems" and their role in Indian Companies.

Let us analyze what Mr. Boss is doing on top of the arrow. The conversation may be something like this.
Boss: Nope! I don't like it.Somehow alters the view ; aesthetic point of view. Not that I expect you bummers even to know what "Aesthetic" means.You people do not know what a good sales view is. Put me the...ere, instead.
Engineer #8: ( sotto voice) Does he mean that his bum is aesthetic, considering that's what we see almost all the time?
Engineer #7: ( sotto voice) Ha-ha; good one dude but keep your voice low

         A very important system in an organization which can result in an organization being buried  and failing woefully or rising up from the ashes, sphinx like, is MIS. What is MIS? MIS or management information system is the system available in your organization through which information flows, not gossip, not political diatribe but positive information. Business Information which does good for your company.

When the MNC's first arrived in India, we were optimistic that we were going to see some good management practices, after all. But nothing happened like that. The amalgamation of Indo-European Management thinking, literally made sales people account for every minute of your time. There is a particular MNC in Noida, where even branch managers have to fill out timing..Now, I believe that filling up a form where you are required to mention the waiting time too is absurd.( There is a journey time, a waiting time, a meeting time and a miscellaneous time)
There are plenty of reasons why this is absurd but my main bone of contention is that the minute someone is asked to do that, he or she ceases to be loyal soldiers of the commander-in-chief, if they comply.They instead become hear and doers, they become "yesman"-that creative spark inside them fizzles out and the challenge of capital equipment selling becomes a dodo.

        Well, a kangaroo lady I know and plenty of other departmental heads will not understand that. They'll say "  we are paying you big bucks man, this is the least you can do for us. They then proceed to tell you what to do and at the end of the year they ask what happened to you. Hey lady..back off. You want to place responsibility on me with you taking all the decisions? This is not acceptable at all. These lapses all the more important in capital equipment selling where there are few orders and less players. You gotta speak up for your rights.

         This is a tragedy. Today we have one of the best inventories for minds if not the best and look where we are going, in comparison to the Chinese-next door. Say you are Fernando Torres and the coach tells you that he must score a hat trick. A hat-trick has to be made irrespective of the side of the field where the goals are to be scored. So, Torres finds the going tough and ultimately score his hat-trick against his own team. 

Torres scoring for Chelsea against Sunderland while Juan Mata looks on.








     You must be in splits by now now...but these things do happen. Look around in your office, and you'll find the same happening day-in and day-out. Therefore, in selling capital equipment, let your team the freedom to think for themselves as per their capabilities. Take stock in weekly sales meetings. Gather all information and link it together to get information about new projects. Tell them what to do and why they should do it.

Do not tell them to do something without any explanations. For this indirectly tells him that you don't trust him. And lack of trust is one of the greatest demotivators -in the field of B2B direct selling of high value capital equipment. 
with love
friends
Bilbo.

Stage II : The Most Important Stage

Hello Friends,

We now come to the middle 

portion, and the events that take 

place here, are going to make or 

break, all the hard work done. 

Here the main job is to

“Follow –Up”. Yes –I know that

follow ups can be a bit of a bore

sometimes.

But dude, there is just no help for it. You want to sell, you have to develop enthusiasm for follow-up

"Follow up has to be done if you want to sell."

There was once this Sales Guru called Pup

Whose favorite dish was fish-heads in Ketchup’

“The three basic rules" he'd say

“in the science of sales any day"

“Is follow-up, follow-up and FOLLOW-UP”

In Public Sector Tendering, what happens now is that Materials Dept. sends your file back to person who indented for it. This means the department and the officer who required it in the first place. I am assuming that you have built a relationship with the him/her by now. After that post in relationship selling, I am assuming that you-my readers-are using it to the extent possible.A few things have to be kept in mind when you are participating in Public Sector selling through Tenders, of capital equipment.

1.The "Indenter" is interested to know whether the equipment that you are trying to sell will give him the service he requires or not. Even if there is a single iota of doubt, he won’t proceed ahead on your proposal. Therefore, what you need to have in dollops is confidence. Because trust me, very few people can let their inner confusion not show outside. (The indenter will be an experienced person and he will barely need to ask two or three questions to know that you have no idea of what you are speaking about.). So try to get rid of all your confusion if you have any.

2.If you are representing a foreign OEM, then your product may have done fabulous work in Brazil and Peru. Do not make the mistake of glorifying these achievements. Their presence on your experience list is enough. Maybe you are new in India and have sold only one or two units so far. Glorify that achievement. That will serve you in better steed then the South American glorious stories.

Now, what about service? Do you have service people in your company who are competent as well as presentable? Or,  is your management only thinking about recruiting people? Or, maybe you have already hired experienced engineers and you've sent them overseas for training? Please note that you should not tell lies and untruths. If your product is slightly technically inferior, tell the truth. Even a person who is not the champion intellect is more likely to buy a slightly technically inferior product but with good service rather then a sophisticated gizmo which requires four(4) days for someone to come over from Koln.

Always remember that “ what the customer is interested in knowing: is how your product can help his organization in the subject application. He is definitely not interested in knowing about anything else before that..not the strict QA policy you have..not the prize for CRM your Paris Office won..no, nor even your recent order from Mars. This may appear to be obvious but we sometimes fall victim to our ego's. Talk to the point.

 It maybe so that your competitor's equipment had failed somewhere. Maybe your accessory life is higher. Do not criticize your competitor. Do not bring these up. Sometimes you have to be a little unethical!. But  do keep a professional looking paper which lists everything...on a plain white paper with you where your competitor's evil record is exposed and your advantages are monetized to the extent possible. Use it discreetly only when required. (say customer says”I heard that your equipment caused problems in… from… You can then say its funny, look at this..maybe I’ve got something here..Aaah here it is..I’ve never told you anything because I don’t believe in negative marketing)

That's the end of Part II and the file goes back to the Materials department.

Looking forward to the next time,we sign off now

Your friendly blogger

Bilbo