This guide gives updated strategies and tactics for balancing short-term profits with long-term performance. It describes how to: implement total quality selling to gain a competitive edge; boost productivity and enhance salespeople's loyalty; implement a progressive goal management system that links individual goals to corporate performance; apply micro- and macro-management tools to maximize sales performance; use the computer as an analytical tool for improving territory management and boosting productivity; and address poor performance and increase sales.
Joe started his sales career working for Merck & Co in their industrial water treatment division after graduating from Muhlenberg College. He was selected to the President's club his second year out of college and later promoted to market manager in his seven years at Merck.
While living in Pittsburgh, he was recruited in what would turn out to be a ten-year career with Nicolet/Thermo Fisher selling FT-IR. There were two turnaround opportunities: 1) Sales rep where he reversed the negative growth of the Pittsburgh & Upstate New York territory with a 368% increase year one becoming the top sales rep out of 26 reps in the US. 2) General Sales Manager over 18 reps where Joe's team increased FT-IR share of market from 20% to 40% in the Western United States. He documented many of his approaches tools and processes in the best selling sales management book Building the High Performance Sales Force.
Personal reasons precluded Joe's moving to headquarters. Starting his own business, he created an innovative organizational execution model to identifying barriers to strategy execution. With alliances such as the American Productivity & Quality Center and personnel from the Great Place to Work Institute, Joe was able to research, publish and commercialize a web-based tool named EnMotiva. Several organizations were able to show significant improvements both in productivity and in business results within a one to six month period of time.
Joe's team affiliation and team building instincts led to a desire to move from management consulting to a senior sales leadership role at Perkin Elmer for two years. The extraordinary challenges included transforming the organization both financially and move the organization from mediocrity to excellence. In one year, contribution margin went from negative to high positive single digits. His 120 personnel sale team developed a sense of personal accountability, which later became team accountability. He assumed additional responsibility such as supporting the development of a new channel development program, creating a strategic account management team, and integrating field marketing.
He left Perkin Elmer at the end of 2009 a better place then when he arrived. His position as Director of Sales and other senior leadership positions were eliminated in a new organizational design. Shortly after leaving Perkin Elmer, Joe started an Executive MBA program and was referred into a consulting assignment with a portable technology company.
