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Performance Compensation is Everyone's Business
This month I will be speaking on Trends and Innovations in Performance Compensation. This section of the newsletter qualifies as a shameless piece of self promotion, but I believe you need to hear what I have to say.
First, the particulars:
When: February 17, 7:30 am - 9 am
Where: Keiser University 6151 Lake Osprey Drive, Sarasota, FL 34240
Who: Lakewood Ranch Business Alliance
How much: $25 ($15 for LWRBA members)
In an effort to motivate you to action consider the following:
There are only about 60 spots left.
This newsletter goes out to about 1,000 businesses and individuals.
The LWRBA has almost five hundred business members.
Everyone wants to know how to get their employees to work better, faster, smarter, harder and this seminar will teach you how.
Space is very limited so reserve your spot by clicking on the link below.
REGISTER HERE
Performance Compensation is one of those phrases that evokes images of corporate board rooms, multi-page employment agreements, and complicated formulas. It can involve all of those things, but it really is much simpler than all of that.
Performance comp is about two things:
- Monetary rewards...
- Based on results.
It does not need to be any more complicated than that. There are two questions that follow which determine what the plan looks like, how it functions, how effective it is, whether it is sustainable and ultimately if it is successful. Those two questions are:
- How much money?
- What results?
Performance comp experts and consultants get paid large amounts of money to answer these two questions for employers. Unfortunately there are scores of answers to each question for any particular business. It is easy for a plan to motivate employees but hurt the business. It is equally easy to build a plan that is great for business cash flow but terrible for long term employee relationships.
What seems to be missing from most businesses is a system and a culture that pays employees for results in the same or similar way in which owners get paid for results.
In my upcoming seminar we are going to teach you what you need to know to build, evaluate, revamp or scrap compensation systems so that they become one of the strengths of the businesses rather than a weakness.
I hope you join us.
REGISTER HERE
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| About Us |
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Axiom is comprised of three separate businesses serving the unique needs of three distinct types of customers.
Axiom Bookkeeping works with small companies and startups to outsource their accounting and financial reporting so business owners can focus on their customers.
Axiom CPA focuses on meeting the tax, accounting and business planning needs of growing companies.
Axiom Consulting works with mid-size companies on strategic planning, organizational development and execution at the senior executive level.
You can find out more about Axiom, our people and our projects at axiomcpa.com.
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Dear Clients and Friends,
This month we are going to talk about sales drivers. This may or may not be a term that you are familiar with so I will try another one, "marketing." The problem with marketing is that it means so many things to so many people. For some marketing means advertising. For others marketing is about brand building. But at its core marketing is about driving sales. So that is what we are going to talk about this month.
I am also doing something a little different this month. I am asking for your feedback. I have five questions I'd like you to answer in a simple, anonymous online survey. If you care to leave your name (and you're in southwest Florida) I'll even say thanks by treating you to lunch.
Best,
Joey
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Who is Your Customer?
It is extraordinarily difficult to sell a product or service without knowing your audience. As crazy as this sounds it happens all the time. The world is full of ingenious inventions that never turned into successful businesses because the inventor could not identify who needed to buy the product.
I try to get business owners to describe EXACTLY who should be using their product. What you need is a mental picture of the person and that picture must be specific. Here are some examples:
Our bookkeeping service is looking for business owners that run companies with less than $1 million in revenue. These owners spend time some of their time selling to customers and know they need to spend more. They know QuickBooks but not accounting. Their computer systems are a couple of years old, but they function reasonably well. They use online banking in some capacity (either personally or for the business). On the personal side they have families that want them to spend more time at home. They have a spouse that sometimes works in the business but would prefer not to. Staying organized is a chore but they can do it when necessary.
Here is another example. A medical billing company is looking for pediatricians with two or three doctors in the same office. They have a nurse or two on payroll, but they cannot yet afford a Physician's Assistant. They use lower end practice management software for scheduling and patient contact information. They have not yet adopted paperless medical records, but know they will in the next 5-7 years. They do not have weekend office hours. Husband/wife medical teams are especially attractive and they prefer to work with pediatricians where one or more of the doctors is involved in youth sports. Our billing company has also decided they want to target pediatrics practices that are still accepting new patients without a waiting list.
Notice what is not in these descriptions. There is no mention of tired phrases like "They understand the difference between price and value" or "they understand it takes money to make money." The reason you can't describe customers this way is because you can't tell by looking at them whether vague statements like this are true. You need to be able to size up prospects, and have referrers size them up for you in tangible, concrete ways. No ambiguity.
There are also some unusual traits that may be hard to connect back to what the business is selling. Does youth sports have anything to do with medical billing? No, but we are not selling medical billing, we are selling TO a pediatrician who sees the value of youth sports. That connection makes for a better business relationship. It could be common interest, it could be the desire to work with a customer who gives back to the community, it could be that the billing company closes a ridiculous amount of business on the little league field.
Your picture will be different. It has to be. Get it down in writing to the point where you can visually picture the customer in your mind's eye. It makes everything that we are going to talk about next possible. |
 Where is your customer?
Once you know who your customer is it becomes much easier to understand where they spend their time. Are they on the internet 24/7? Are they behind the wheel of a car or work truck? Do they have a phone stuck to their head twelve hours a day or are they more likely to be sending email on a Blackberry? Are they hosting PTO functions? Are they on the sales floor or in the back office?
If you are selling to a larger organization the questions are similar. Do they sponsor industry events or are they asked to speak at them? Do they host local charity events or donate to national ones? Are they involved with local chambers of commerce or economic development councils? Do they sponsor major or minor league sports teams or have naming rights on public venues? Where do they test new ideas? What stores or divisions are used for roll outs and product launches?
When dealing with larger companies you still need to get personal. At some point you are going to need to paint a very clear picture of the actual decision maker. Then you will need to answer this same question, "Where are the decision makers?"
Why is this important? It should be obvious. You can't sell to someone if you are not sharing the same space with them. That space may not be physical (think internet social networks or outdoor advertising) but it is relevant.
If we go back to our medical billing example we can surmise a few things to give our sales rep a running start. Obviously involvement in youth sports provides great networking opportunities. Targeting smaller practices with only one or two nurses means they are more likely to be at local continuing education seminars as opposed to national conventions that would shut down the office for a week. No Saturday office hours means that weekends are probably a good time for followup appointments to close the sale. Going after pediatricians that are still accepting new patients means prospecting in higher growth, younger demographic markets as opposed to more established sections of the community.
Once you know what your customers look like and where they are you can start answering the third question.
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 What message will compel your customer to act?
This is somewhat of a loaded question because it presupposes that you know what "act" means. It is different for every business. A business should have an expectation about the set of actions people take when buying their product or service. For instance, in the bookkeeping practice we know that most people do not make a purchase decision on the spot, and truthfully we don't want them to. Instead the first action we expect is a follow-up in the owner's office where we can review their current practices and get a sense of just how much time we can save the owner. Knowing what we want the owner to do helps us answer the question "what message will compel them to do it?"
In the bookkeeping example by far the message that gets the best results is a testimonial from a friend citing specifics about how much time was saved, what the friend was able to do with this newly found time, and what that time has meant for the friend's business. Not surprisingly, a great deal of our marketing efforts are built around getting testimonials and finding out which friends would get the most out of that example.
Another message that is effective has to do with saving the spouse who is spending evenings and weekends trying to "catch up" on bookkeeping without really knowing whether the final product is right or wrong. That message may sound like this, "If we could take all of the grunt work off of your spouse and email you both a set of financial reports that the two of you could go over together would that be more valuable than what you are doing now?"
All of this sounds obvious, but it is only obvious because you know exactly WHO I am talking to and you know exactly WHERE I am talking to that person. A different bookkeeping practice might be pitching their technology advantage, or their price point, or their integrated tax service, or the connections they have. The message is only obvious AFTER you know the WHO and the WHERE.
The only thing left is to ACT. Action means delivering that message as often as possible, as efficiently as possible, as sincerely as possible. And that is what drives sales.
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 Tell us what you think?
Many of you told us to bring back the newsletter in 2010 so that is what we have done. In the interest of giving you more of what you want I am asking for some feedback. About 300 of you take time to read the newsletter, click on the links and participate in some way in our discussion. This time I am asking you for a little more participation.
The link below will take you to a quick, anonymous five question survey that will help Axiom create something that adds even more value to your life and business. Please take a few seconds and respond to the survey.
My offer still stands. If you care to leave your name on the survey I'll buy you lunch.
Thanks for your help.
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