Excerpts from Fall Fastener Meetings: Clayborn, Holmes, Potter & Kloeber

John Wolz

Clayborn: �No� Is Among Worst Words
If you are a customer, the worst responses are �no,� �company policy,� and �I don�t have time,� Steven Clayborn said at a Western Association of Fastener Distributors seminar.
�I�ll make that happen� and �I will personally put it on the truck� are among Clayborn�s recommended phrases.
�Don�t tell a customer what you cannot do, tell her or him what you can do to resolve the problem,� he advised.
Points to ponder from Clayborn:
�Relationship and trust go hand-in-hand. If you don�t have trust, you are not going to make the sale.�
�If it takes more than five seconds for a customer to grasp what visual aids tell, then the visual aids are too complicated.�
�A customer nodding his or her head does not necessarily mean he or she is agreeing.�
�Find points of agreement, not differences.�
�Many sales calls are lost by salespeople �overtalking� instead of listening.�
�Unless you get feedback, you don�t know if they were listening.�
�Smile even before you pick up the phone for a sales call.�
�Body posture and a firm handshake are important. A weak handshake indicates the salesperson is tired or a pushover.�
�If an angry customer comes in to complain, it means the customer must still trust you to fix the problem.�
�You are not trying to find out who is at fault, you are trying to solve the problem.�
Clayborn�s advice on using e-mail:
� Check regularly.
� Don�t send an attachment they can�t read.
� Don�t type in all caps or all lower case.
� Don�t write anything in e-mail you wouldn�t say in person.
� Don�t reply to all unless all need the reply.

Holmes: Fire �Old Joe�
If �Old Joe� is your company to the customer, then fire Old Joe, Chuck Holmes told a seminar on �Selling in the 21st Century.�
At a Western Association of Fastener Distributors conference Holmes said having outside sales people go out and do the same selling over and over again won�t work anymore.
Holmes cited Industrial Distribution magazine research showing 96% of customers would forgo regular sales calls for a 10% discount in price.
Holmes, of Atlanta-based Corporate Strategies Inc., said his research pegged the �value of outside sales to the customer� at 5.8 on a scale of 10.
�The one thing we can say about customers in today�s market is that they want to improve their business,� Holmes said. �It is our job to find out how and make it happen.�
Customers want to measure that improvement in dollars and cents, Holmes added.
For example, show customers that by going to a JIT program they can save the $24,000 salary of a purchasing assistant, $26,000 for an inventory clerk, $20,000 on reduced inventory and $10,000 on reduced receiving and handling costs.
Showing a customer the numbers on how you can improve their business is better than customers wanting to improve their profit margins by decreasing yours.
Salespeople generally work mostly on supplying �stuff� customers want, because that�s what they have been trained to do.
Holmes suggested training salespeople to find solutions to the customer�s business problems. �That is where you create the highest barrier to competitors.�
Before calling on a customer, salespeople should ask themselves �for the purposes of this sales call � are you better than (a) an inside salesperson, (b) a fax machine, (c) a computer or (d) an Internet site?
Holmes said the emphasis should be on winning the account, not the transaction, that �it�s the team, not the individual,� and �it�s meeting company objectives by meeting customer objectives.�
�It�s not protecting turf but getting results that makes you money. It�s a dumb quarterback that doesn�t use his team.�
Holmes advised salespeople to read Purchasing magazine. �It is better to read what the customer is reading, than what we already read,� he explained.
Company managers should want employees to make money. �You can make a lot more money worrying about how your people can make money than worrying about how you can make money,� Holmes philosophized.
�I am not interested in decreasing compensation,� Holmes said. �The more a salesperson makes, the more the company makes.�
Rule 1: We can sell value that everybody understands � quantifiable value added.
Rule 2: Sell to the customer just as the customer wants to be sold to.
Rule 3: If the customer you�re selling to won�t buy from you, find another customer in the same company. �You can�t visit just the purchasing people.�
Rule 4: �The worst thing about unprofitable customers is not that they don�t make you money, it�s that they cost you money.�
Holmes� Rules To Live By
� Pick your targets.
� Practice the �better than� principle.
� Make multiple connections.
� Use your resources.
� Know that tomorrow will be different.

Potter: Five Common Personnel Mistakes
Human resources consultant Tom Potter of San Antonio, TX-based Preventive Personnel Services, said he finds five common personnel mistakes:
1. Crisis hiring. Potter refers to this as the �warm body syndrome,� and triggers are a low interview-to-hire ratio, outdated application forms, untrained interviewers or no reference checks.
2. Bad terminations, or �crisis firing.� Causes can be a lack of approval required for discharge, �knee jerk� discharge, no progressive discipline followed, the actual discharge being handled poorly and no appearance of due process. Suspensions are better than on-the-spot firings, Potter said. �Let tempers cool,� he advised.
There must be documentation with employee acknowledgement of verbal warnings. Reprimands must not be too old or too vague, he added.
�If it�s not written down, it didn�t happen,� Potter explained. �Your manager who remembers may not be your manager forever. There is no such thing as a verbal warning.
3. Ignorance of labor laws. Problems occur with front-line supervisors being unaware of laws, no centralized personnel function, no ongoing management training, spotty attempts at training, and no source to call with questions.
4. No employee handbook or an inadequate handbook. Handbooks should not be taken from other companies and should be kept up-to-date. Management must follow what the handbook says. �A handbook forces consistent treatment. But if they are not followed, it is better not to have one.�
18 Major Employment Laws
Though Potter�s list is specifically for Texas, most of the laws are federal, or there are equivalent laws in other states.
For companies with 1 to 14 employees: Texas Worker�s Compensation Act, Texas Unemployment Compensation Act, Fair Labor Standards Act (Wage/Hour Law), National Labor Relations Act, Immigration Reform & Control Act of 1986, Occupational Safety & Health Act of 1970, Texas Payday Law, Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988, and the Uniformed Services Employment & Reemployment Rights Acts of 1994.
For companies with 15 to 19 employees: Americans with Disabilities Act, Title VII/Civil Rights Act of 1964, Drug Policy requirements of the Worker�s Compensation Act and Texas Commission on Human Rights Act.
For companies with 20 to 49 employees: Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 and COBRA.
For companies with 50 to 99 employees: Family & Medical Leave Act of 1993 and E.O. 11246 (Affirmative Action required of federal government contractors).
For companies with 100+ employees: Worker Adjustment & Retraining Notification Act.

Kloeber: Internet Opening New Sources
The old Czechoslovakia was once a significant fastener producer, and the Internet is bringing the Eastern European area back into the world market.
�These guys are back in business,� Christian Kloeber of FastenerExchange.com told the Southwestern Fastener Association conference. �Eastern Europe is very interested in business in Europe.�
Kloeber noted that the W�rth Group of Germany is actively buying in Turkey now.
Business-to-Business use of the Internet will jump from $250 billion this year to $3 trillion in 2002, Kloeber predicted.
The fastener Internet trading platforms have been touting reduced purchasing, storage and freight costs, time savings and other advantages. Kloeber mentioned several additional ways the trading platforms are changing the market:
� A trend toward world pricing.
� The trading platforms can assist manufacturers with backorder problems. The manufacturer can keep a customer happy by finding alternative suppliers on the Internet.
� Trading platforms make it easy to speculate on fastener prices. Prices can be updated every second.
� Payments may be increasingly instant, and that makes exchange rates less of an issue. FastenerExchange.com is working with 12 major international banks on electronic transfer of money.
� Users of portals will be able to choose their own language. Already manufacturers in Taiwan can log-in to FastenerExchange.com and choose to work in Chinese.
� Kloeber suggested that Fastener-Exchange.com�s members �are becoming the first international association.�\