Just how good are your employees at selling high-end phones, mobile imaging, content, and data services? The answer could determine how many sales walk OUT of your store everyday.
“Too many carriers and dealers have not equipped their front line managers and salespeople with the knowledge, skills or products - for that matter - that are necessary to keep pace with technology and changing consumer needs,” says Mark Landiak, President, Corporate Dynamics, Inc., a consulting firm specialized in training the wireless workforce for carriers and retail business owners. Landiak estimates that lost business due to ill-prepared reps and managers will cost the average wireless store over $150,000 in the next 12 months. His company - more commonly referred to as CDI - is currently on the road delivering a series of Wireless Cash Flow conferences. “Our purpose” he says, “is to demonstrate to dealers that there is a formula for recapturing as much of that $150K as possible”.
Wireless retail used to be all about voice activations, free phones and network coverage, but that model is rapidly fading into the background. Today, wireless is all about the functionality of the handset and its ability to mobilize our lives. With regard to enterprise, there is a growing mobile workforce dependent upon data services utilizing ‘in-the-field’ workflow and network communications; with regard to families, there is a growing dependence on the ability to know where the children are 24/7; with regard to a new youth market (12 to 25 year olds), there is an insatiable appetite for cool devices and mobile entertainment, which includes texting friends, downloading music, posting “pics”, watching video and playing games. Landiak says, “the dealer’s new sales model needs to prep their frontline counter and B2B reps, because customers are getting smarter and more demanding.”
CDI has a structured Store Manager curriculum that Landiak says will help frontline managers increase sales effectiveness. They use one-on-one coaching, structured role plays and a process called MAP-ing™ or Mutual Action Planning. CDI’s Sales Training curriculum enlists the manager’s reinforcement of CDI’s process for boosting sales of today’s newest wireless capabilities, which include: High-end devices training; Mobile data solutions; Mobile imaging and Mobile music solutions.
The training and consulting firm is currently involved in an annual initiative with 14 other organizations called, Making Money in Wireless™’. As the initiative’s chief marketing tool, CDI conducts educational presentations and seminars at major industry conferences. (Industry appearances have included: CES, CTIA, RCA, IWCE, NRTC and dozens of manufacturer, carrier and distributor events.) MMW also includes monthly business-building webinars on management topics like Guerrilla Marketing with marketing expert and author, Al Lautenslager, and sales topics like Selling Mobile Data and Mobile Imaging. Culmination at year’s-end is a number of Wireless Business Planning Summits for wireless business owners.
Landiak says that CDI’s “Making Money in Wireless™” gives dealers valuable insight on how to increase profits. CDI introduces them to new products and services as well as creative marketing and sales strategies. The program’s Marketing Director, Meg Nigro, says that for some dealers the initiative has meant the difference between making and losing money. For others who have implemented strategies that they learn at these events, it has meant going from “mildly profitable to wildly profitable.”
CDI also meets with manufacturers to boost awareness and distribution of products and services. Motorola, Nokia, SanDisk, HP and others have worked with the company to introduce their products to sales teams across the country. CDI has also worked with over 30 different carriers on a broad range of issues:
Product and Applications Training: close the knowledge-gap between emerging technologies and sales competence at the point-of-sale.
Sales Training: how to improve closing ratios and increase data feature sales.
Differentiation Strategies to distinguish products and services from the competition.
Bundling Strategies: how to increase sales by including accessories, memory cards, and Bluetooth headsets with every high-end phone.
Customer Service Training: how to decrease charge backs and keep existing customers coming back for more and referring new customers.
Training for Sales and Store Managers: how to boost sales by coaching team performance to the next level.
The majority of CDI’s time is spent with distributors and dealers; they meet on a group or individual basis to work on strategies that “drive their business forward,” says Landiak. “We have a special ‘Top Dealer Program’ where we consult on-site to help with planning and execution. We look at the areas where most dealers are losing money, then attempt to quantify the amount of potential gain and build an implementation plan.” CDI’s survey of wireless dealers this summer uncovered the TOP FOUR CONCERNS to address:
1] Cash Flow and today’s cost of doing business
2] Inability of inexperienced, front-line managers to properly train, coach and manage their staff and their store(s)
3] Finding and retaining a qualified workforce
4] Lack of knowledge or competence of front line sales reps causing lost sales
“It’s tougher for dealers to make money in wireless today versus five years ago. The technology continues to advance faster than the industry’s ability to convey the benefits of it to their customers. The free phone has virtually disappeared and been replaced by high-end handsets that could cost $200 - $400 more than dealers were paying four years ago for basic handsets. That coupled with increasing numbers of competitors, merger mania and changes in the way carriers pay commissions have all forced dealers to become better managers of their bottom line.”
Wireless Dealer Magazine caught up with Landiak while on a leg of his 24-city Cash Flow Conference™ tour across the United States. He describes the Cash Flow Conference (CFC) as “a day for a dealer to step away from his/her business for a strategic look at it from the outside in. Our goal is to show dealers how to capitalize on the technologies and trends driving the industry and profit from them every month.” CFC is an important facet of CDI’s Making Money in Wireless™ initiative, and is sponsored by organizations concerned about the financial position of their wireless customers. ‘06 and ‘07 Sponsors included: HP, SanDisk, Tessco, Brightpoint, Nokia, CEA, WiBOC (Wireless Business Owner’s Consortium) and iQmetrix. Dealers invest up to $595 each to learn strategies to boost sales and profitability. One of the program’s attending dealers, Emily Sauter, Mid-Atlantic Protel, said that CFC was “definitely” worth her time and the two-hour drive. “The ideas presented could easily make or save us $150K.”
For more details - such as a comprehensive listing of services and calendar of the cities on their tour - are posted on the Wireless Business Owners Consortium website http://www.WiBOC.org.
Contact Corporate Dynamics, Inc. at 1-888-267-7396 to see when they’ll be coming to a town near you.