Now, let's talk a little bit about managing sales expenses. So, to start, tell us a little bit about how your company handles sales expenses for your sales force. Well when it first came on board they offered me a corporate card that would be in my name, and I fill expense account out every week and submit it for reimbursement and I'd use that to pay the card, or I also have the option to use my own card. With the difference being, I would then get any rewards points that came from any of those purchases. So, I chose to use my own card and reap the airline miles. Now, we talked in our lesson about how there's kind of two different ways of handling sales expenses. One, where salespeople were reimbursed which it sounds like that's what you're currently working under, but the other one is where sales people receive additional compensation and then cover their expenses out of pocket. Have you had any experience with this other way of working? I'm not, but I do have a friend who has. And I find that, if you're doing business to business sales, the reimbursement is really the profitable strategy just because, in my industry, it's not predictable. My expenses aren't always as consistent. You can count on me driving roughly the same number of miles every week, but sometimes no one's free for lunch, and especially during the summer, it's a downtime. And then when fall comes around I may have to host a dinner for 15 guys and pick up the tab. So, when your expenses peak and valley like that, I'm more comfortable with the reimbursement strategy than just receiving an extra stipend. However, I mean it's my friend's experience of the extra stipend really forces him to control his expenses. He really is very good and very careful because that becomes his money. And it works better for him, because again, he's dealing with people on a one-on-one basis. They come to his office, maybe he takes them the lunch, maybe he gets some things for the office, but it's not as volatile as my experience with them. Now, you mentioned travel being a big part of your sales expenses. Yes. As I believe they are for many salespeople. So, how important is travel to your company's sales, and how does that factor into your expense plan? Well, first off, it depends upon the salesman. One of the things we do employ for companies that have multiple locations and central headquarters are corporate salesman. So, for example, a customer will be assigned to account that has headquarters in Cleveland, but facilities all across the United States, that salesman travels quite a bit. You reel in a lot of airline miles, lot of hotels, part on the road, three to four nights a week. Some are more local, like the position I'm lucky enough to be in at the moment. Fewer hotel stays, fewer plane travels, but still, I probably travel between 150 to 200 miles a day, simply back and forth all across my area, because I think it's important to meet people face to face. I would not make a capital investment with someone that I hadn't shake hands with. So, to me I think, if you're not in front of someone, they forget about you. You got to be in their present mind. Now, do you have any limits on what you can and can't expect to be reimbursed? I'm sure I do. I have yet to come across a situation where I'd been told no. But I'm fairly careful with that. For the most part, my expenses, I'm reimbursed for my mileage, donuts or breakfast that I choose to bring into a shop, any meals I buy with customers, the occasional happy hour, and then the other expense that I have most likely is printing. I print a lot of quotes and I hand deliver a lot of quotes. And if I haven't had the foresight to do that before I leave the house, I run the staples or Office Depot and get the printing done there. Now, part of the goal with a sales expense plan is to strike a balance between being economical without being cheap. How does your company try to strike that balance? Well, I don't know if we have a defined principle regarding it, but we certainly have a logic to it. For example, if a customer is looking at purchasing, this is just me personally, how I dictate because I've never explained it, but for an introduction, I think generally taking you out to lunch or bringing donuts to the shop, is appropriate for farther down a quotation when customers starting to get engaged, I think at that point, it's appropriate to start introducing dinner or drinks or a little bit of entertainment. But it's more of a gut feel than the principal guideline. And I think that's pretty reasonable. So, you talked a little bit about how you will have some periods where your expenses are higher and some periods where it's lower. How do you try to plan ahead to forecast these expenses? Well, for the most part you can see them coming based on your sales pipeline. If you have a lot of quotes that are in their infancy in May, you can expect those quotes to start gaining more traction, come say, September, and also depending upon your travel schedule. We have a machine tool show every year in September in Chicago, and I guarantee that will be my highest expense week of the year. But for the most part if you can predict roughly when your sales are going to start to close, you can then start predicting when you're going to have to start buying more dinners, you're going to have to start making more visits the shop, you're gonna have to start traveling more, but for the most part, when you're quotes are early on, they're not as expensive. So, one the problems with reimbursement plan, like you work under, is that it takes a lot of administrative work to keep track of all that. Does your company do anything to help manage the burden of administrating all this? I mean, the way we work is, there are certain checks and balances. I will send it. I will submit my form through a standardized website which will then be checked by one person, checked by territory manager and then finally checked by accounting before it's sent out. I think that by standardizing the form and by making it easily accessible website, they take out as much as they possibly can for that, but I can't speak to anything beyond that. So, how does the reimbursement policy at your company fit with the goals that your company has for customer relationships? Well, the reimbursement policies always been very fair and very reasonable to me, I've never come across a problem with any of it. Because of that, I've always had the luxury of getting customers what I think they need at the time. If I think they're appreciative of me bringing in donuts to the shop, I'm happy to do that and because I'm going to be quickly reimburse for that, I have no problem putting my deck out there. Have you ever maybe in a previous position had any situations where the reimbursement policy made your job more difficult? I did have a situation where it just took a while to get a cheque and it was a bit of a challenge. It put me to bind financially, a little harder, and it made me a little more hesitant to go ahead and get that printing done to buy those strengths. Things that I would usually not particularly worry about, and would free me up to do my job suddenly became a bit of a burden, and maybe think twice before reacting. So, in your years of experience, what lessons have you learned about the way a sales expense plan can shape how a company meets it's goals? Well, first copies to accepting that new customers are going to be more expensive than old customers. I've run into trouble over the years, not forecasting properly, not understanding when sales are actually going to close can become a challenge for them sometimes. But I've been lucky enough to not really run into many positions where that's. All right. Thank you very much. My pleasure. So, I think this is an interesting question to ask people, what advice would you give a younger you who's trying to move up in a company that trying to become a sales manager? Learn as much as he can. I think knowledge about your product is really the key to helping other salesmen. That's what I rely on my managers, the most fortunate to get me the answers I need. So that's the first step. It's not always the best salesman who makes the best manager. But that being said, if you can manage relationships with your customers to the appropriate level, then you should be able to manage relief through salesmen as well. So, what do you think are the qualities of the best sales operation manager? Organization. I mean, I can't stress that enough really, and the ability to coach and teach other organizations. One of the things that I value for my sales managers in the past has been setting up systems for how I manage, and record my activity, and then how that past activity can then dictate what I do in the future. Been lucky enough to have some good mentors in that area. Now in your experience, how often does the sales manager set up other sales people to work with each other or learn from each other? Very regularly, especially in the beginning. I filled last handful of months working very closely to someone who took over part of his territory and his territory is shifted as well and grown, but in a different direction. He's been a real asset to me and my sales managers facilitated that relationship by first making sure that that other salesmen is taken care of to the point that he doesn't use comfortable sharing time with me to doubt my personal growth. Leveraging more experienced salesman is crucial. So, what keeps you in sales? I mean, besides the obvious, what keeps you driven to drive all those miles? I genuinely just enjoy talking to people. I just really like meeting people, getting to know them, getting to understanding their problems. One of the things I talk about a lot is corporate risk, what's your risk, and helping people limit that. The other question I'd like to ask is, what keeps you up at night? I've always been lucky enough to represent a product that I feel could help a lot of people with what keeps them up at night and it's enjoyable. So, it sounds like passion is a big part of what you do. \. I look things up like to think I'm pretty passionate about it. A lot of my customers are pretty passionate about what they do, and everyone is looking to save a second both because time is money, and because that makes them better. That's a real passion for them. So, doing things better, something they love, and I like helping them. So, what types of organization skills have you come across or used that a sales operation manager you think makes them a success, like organizational skills or something that they do? First off, I always say as a salesman, I'm not always going to know the answer, but it's my job to get you the answer within 24 hours. I think a lot of my great sales managers have the same philosophy. Even if it's honestly about a product is usually had the answer for that. If I'm having trouble cracking into aerospace accounts, a good sales manager will say, ''Well, I want to speak to so and so." He's had a lot of success with an aerospace. Or why don't you try this email or try this phone call or this verbiage. It's really interesting. I had asked this to a friend of mine and I thought it was interesting. I asked him, what has kind of mantra or his motto was just for himself. You can either do the daily affirmation. Yup. Actually, I believe in a lot of those. So, I would not above looking in the mirror when I'm feeling down and trying to pick myself up, it feels a little hokey, a little storage smalley, but I'll tell myself, "I'm good enough and smart enough." I have been known to watch Glengarry Glen Ross and the Alec Baldwin speech. I do believe that no one knows stuff through real competence and fake confidence. So, I walk in knowing that I'm just going to have to fake it and find that when I hadn't been exposed as a faker, that all of sudden I have real confidence. So that's pretty much it. That's great. Let me see if there's anything else that I thought of because I think you touched almost everything else. Okay. So, did Clint ask you, when I think he did, but maybe not, what got you started in sales in the first place? Yeah, second generation machine tools. It was my father was a machine tool salesman and I mean, I guess I started off in machine tools working his Christmas party taking coats and getting to know those guys. As I've come up in the ranks, I still run into a lot of different social events and things like that. So, it is having dinners with them, and having them around the house, and having my father of course around shaped my personality into something that was similar to that of the typical salesman. So, I was lucky enough to be able to use them. All right. I think you've answered all my questions. Thank you. Thank you. My pleasure.
