Moti-Vitality

Where to Find Your New Professional

There are more and more water treatment dealers reading this (and perhaps one or two or 3 max, not reading this…I mean, after all, it is a Kelly Thompson exclusive) who for whatever reason have found themselves in the position of needing to add to their professional teams.  Perhaps they finally got fed up with some of the toxicity in the organization and made the extremely difficult decision to replace it with professionalism.  Or, maybe and hopefully, the recovery of the economy has created a necessity for a larger professional team.

Whatever the reason, hiring can be extremely expensive and time consuming.  This is the reason the experience creates a sour taste and dread of the process for so many owners and managers.  They know they need to hire but they don’t have the time or the experience to interview properly.  The result is that they often hire the first individual who showed up on time for an interview and did not  have 2 different color socks on.
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As published in December’s edition of WCP Magazine…

A meeting I was having with Steve,  who owns a water treatment dealership in Ohio was interrupted by a local computer repair professional returning a desktop that he had been working on for about a week and a half.  Steve was very relieved to have his system back and gladly, but with obvious frustration wrote a check for nearly half of what a new desk top would have cost.  Steve confided in me that this was the third time that he had to send out an office computer for repairs because of a virus or in one case a disgruntled employee that had changed operating system access passwords.  I asked what his office computer policies were and he said that while he knew he should have something in place he did not know where to begin.  He is not very computer literate himself and had no idea how to implement or enforce a computer policy.

I have found this to be a common concern for many dealers.  Computers obviously have become a necessity in our business.  But many owners and managers have neither the time nor the interest in learning about them.  Computer repair companies have made a lot of money banking on the fact that owners and managers remain intimidated by the almighty computer.

While there are certainly some situations where an IT (information technology) professional  should be consulted, many of the most common problems can be avoided by creating a simple computer use policy in your organization.

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I was so excited!  Nervous, but excited.   

My first real appointment as a water treatment sales professional was with a doctor from India.  Madhu was his name.  I was going to do a great full and thorough demo.  When I got to the house, I was greeted with a hello…I think.  The entire family was very nice.  They had just finished supper, and the wife cleared the dishes from the floor as I made my way to the kitchen, which was easy to do as there was no cumbersome furniture to work my way around.  I had my Hach test kit and all the knowledge on how to use it.  I had my presentation book with all the great pictures and all the explanations of the hydrologic cycle and why my products were so much better than everyone else’s products. After my tests, we all sat around on the living room floor, and I tried to build value to a husband and wife that understood very few words of English while the quite beautiful  kids with unpronounceable (by me) names kept turning the pages of my presentation book.  I left the home forty-five minutes later, without the sale, after giving my price for the recommended system.  As I was driving home and trying to overcome my frustration, I began to realize the inadequacy of all the training material out there. 

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I guess I miss the good ‘ole days.  The days when work ethic was developed and service meant something more than fixing something.  It has been a long time since we had that, not only in our industry but in our society as well.  One of the great things about the economy right now is that we are being forced to bring back that service mentality.

(Warning…Grandpa alert!)  I remember when I was looking for my first job.  I was 16 years old and I rode my bicycle (up hill, both ways, in the rain, of course) around to pick up job applications at fast food places.  I easily filled out at least 30 applications in a couple of week’s time.  When I got a call to an interview at Long John Silver’s I wore a tie to the interview.  I also wore a tie to the second interview.  I was grateful when I was invited to work at a place where I would have the honor of burning the heck out of my hands as I dipped battered fish that was destined to provide the catalyst for many a heart attack.  And I was thrilled to be doing it all for the incredible fee for service of $3.00 per hour. Click here

As I have had an opportunity to speak with other water treatment dealers from across the country, I have heard over and over again how the effectiveness of advertising is diminishing.  I hear owners speak about how they continue to put more and more money into advertising while getting fewer and fewer leads.

I have been in sales in one form or another for well over 30 years and for as long as I can remember, I have heard trainers and managers talk about the importance of a sales person creating their own business.

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Presenting without the Magic

Well, here we are in the magical month of November. We are done with Halloween but unfortunately many in our industry are still using scary sales tactics. (As I write this, I realize that that just may have been the cheesiest segue ever!) Most of us have access to a test kit filled with all kinds of nifty chemicals that can turn a prospect’s water pretty much any color we want to turn it. We can make it bubble or fizz. We can make it look absolutely disgusting. In fact, many of the tools we carry in our test kits are designed to build the emotional level of a prospect so high that they will be willing to write a check for whatever we ask for.

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