Conference ilbbak::us_sales_service

    The question is what did YOU think of the DVN Jim? 
    
    Evidently this notes file is still a little gun shy of stating
    opinions!
    
    I thought Bob Palmer was great. I hope he acts the way he talks. He
    obviously has a respect for sales that Ken had trouble showing (I think
    Ken respected the people in sales but not the function).
    
    The thing that hit close to home for me was Don's comment that moving
    sales support from delivery to sales was a mistake. Out here in
    Wisconsin it's working great! I agree that we need to make it SUPER
    EASY to move talented people freely between presales and delivery.
    Maybe even incent people to do it. Say $1/hr to the rep and manager for
    each hour that a support person does delivery work and vise versa  for
    delivery people. We could trust SBS to let us know... ;-)
    
    But aligning presales support people with delivery would be a disaster
    at this point. The synergy between sales and support has never been
    better, let's not spoil it.
    
    Anybody else want to share their opinions?
    
    Don

    You're right in the fact that I asked an open questions.
    
    I want to say that I actually called in, but had to step away for
    business reasons. 
    
    I was impressed as heck with Bob Palmers attitude. What a difference in
    his speech practices, compared to Ken. I admired Ken's way of thinking
    about every word he was going to say...slowly, Bob is right there when
    it comes to speaking!!
    
    The part that I am most concerned with and I'm not saying I disagree
    but the Pay for Perfomance part...I still believe there are VP's in
    this company that don't have a good knowledge or "plan" for their
    products/solutions. I would like to say that we are going to finally
    play a serious game of long over due hardball. I hope that they throw
    any ump[ires out also who don't understand the game!!
    
    I think we all know it's time to buckle down, but let's get on with it
    and move this company into sync with everything!!
    
    Jim who knows change is good.

    re: .1
    
    I agree completely. We have created a wonderful organization down here
    with sales support and delivery seperate. As Bob Palmer pointed out
    with his "DATA" comment, where is the "data" which supports moving sales
    support back to delivery?

    Well, they're laying off delivery people who aren't 'profitable' -
    customer sat be damned, I guess... 

    Unfortunately I cannot agree with the wonderfulness of the split
    between sales support and delivery.
    
    IMO there has been a lot lost due to the split.  One big item is that
    customers often feel there is a 'bait and switch' being played on them
    when sales support consultant convinces them to trust Digital and then
    swaps in someone else to deliver the service sold.
    
    Another item lost was the close coordination between the sales pipeline
    for consulting with the available consultants/skills.
    
    One result of these issues that I've observed is a tendency to sell
    sales support people to do consulting.  I manage a unit of 12 people. 
    At one point 6 of them were out on consulting assignments!  This is
    good for revenue and expense but but not good for certs.
    
    I believe there is value in close account relationships but I don't
    think sales support needs to be as far from delivery as it is now to
    allow that to happen.  Close coordination between delivery and
    sales/support is essential.
                                
    Peter Dillard

    I was with a customer all day that day.  But now I've heard from a
    couple sources that big changes are coming with the car plans.  Anybody
    have a summary of what went on?
    
    - Greg

    Plan A - $.22/mile for all personal miles, no more $30/week you just
    		pay for personal usage. If you get a smaller car, it's
    		only $.19/mile personal use, smaller cars yet to be
    		defined.
    
    Plan B - $350/month base, with adder for high cost areas. $.08/mile
    		for business miles, 5 yr old cars now acceptable. Cost
    		based on Runzheimer analysis.

    re .5
    
    You pointed out something being widely done across the geographies -
    selling sales support for revenue. Yes this impacts "future" revenue as
    they are then unable to assist in bringing in futures. In all fairness,
    this could be due to the delivery team(s) being already used to
    generate revenue, so I can understand sales management in saying "why
    not?" Also, in similar logic, I've seen delivery personnel used in
    sales support roles too.
    
    I know this may be akin to blasphemy, as we all deal in "turf", as
    Palmer so well stated. Consider the following - since the roles of
    sales support and delivery are in practice frequently being merged or
    swapped, why notust have ONE organization or group in each office that
    handles both functions? Less turf, less organizational issues, less
    customer satisfaction issue when one person sells and then some
    stranger shows up to deliver, etc. More of the "you sold this to me, so
    you're going to be on the delivery team, right?"
    
    Just thinking out loud.

While it may be wise to train all of our Delivery Consultants to sell, I don't 
think its wise to try and train all of our Sales Support people to deliver.

Everyone should be selling, all the time.   Thats why all functions belong 
under Sales, and thats why the District Sales Manager should be God for that
district.  (We are the only major computer vendor who is not aligned that way)

Giving a Delivery person some selling skills will result in a good delivery
person, selling marginally.   That's ok.  If only for being able to ask the
right probing questions.

Giving a Sale Support person some delivery skills will result in a good Sales
Support person, delivering marginally.  That's NOT ok.   When the customer 
is paying top dollar for Delivery... they expect top quality.

Sales, Sales Support, and Delivery, are three separate functions, with three
separate skills portfolios.   It is a mistake to try and make them inter-
changable.

My $.02

Bob

       <<< Note 148.6 by ANGLIN::SCOTTG "Greg Scott, Minneapolis SWS" >>>
                                 -< Car plan? >-

See note 2043 in HUMAN::DIGITAL for a general discussion of the DVN, and I 
believe note 1664 talks about the car plan (if that is wrong, there is a 
pointer in one of the replies to 2043).

    re .9
    
    While I may agree with you on some points, like
    
    Sales and (Sales Support/Delivery people) should not
    be interchanged.
    
    However, from experience, the knowledge gained by individuals switching
    from Sales Support to Delivery outweighs any short comings.
    
    I started with Digital in delivery in 1984.
    
    While in Sales Support 1987-1990 I was able to sell delivery solutions
    because of my understanding of this business.  My last function in
    Sales Support was developing a project proposal for a customer.
    
    I went on to deliver this project at the customer site as the project
    leader.  We just finished this successful 2.5 year effort.
    
    The experience gained from this journey is immeasurable.
    
    
    Brent_who_likes_to_switch_back_and_forth.
    
    P.S.  I am currently between assignments, and I am providing Sales
    Support in the interim.
    

    re .9
    
    While I will agree that sales support and delivery skill sets are
    overlapping sets; I must disagree about the generalization of sales
    supports abilibty to do delivery.
    
    In our group (NY Banks) the vast majority of the sales support staff
    are capable of doing high quality delivery.  In some cases sales
    support consultants are the equal of the best of the delivery
    consultants for delivery.  I would add that several of the delivery
    consultants have also demonstrated considerable sales support skills.
    
    Many of our customers have extensive installed bases of Digital
    products and often require the depth of knowledge in sales support that
    comes from extensive hands on experience.  It is possible to get this 
    without doing delivery but only with difficulty.
    
    re a few further back
    
    I don't know that sales support and delivery should be in one
    'organization' but they must work closely.  I mentioned sales selling
    sales support to do delivery as one illustration of the difficulties in
    maintaining account relationships even when the organization would seem
    to be geared to that end.  The sales support people doing delivery
    established excellent relationships with the account where they
    delivered services.  Their relationships with their other accounts,
    however, could not be maintained.
    
    Peter Dillard

I didn't see the DVN yet, but I think the car plan changes are brain-damaged. 
We're being asked to take on huge budgets, cut headcount, can't even think 
about getting the latest equipment, and now taking our cars away. Yipes! I 
love my job, but its getting kind of hard to be motivated.

Jim

    I don't read the car plan changes as taking it away.  
    
    It seems to be more equitable - that is the $30/week was too good a
    deal for some and not such a good deal for others.  The 500-800 mileage
    thresholds seem reasonable.
    
    If you don't use the auto for business, should that benefit/perk be
    part of the Sales/Gen Expense the company needs to reduce so sharply.
    
    I understand the argument in the Digital Notes File about how many
    percieve the auto as part of the compensation plan they were presented
    with, but the reality is Digital has too many folks with cars and they
    need to find ways to trim back without hurting the "supply chain" too
    much.
    
    I think it is a reasonable step.
    
    Kevin - Sales Exec
    

    re: .14
    
    Yes, I agree that cutting back on the car plan is a good idea to help
    control expenses.  However, from what I have heard of the
    implmentation, it is being handled very poorly.  I am in sales support. 
    I have long felt that the car was a great perk, but something the
    company couldn't justify in my case.  I rarely make 500 miles in a
    month of company miles.
    
    But whether it is considered part of the compensation package or not,
    it does amount to compensation.  I pay about $2,000 dollars per year
    for the privilege of having a company car that costs about $6,000
    dollars per year to the company.  ($2,000 is $30/week plus the taxes I
    pay for personal use).  Now, I do not expect to go out and buy a new
    car, so I don't need to come up with $4,000 additional each year, but I
    am going to have to try to come up with another $150-200 per month to
    pay for a used vehicle.  That is not peanuts to come up with.  I feel
    that the company, which put us into this situation, should help us out
    a bit.  I would vote for something like interest-free car loans for
    whatever type of vehicle the individual wants to purchase.  It would
    cost the company a little bit (not near as much as the current car
    plan), would make the employees feel like the company is trying to help
    ease the burden of change, and help the employee a little bit on making
    the financial transition.  I know it only amounts to about 10% +/-, but
    it is much better than the nothing that I currently see coming.
    
    The other thing that kind of irritates is that I do not think that all
    employee situations have been considered.  Customer Services personnel
    that have to haul equipment and tools and Software Specialists who
    commute to customer sites instead of the office can get absolutely
    murdered in a financial sense under the new guidelines, or they go out
    and buy a personal car that gets worn out on company business with
    little compensation from the company.
    
    Another irritation is the abuse that I know the system is going to
    take.  I had one manager tell me (you know, the people that are
    supposed to make sure that the employees don't abuse the system) that
    it is amazing how many business miles he puts on his car; and he does
    *not* visit that many customers.  How does he do it?  He basically just
    writes down that all miles he drives his company car are business
    miles.  Forget the IRS rules that your commute are not business miles. 
    That just costs him money in taxes.  Who is going to audit things like
    this?  
    
    I have had other people get very concerned when I told them about
    commuting miles.  They had no idea that commuting from a customer site
    to home was not considered business miles but commuting miles.  I know
    a number of sales reps that try to schedule afternoon meetings so they
    can drive home from the customer site.  If they continue to do this,
    they will not make their 500 miles/month requirement.  So, they will
    put more miles on the car just to stay on the program.
    
    I could ramble on more, but my point is that I agree something needs to
    be done about limiting the people on the car program.  From what I have
    heard of the new program so far, it sounds like Digital is trying to
    alleviate some of its financial problems by reaching into the pockets
    of some, not all, of its employees.  And the proposed solution also
    leaves too much chance for abuse.
    
    tgc