Companies Striving to Get Ahead of Curve Should Track Activity That Leads to Sales

TEC Worldwide is an international organization of more than 7,000 business owners, company presidents and chief executives. TEC members meet in small peer groups to share their business experiences and help one another solve problems in a round-table session. The following questions and answers are summaries of recent TEC meetings in Southern California.

Q We sell a high-end product that has a fairly long sales cycle (it takes 60 to 90 days to complete a sale). We do a good job of tracking sales, but by the time we get our hands on the data, it’s too late to do much about it. How can I get ahead of the curve?

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A Tracking sales is important, says Atlanta-based management consultant Kraig Kramers, but not nearly as important as tracking what causes sales to happen.

This is an important indicator because it tells you what is going to happen with your sales. Once you have that information, you can operate in a proactive mode.

In most companies, the activities that cause sales to happen occur at least 30 days before the sale shows up on your charts. If you only track sales and they suddenly take a nose dive, you can’t identify the downward trend until it’s too late to do anything about it. When you track the activities that cause sales to happen, you can take appropriate action before it’s too late.

The activities that cause sales to happen differ for every business. In a printing company, for example, the leading indicator would be print-job quote dollars per week (or month). In other companies it might be the number of sales calls per week or telemarketing calls per day, the amount of advertising dollars per month or the number of bids submitted.

The key is to identify the specific activities that cause sales in your company and track them using a trailing 52-week total chart (rolling annual total entered weekly). When tracked on a regular basis, this leading indicator puts you way ahead of the curve in managing sales, profitability and your all-important cash flow.

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Q Interviewing job applicants is not one of my favorite activities. Consequently, I don’t do it as well as I should. I’ve heard that tape recording employment interviews can help those of us who are “challenged” in this area. Is this legal? If so, what are the pros and cons?

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A Yes, it’s legal--as long as the candidate agrees to the taping. If you’re going to tape one candidate, however, you might as well tape all of them. Inconsistencies in your hiring process can sometimes lead to legal problems, not to mention inconsistent hiring decisions.

On the plus side, tape recording employment interviews allows you to give your full attention to the job applicant without having to take notes. You can then review the tape at your leisure and share it with other staff members to get their impression of the candidate. And as you review the tape, you may pick up on things that you missed during the interview.

On the down side, taping the interview often creates additional stress for the person applying for the job. Some people may feel pressured to agree to the taping. The more stressful the interview, the less likely you are to elicit the information you need to make a good hiring decision. And if you have a lot of candidates, reviewing the tapes can eat up time.

Keep in mind that while you are using the job interview to screen potential employees, they are using it to evaluate you and your company. The manner in which you conduct the interview sends a powerful message about your company, and taping may turn off many of your best candidates. It also sends an image of your company back into the community, and it may not be the one you want.

Perhaps most important, taping can expose you to serious risk. If you say anything in the interview that could be construed as illegal or discriminatory, the tape can be used as evidence against you in a court of law. While the chances of that happening may be small, those kinds of lawsuits can cost hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars and create negative publicity.

Taping may offer certain benefits to the unskilled interviewer, but the potential risks outweigh the gains. If you don’t like taking notes or don’t trust your abilities, consider team interviews, where two or three of you interview the applicant at the same time. Having multiple perspectives often improves the quality of the hire. In addition, there are books, videotapes, seminars, workshops and consultants available to help develop your interviewing skills.

You may never learn to enjoy the interviewing process, but with the right instruction and enough practice, you can get to the point where you make good hiring decisions most of the time.

If there is a business issue you would like addressed in this column, contact TEC at (800) 274-2367, Ext. 3177. To learn more about TEC, visit https://www.tec online.com.