There is no shortage of theories. But what an executive needs is to be able to apply the theory to his specific context. For example, in sales management, the royal road is to be able to sniff out people with good selling ability and then hire them. Many travel on this road but not many have left behind a road map. This is what happened to me when I followed this road...
Is it not strange of the many who,
Traveled before us, the door of darkness through
None returns to tell us of the road
Which, to discover, we must travel too.
( Omar Khayyam)
I had just joined Eureka Forbes as the Head of Marketing in 1998. Our large sales force of over 4000 people - operating out of over 150 offices in 90 cities of the country - was considered to be a great tool of our marketing. And I was keen to learn how to improve it further. The annual “Silver Circle Club” for the elite 20% salesmen at Goa in 1999 was my first opportunity to observe them. I learnt an important lesson there about selling qualities among people.
In Eureka Forbes we always assigned a very high importance to our front line sellers. We never called them as salesmen and instead fondly called them as “EuroChamps”. In the annual “Silver Circle Club” the top EuroChamps were taken every year to an exotic tourist place in India and given a time of their life for 4 days. They were put up in five star hotels, had a non-stop party during this entire time, were treated like royalty in great style and all their bosses would be in attendance at that time to serve them and help them enjoy - including the CEO of the company. No expense or effort was spared. The entry to the club was by qualification only. The EuroChamps had to achieve special sales targets for 7 continuous months to qualify to come to the club.
The managers too loved the club. The club was a tool to get them to achieve a large part of their sales target. All they had to do was to drum up sufficient number of EuroChamps under them to enter the club. After that the aura of the club - built up over the years - worked its magic into the sales force. Being present in the club had assumed legendary proportions in the sales force because it was a sure way to hobnob with the managers and get known to them. Most promotions took place from among those who were regularly seen at the club. Not being in the club was a big let-down.
It was my first Silver Circle Club at Cidade de Goa in 1999. I had an idea of conducting a survey to capture the profile of these highly successful EuroChamps to see what drives them. I designed a simple questionnaire, put a serial number on each, distributed these among all the rooms and announced that a raffle will be held the next day based on the serial number. Most submitted their filled forms the next day. When we analyzed the data after coming back from Goa, there was a shock waiting for us. The elite of our sales force was less educated than the rest of them who were not so successful. Some of the best EuroChamps were not even graduates! Did it mean that less educated the person, the better he will be in selling? That is what the textbooks would have use believe.
I remember discussing this with Adil Bhesania - my colleague from HR who had just joined us from Coke – to make sense out of this seeming anti-correlation between education and selling ability. After many discussions we formed a working hypothesis – which I still believe is true – that our education system is largely based on mathematical, logical and linguistic ability, and does not impart, nor evaluate, the selling ability of a person. We both were excited because till that time we were short listing candidates for front line selling positions based on their educational qualifications. The simple survey showed that educational qualifications were not really the qualifications to look at for a front line selling job!
We were convinced by now that we were on to something big because we had a big problem of having widely varying recruitment standards because our 175 offices in 90 cities interviewed virtually every day. Very few of these offices could afford its own HR officer who could assist in interviewing process. In 90% of the offices the recruitment was done essentially by the executives from the sales operations function. Both Adil and I began looking for a “test” or a “scale” that could be administered to all aspirants uniformly in all locations. Our aim was to take more people into the sales force based on their selling ability and not based on their educational qualifications!
We did not believe him at first. Then Adil came out with a brilliant idea and - to our surprise Harish agreed to be subjected to our acid test. We told him we will buy the scale from him provided his test could sniff out best salesmen from a random group. We hired a hall and gave him and gave him a mixed group of 40 persons - 20 of them were Silver Circle Club members and 20 were not. And nobody knew who was who except us. Both of us were really amazed to discover that more than 80% of his choice - based on the test scores - was correct. His test could indeed distinguish top salespersons from those who were not.
It is another story of how we bought the scale from him and wanted to deploy it across the country. It was an interesting experience for us to practice our version of "scientific sales management". And it furthered my belief that a simple glimpse of insight, validated in your own context, is better than being lost in the temple of a comprehensive theoretical model.
This I know of the one true light
Kindle me to love, or wrath consume me quite;
One glimpse of it within the tavern caught,
is better than in the temple lost outright
( Omar Khayyam )
