Appointing a Dealer

1. The Branch Manager perceives a need for an additional dealer in an area. Need occurs if any existing dealer leaves or is removed. It could also happen when the company expands into new territory.
2. The Branch Manager has to convince the general manager of the division about the need for anew dealer.
3. The selection process for the dealer begins with placing advertisements in newspapers and trade magazines inviting applications. Applications for dealership are directed to the concerned branch manager.
4. The branch manager then reviews the application forms and prepares a shortlist if necessary. The company has not laid down any concrete guidelines for shortlisting at this stage. The branch manager is allowed to exercise his discretion.
5. The shortlisted applicants are interviewed by the branch manager along with the regional sales manager of the division. Whatever additional information is required is obtained from the applicants during the interview. The dealers are evaluated on:
   1. Prior business record
   2. The capability of maintaining and running his own showroom
   3. Financial strength
   4. Inventory: The dealer must have enough working capital for maintaining specified level of inventory. This condition is however is applied only in the case of dealers whose territories are located considerably away from a branch office. This is because there is a company owned warehouse along with every branch office and for dealers located in the same cities there is no necessity to maintain separate inventory
   5. Contacts with customers
   6. Availability of salesforce to service customer effectively. In addition, technicians also need to be present to meet the after-sales service requirements of the products
6. The final selection decision is made after talking with the bankers of the applicant. This is done to check the veracity of information regarding financial strength and prior business experience. It is only after the company is satisfied regarding all aspects of he information, that it sends the dealer an appointment letter
7. The appointment letter lays down several terms of the contract that have to be fulfilled by the dealer. The company expects the dealers not to sell any competitors’ products. The dealer is also expected to conduct his business only within the clearly demarcated sales territory allocated to him by the company.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Marketing Audit

Marketing audit is a comprehensive, systematic, independent, and periodic examination of company’s marketing environment, objectives, strategies and activities with a view of determining problem areas and opportunities and recommending a plan of action to improve the company’s marketing performance.

 The audit process directs the manager’s attention to both the strategic fit of the organization with its environment and the operational aspects of marketing program. Strategic aspects of the marketing audit address the synoptic question: “Are we doing the right things?” Operational aspects address an equality synoptic question: “Are we doing the things right?”

 My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Focusing Organization

This focus begins when someone at top identifies a set of concerns that require correction. These concerns are of significant importance to the organization, rather than passing operational concerns. They are persistent, undesirable situations that have grown over time and have never been adequately addressed. It is clear that a major effort is required to solve them and that new skill and approaches have to be developed if the effort is to be successful.

 The entire project is planned as a taskforce attack on identified situations; objectives—analysis and correction of the target situations, objectives are defined. This planning cannot be delegated. It is done by top management, since responsibility for the project must reside with those who initiate it. By actively directing the project, top management makes its support of the ideas evident to everyone. By participating in the project throughout its life, top management returns control and ensures success.

 The management works out a comprehensive plan and schedule. The population of individuals who can contribute in solving the target situations is identified by name and position. Workshops are scheduled. It is in the workshops that the participants learn. They apply their skills to analysis of their assigned concerns.

 My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Be Inquisitive in Customer Service

Desire quality, efficiency, and precision

• Focus on the customer’s need for accuracy and efficiency by methodically outlining steps, processes, or details related to a product or service.
• Communication should be tied into facts, not feelings.
• Have details and information prepared in advance and be thoroughly familiar with them
• Approach encounters in a direct, businesslike, low-key manner.
• Avoid small talk and speaking about yourself.
• Ask specific open-ended questions about customers’ background or experiences related o the product or service.
• Present solutions in a sequential fashion stressing advantages, value, quality, reliability and price. Also, be prepared to point out and discuss disadvantages.
• Have documentation available to substantiate your claims.
• Don’t pressure customer decisions and follow through on promises.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures

Definition of the Problem

We must first define a problem exactly before we can describe, analyze, and explain it. We define it with the deviation statement, or name of the problem. It is important to state this name precisely because all the work to follow—all the description, analysis, and explanation we will undertake—will be directed at correcting the problem as it has been named.

However simple or complex a problem may seem at the outset, it is always worth a minute or two to ask, “Can the effect of this problem in the deviation statement be explained now?” If it can, we must back up to the point at which we can no longer explain the deviation statement. Vague or generalized deviation statements must be reworded into specific deviation statements that name one object or kind of object, and, and one malfunction or kind of malfunction for which I wish to discover and explain cause.

It is tempting to combine two or more deviations, in a single problem-solving effort or to try bunch a bevy of seemingly related problems into one overall problem. Nearly, everyone has attended meetings during which two or more distinct problems were tied ankle to ankle in a kind of problem-solving sack race. This procedure is almost always inefficient and unproductive.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Rational Management

Rational management means making full use of the thinking ability of the people in an organization. It is a continuing process. Use of the ideas and their benefits will eventually fade out if they are not continually used and reinforced.

Rational management aims at major change and therefore demands major commitment. But this system cannot be introduced by half-heartedly sprinkling a few ideas and suggestions among a random mix of the organization’s people in the hope that something good will happen. We must identify the significant people within the organization, for they should be the first to learn and use the new ideas. We must identify their subordinates and the people who provide them with information. We must identify those who will implement the conclusions that come out of the use of the ideas. In short, it is imperative to pinpoint all the people within an organization who make things happen. The objective is to move the organization closer to it full potential. This can be done only by introducing teamwork based on the continuing conscious use of common approaches expressed in a simple, common language and directed toward resolution of an organization’s important concerns.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

The Human Context of Management

In addition to understanding the ongoing behavioral processes inherent in their own jobs, managers must understand the basic human element of their work. Organizational behavior offers three major perspectives for understanding this context: people as organizations, people as resources, and people as people.

Above all, organizations are people, and without people there would be no organizations. All organizations differ from each other dramatically in size, purpose, and structure, they have one thing in common: people. Thus, if managers are to understand the organizations in which they work, they must first understand the people who make up the organizations.

As resources, people are one of an organization’s most valuable assets. People create the organization, guide and direct its course, and vitalize and revitalize it. People make its decisions, solve its problems, and answer its questions. People are at the core of many of the possible contributors to this trend. To reverse declining productivity, many organizations have taken steps to boost the contribution from their human resources. Some companies have encouraged management and labor to cooperate better; others have increased employee participation in decision-making and problem-solving.

There is another perspective—people as people. People spend a large part of their lives in organizational settings, mostly as employees. They have a right to expect something in return beyond wages and employee benefits. Employees seek satisfaction, and many want the opportunity to grow and develop and to learn new skills. An understanding of organizational behavior can help managers better appreciate these needs and expectations.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Direct Sales Calls

• Do sufficient research to identify potential customers who appear to need your product. This means pulling together names, addresses, and telephone numbers of companies in your market area that use the types of products you are trying to sell. Calling on companies that do not use your products only wastes time, energy, and money.
• Get the name, address, and telephone number of the specific individual responsible for purchasing the  types of products you are selling. It won’t do much good to talk to the marketing manager if you’re trying to sell computer programs, or the general manager if you’re selling machine tools.
• Know your sales pitch before calling. No one has time to chit-chat about superfluous subjects. No one cares about how you feel, nor do they care to tell you how they feel. One sentence describing your product and why the listener should buy it is all you’ve time for. If you continue beyond one sentence, either you’ll be thrown out or you’ll lose the interest of your  potential customer. When buyers want to hear more, they ask questions. If there are no questions, there’s no interest.
• Don’t attempt to close an order at the first contact—either by phone or in person. If the person is interested, ask what would be convenient time and place for you to return and elaborate on your product offering, including prices, delivery schedules, and quality guarantees.
• Focus on the benefits to be gained from using your product, not on its price. Explanations of product pricing and delivery options should wait for second contact. If you’re forced to the wall, try to keep your description of your pricing structure general.
• Follow up all potential leads with another call, a letter, or a sample of your product. The scret to building a first-stage business base through direct sales is to continually follow up with any potential customer that seems the least bit interested in your product.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Macro-Marketing System

A macro-marketing system delivers goods and services to consumers. It also allows mass production with its economies of scale. Also mass communication and mass transportation allow products to be shipped where they’re needed. In addition to making mass production possible, a marketing directed, macro-marketing system encourages innovation—the development and spread of new ideas and products. Competition for consumers’ money forces firms to think of new and better ways of satisfying consumer needs. Marketing activity is especially open to criticism because it is the part of business most visible to the public.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Personal Selling: Two Approaches

Personal Selling: Two Approaches

Many American companies do not put nearly enough effort into direct, personal communication. Japanese success in displacing the US as Saudi Arabia’s leading supplier is instructive. Japanese exporters and small teams to meet with Saudi importers: Japanese exporters; they go to Saudi workshops, travel to secondary towns, and meet with sub-agents. The Americans, on the other hand, invite all their Saudi agents together for a luncheon, do not have private meetings, do not get their hands dirty, and never travel to secondary towns—they tend to stick to the three market centers. Saudis complain that US effort is misdirected: American personnel devote infinitesimal detail to making advance arrangements for visiting executives, going so far as to specify rooms overlooking a certain view from the hotel.

Japanese firms supplement their direct, personal efforts with heavy local advertising. They use gifts generously in product introductions, and warrantees on Japanese consumer electronics range up to three years. To carry out this business, Japanese trading companies have large staffs of professional international marketers who have been cultivated since graduation from a Japanese international trading university, schooled in English and Arabic, and rotated worldwide as international trading specialists.

Compared to most other cultures, particularly non-Western. Americans are extraordinarily preoccupied with the tangible aspects of a product. They round up all their sales agents and give a product presentation instead of putting their energies into the more important component of international marketing—people. In American and only a few other countries it is normal to do business from a distance, between strangers, by mail or telephone.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.