Inside This Issue
Customer Relationship Management Webinar
July 20th, 2006
11:30 CDT
How can you make CRM work for you to improve your bottom line? These are questions that our next webinar, Harnessing the Power of CRM, will answer. Space will be limited, so register now for this free 1-hour event.
Ag-Finance Webinar
Farmers are becoming more sophisticated every year. In this webinar, Entira will facilitate a discussion between ag lenders and a panel of 3 large, diverse farming operations. For more information on this "no-holds-barred" interaction about what farmers really want from their lenders, please register now.
Chicago Business Outlook Meetings
Have you ever wanted to talk with your ag-business peers from non-competitive companies to hear more about the challenges that they face? Twice per year, Entira hosts a small group of agribusiness executives for an evening of conversation and dinner, followed by group attendence at the University of Chicago's Business Outlook Meetings. If you would like to learn more about our future meetings, contact Entira.
SAR Archives
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How's Your Company's Report Card?
The ABCs of grading performance
by Joy Parr Drach, Entira
It's that time of year again. Kids are getting their final report cards and bringing them home to Mom and Dad. If you have little kids, they probably get grades for spelling and class participation. If they're older, it's English and algebra. The school system determines on which areas your kids' learning should be focused as well as the criteria to judge their performance.
But have you ever thought about what your own company's end-of-year "report card" might look like? Some companies are pretty good at grading their performance. Others are subjective and fuzzy. They don't know what things to grade or how to grade them. And that can be a problem, because as the old saying goes, "No measurement, no control, no improvement."
Strategy plus management equals greater success
It's never too late to get a handle on how your company's doing, and a report card is a great way to start. If you want to put one together for your company, here are some things you should do:
Click here to read more of this article.
You Get What You Pay For
It's the #1 reason we see for companies not meeting their goals. No one ever tells us that when they call for help. Usually they don't even realize it. Only when we unravel the thread of events and look beyond the symptoms we've been asked to treat do we find it. Misaligned incentives. They're the culprit that nibbles at profits, sabotages sales, and impairs partnerships.
Sometimes the wrong incentives have a direct effect. Consider one agribusiness that couldn't figure out why their great new products weren't taking off. A significant portion of the sales reps' income was paid for hitting their total sales volume. They have a seasoned sales force, and veteran reps knew that, with a few phone calls to their pals, they could easily place enough of their popular existing products to make their bonus. On the other hand, the new products were harder to sell. They had to work harder to convince customers to take a chance on something without a track record. At the very least it took a lot more time, and in many cases, they would have to get out of their comfort zone by knocking on new doors. It was obviously worth it if their pay depended on it. Under a different incentive plan, one where new product sales were weighted much more significantly, they changed their behavior to focus on new products.
Sometimes it's not so obvious. Another client was compensating a channel partner very well for logistics. Farmers practically knocked down this partner's door and they still weren't properly supporting the product. That's because our client's product represented a technology that is a threat to the channel partner's business model. No incentive plan will change that. Unfortunately they've wasted years in a relationship that won't work.
Click here to read more of this article.
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