Solve Your Process Bottlenecks, Not Your Sales.

Maybe more sales isn’t the issue. Maybe solving your process bottlenecks is.

I’ve been having a lot of conversations with business owners lately that are significantly different than in prior years. I’m hearing that increasing sales isn’t the problem they are facing right now. The problem is inefficient processes and procedures and declining employee output.

The articles I’ve been reading lately tend to support this.

So, what’s going on exactly?

Undoubtedly supply chain interruptions are being encountered by just about everyone. Whether you are waiting to get your new car/truck due to the lack of chips, or you’ve been involved in a wreck and your car sits at the body shop for 5 months waiting on parts, it seems that nothing is as readily available as we’ve come to expect in our country. And it doesn’t seem like this is going away anytime soon and maybe it will get worse.

So sure, supply chain issues such as manufacturing companies getting materials on time to make whatever it is they are making slows things down. But what else is slowing us down?

Perhaps our people, processes and procedures are slowing us down as well. What do searches on the internet tell us about this? A lot I think.

If you search “employee burnout” you will see about 579,000,000 hits. 579 Million!
“Quiet quitting” results in over 300 million hits.
“Quiet firing” over 130 million hits.
What about the “great resignation”? over 1.4 Billion (with a B) hits!

What’s going on and what are these searches telling us and what do we do to engage, retain, and help employees (and companies) do better and feel better about our current work dilemma?

Maybe a deeper dive into HCM (human capital management) will help us navigate this.

What is HCM? It is “a strategic approach to effective and efficient management of people in a company or organization such that they help their business gain a competitive advantage.”

What does HCM consulting focus on for employees and employers? Here is a general list of topics that HCM consulting provides:

Maximize employee performance
Policies and systems
Success through people / human capital
Employee psychological ownership
Training and development
Motivation
Maintenance / continuous improvement
Recruiting – training – onboarding / from hire to retire
Systems/software but more than that
Retention
Burnout
Future leaders
Applying lean principles to HCM

Questions we should be asking to know whether or not we may have an HCM problem that needs to be addressed:

Are you struggling bringing on new talent, and keeping them?
Are you trying to do more with fewer people?
Are your existing people experiencing burnout and/or not as excited/driven these days?
Do you/your people know there are inefficiencies but have neither the time nor the approach to fix them?
Do your teams struggle with inter/intra-departmental communication? Is there friction between departments? Are departments siloed?
Did you put software and/or other tools in place to increase efficiency only to experience the opposite?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, or similar questions, maybe you need a Human Efficiency Expert. What is that exactly?

According to Webster: “one who analyzes methods, procedures, and jobs in order secure maximum efficiency.”

If you are experiencing any of these issues, or just wish to talk to someone about efficiency issues with your staff/departments, drop us a line, we’d love to chat.

His guidance, leadership, and friendship are PRICELESS

He has mentored me to achieve amazing professional goals without losing sight of the most important part of my life as a wife and mother. His guidance, leadership, and friendship are PRICELESS!!

Brian is a Full Service Mentor

Over the years, Brian has not only mentored the sales team, but also our Department Managers throughout the corporation developing personal goals, department goals, leadership skills, and execution.

A Great Motivator

He has been a great motivator for me, my team, and our organization’s management team. Outside of the impressive sales increase, there is an abundance of projects and initiatives that Brian has successfully led I would like to highlight some of them that ultimately changed my life both professionally and personally.

Learned How to Grow Territory

During the time I work with Brian, he challenged me, showed me how to sell and how to win in almost any circumstance. Brian helped me grow my sales territory (Chicago) from nothing to a $1,000,000+ book of business.

The Summit Solutions is not a one-fits-all process

Is the Summit Solutions a one-fits-all process that will lead to selling more? No, there are plenty of national programs with regional support that will sell you on that. I will tell you from my experience, they are outdated, not personalized, and don’t work. They typically also only focus on the sales department. Brian’s method is to work with the whole organization, while stressing the importance of creating a company culture that people want to be a part of.

As the VP Sales Manager, I was initially skeptical

As the VP Sales Manager, I was initially skeptical and guarded as to why we had to bring in an outside sales expert. I perceived this as an insult to my abilities and the performance of our team. Today I can honestly say that the association, teachings, and concepts Brian presented were the BEST thing to happen to our Company, myself, and our team.

When we started with Summit Learning Solutions we had 62 employees

When we started with Summit Learning Solutions we had 62 employees mostly serving the state of Michigan. Now, we have nearly 200 employees serving 17 states; and we’re still growing consistently. Moreover, when we started with Summit we sold about 3-5 Million a year in new business; now we sell 13 Million a year in new business.

They sourced and hired our first-ever sales team

They sourced and hired our first-ever sales team and created the sales and marketing plan to start the process. They designed our sales team’s compensation plans, trained them on appropriate sales methodology, and lead our overall strategy. Candidly, we thought they were way too optimistic in their sales projections. It turns out they undersold the possibilities. The program was very successful, very fast.

We are a better, healthier, and the more performance-driven company

We are a better, healthier, and the more performance-driven company now thanks to Brian’s training and support. Most importantly, it’s more profitable.