Confidentiality vs. Transparency ?

You are managing a team of Chinese salesmen, and are looking for a good way to motivate everyone to sell more. One tried & true method is a sometimes a bit tough for new sales managers or managers who are not sales specialists ? posting everyone?s sales results where the rest of the team can see them.

Publicly posting sales results seems to run contrary to traditional Chinese management techniques, which usually put a premium on confidentiality and control of information. It?s also a bit harsh for those who aren?t in the top 10% of the rankings.

This method, which is very common in the US and international sales departments, has some definite advantages.

Advantages to Posting Sales Numbers

The most important benefit is that this kind of transparency encourages everyone. Strong producers like the recognition and are pushed by the sense of competition and recognition. Newcomers get a guide to what is possible and what their goals should be. Weaker salesmen who are producing enough get a clear choice ? they can work to improve their numbers or begin setting their sites on a career that is more suitable for their talents and personality.

Sale managers have another reason for posting sales results publicly ? it takes the mystery out of the sales departments, creates an open environment and helps control negative rumors that have the potential to cause real problems. If the results are posted, they lose their power to cause problems, secrets and rumors.

Another benefit of publicly positing results is that it helps create a structure within the department. If the sales leaders are publicly acknowledged, then it serves to create automatic mentors and informal sales leaders ? which a smart manager will use to base his decisions about promotions and management development programs.

Pitfalls and Warnings

Is there a downside? Yes, there can be. This method is a bit aggressive for some organizations, and will definitely put a lot of pressure on the sales team ? and the manager who is also having his performance revealed for all to see. Some salesmen are very uncomfortable having their results made public for all to see.

Posting results has been known to cause resentment and competition between members of the sales team. If there is already tension or ill-feelings in the department, you can bet that this publicizing of sales will add to it.

It is also possible that the postings will be a source of embarrassment for older, more experience salesmen that aren?t performing well.

Final Word

Publicly posting sales results is part of an open, transparent management system. If the rest of your management program is based on secrecy or confidentiality, this simply won’t work. While it is very effective for young & growing teams, managers have to realize that to be effective this must be a regular, systematic process that is a daily part of the sales process at your company. If you start changing the rules when company sales dip, you will only make your management challenges worse!

Many ?hard-driving? sales managers consider themselves results oriented and numbers driven. They tend to push HR and other ?soft? issues off to the background, and hope against hope that they will take care of themselves. It doesn?t happen. Ignore your HR issues, and they don?t go away ? but you might! What usually happens is that staffing and development issues, neglected or mishandled, tend to deteriorate into crisis ? and then monopolize management?s attention.

That?s why HR issues have become one of the most crucial set of tasks a China-based manager has to deal with. There are 3 components to HR that are particularly important to Sales Managers. These are:

1) Hiring
2) Training
3) Compensation.

Hiring. When it comes to recruiting and selecting new salesmen, you?ve got two choices: Buy or build. China-based sales managers complain that it is getting harder and harder to find good people. Will this situation get better? Not any time soon. True, the number of qualified Chinese salespeople getting good training and experience is rising, but demand for salespeople in Shanghai, Beijing and the rest of China is skyrocketing. In fact, you are going to have more and more trouble holding onto the sales people you already have.

Training. China-based managers need a training program that is Systematic, Goal Oriented, and Never Ending. Training is not an option ? it may be expensive, but it is absolutely crucial to running a successful China sales team. Delegation & promotion are part of training. If you can?t hire experience, then training is your only alternative. ?On the job training? can be the most expensive and time consuming type of training, if you don?t handle it correctly. Develop a plan based on systematic goals, and stick with it.

Compensation. Your compensation plan must be performance based. Make sure you are encouraging the right behaviors. If you are paying someone for gross sales, then plan on them moving the easiest product or service your company offers. Salesmen who earn most of their compensation from commission aren?t going to be too excited about training, supervising or doing paperwork. You also have to make sure that your compensation plans are competitive, or you will lose your best people to your worst competitors. China-based sales managers have found out that the most expensive way to negotiate a new compensation plan is when your top sales people already have 2 other good offers.

Here’s the catch — they all have to integrate. You can?t hire aggressive salesmen and then not compensate for sales. You can?t hire inexperienced people and then plan on a low training budget. If you make a salesman?s compensation based on sales performance, don?t expect him to devote time to management functions.

As your sales team grows, your sales management issues multiply. The quality of your China sales and marketing team is becoming a critical competitive factor, so you have to do more than just hope it takes care of itself. It?s up to you to develop an effective, goal oriented plan for developing the Chinese sales team your company needs to stay competitive.

People will do what you pay them to do, so make sure you are paying them to do what you want. Even the dimmest sales person will expertly adjust their job performance to maximize their benefit.

China-based managers often report that they are frustrated by paying more and more, but not seeing improved performance. If this sounds like you, you may want to revisit your compensation plan.

There are three components of a compensation plan ? Base salary, Commission and Bonus. A good manager must know how each works ? and how they fit together.

Base Salary or Draw against Commission

The most basic type of compensation is ?straight salary? or ?base salary?. For many sales teams, base salary makes up a relatively small percentage of the total compensation package. Base salary is essentially paying people to show up for work. It helps new sales people to ?put food on the table? while they are building up their client base and getting their career going. Inexperienced salesmen tend to see the base salary as an important negotiating point, and will try to get as high a base as possible.

Managers must be careful about paying out too high a base. If you pay too high a base salary you may be encouraging the wrong kind of behavior. But if you are involved in an industry where salesmen need a very long time to develop a sale, or the sales representative?s job description is very specialized, then a high base salary may be appropriate. Some companies use a ?sliding base? which is initially set quite high, but goes down over time.

A variation on the base salary is the ?draw against commission?, where the salesman is given a regular salary payment ? which is deducted from his commission when he makes a sale. This gives the salesman a steady income when times are lean, but still provides a strong incentive to make sales.

Commission

The second component of a sales compensation plan is commission. For most professional salesmen, commission is the main source of income. Commission is a percentage of the value of the sale. The important thing for management to consider is that commission plans must be calculated carefully. If your company sells a variety of products or services, then you have to be very conscious of the fact that your sales people will quickly adjust to the relative challenges of selling each product. In other words, if the commission rate for product A and B are the same, but product A is easier to sell ? then you shouldn?t anticipate selling too much B. That?s why many companies have variable commission schedules that take into account the differences in buying trends ? and in company goals. You never want to find yourself in the situation of telling salesmen that they have to work harder for less money. It undermines your authority and makes it seem that you don?t know what you are doing.

Commission plans should be simple, transparent and stable. Companies that frequently change their commission plan or make the plans overly complex and hard to understand will not attract or retain the best salespeople.

Bonus

A bonus can mean different things to different people. It can be a nice cash gift from the company given once a year to all employees, a form of profit-sharing that rewards workers for contributing to the overall success of the company, or a negotiated payment that encourages specific long or short term behaviors from individual employees. Bonuses are most effective when the terms and conditions are clear and transparent. Many sales departments negotiate regular bonuses based on specific behaviors, such as opening new accounts, maintaining low outstanding accounts-receivables, or selling specific types of products. The overriding principle of effective bonus systems is that they be perceived as fair and consistent.

Avoid changing compensation plans often

Many new sales managers have learned the hard way that the fastest way to destroy the morale of your sales department is to make frequent changes to the compensation plan. It?s easy enough to raise the payout, but you?ll run into major resistance if your team gets the impression that you are lowering compensation.

So what can a sales manager do to get quick results for a certain product or type of client? If you set up a new commission plan you will certainly get more sales ? but you?ll be paying out at the new (higher) rate forever!

One strategy that has worked in the past is to set up a sales contest or limited-time bonus program. As always, transparency and clarity are absolute requirements. But if you are introducing a new product or opening a new territory, you will find it very effective to offer your team a special incentive ? 10% sales commission on Product XYZ for the months of August and September, or 5,000 rmb to the top seller in the Wuhan territory in September. This provides your team the incentive they require to perform well, but doesn?t tie you to an expensive compensation plan that you can?t back out of. It?s also a great way to set performance standards before making a permanent adjustment to the compensation plan.

Compensation plans are one of the 3 basic HR skills for the sales department, along with Hiring and Training. A good compensation plan encourages the right kind of performance ? but you must remember that your employees will do exactly what you pay them to do and not much else. This is particularly true for sale teams. So take the time to plan carefully and develop a compensation plan that reinforces your strategic goals instead of works against them.

What’s an Orientation Training Program for new employees?

Orientation is the basic training that every single employee gets about how the company works and what their role will be. It is like reviewing the rules of the game before everyone starts playing. All your procedures, rules, best practices and operating methods get taught to every new worker and manager.

I only have 22 employees. Do I need an Orientation Program?

Hell yes. Orientation training is menial, unchallenging work that should get pushed down the org chart as far as possible. BUT if you don?t have a systematic Orientation Program as part of a comprehensive Training & Development plan, then there is a good chance that you or your top people are devoting their time and energy to teaching new staff how to call the bank in HK or what to do when the overseas client calls in.

Systematic orientation training programs are also a great way to develop and hone your operating process. If you are planning a company restructuring or starting a big hiring push, writing up an outline for an orientation plan fits in perfectly.

What kinds of information should be included?

Company information, including Mission Statement and Brand Message.
Rules and regulations.
Operating procedures.
HR and Admin issues
Financial and Insurance issues

Sample 2-Day Orientation program agenda.
Yours can be much shorter and less formal, but this gives you an idea of the kinds of issues you could be discussing.

Multinational Inc, New Employee Orientation Program:

Day One
* Safety Overview
* EEO/Sexual Harassment Awareness Training
* Insurance/Retirement Programs and Enrollment
* Sponsored Luncheon
* Workers Compensation and Documenting Discipline Luncheon Programs (attendance is required for exempt level and supervisory positions)
* Overview of HR-Related Policies
* ITS Presentation
* Campus Tour

Day Two – Performance Evaluations and Work Standards
* Hiring Process and Diversity
* Compensation Plan
* Payroll
* Customer Service Philosophy
* Questions

Looks pretty awful. Do I have to be such a tool at my own orientation?

Absolutely not. Shoot for a half-day session at first. Don’t skimp on the company history, values and mission statement stuff. The truth is, this kind of Corporate Culture stuff is quite important, and you have to start it right away. Building a strong and effective corporate culture is top management?’s responsibility - and it has to be consistent, focused and relevant. Your new people should be your morale boosters make sure that they are getting YOUR message about values and attitudes right away.

Do you have 3 final tips?

Sure thing: Do it once, do it complete, and do it right.

Do it once
Orientation Programs should be ‘auto-pilot’. Write the training outline once, package as a binder and a PPT presentation, and make it as close to self-study as possible. If you do it right the first time, you won’t have to dedicate much time to it in the future - and it is the perfect task to delegate to young managers.

Do it complete.
The orientation manual should be a comprehensive resource for company information. The last thing that someone starting a new job wants to hear is that her boss doesn’t know about her national health insurance coverage. It makes it sound like you are not a very good manager.
The orientation program has to be updated to reflect current rules and information - but it doesn’t have to be done by you. Again — great task to delegate to a younger staffer or manager you want to develop.

Do it right.
Orientation programs tend to be a dry, boring paper-work fest of forms and applications. This stuff is important, but China-based managers should take advantage of the opportunity to begin developing new managers from the start.
Make sure that your orientation program is heavy on company information, corporate culture, mission statement and value issues. Don?t be cynical about this stuff — it really matters. This may be your best shot at building the kind of team you will need.
If you have a Management Development program, then this is a great place to talk about it. If you don’t, then think about discussing the new workers’ future and potential opportunities for advancement at your company. Be realistic but also positive and encouraging.

Remember: Don’t assume your new employees will automatically figure out your attitudes and methods over time. Orientation programs are an opportunity to get YOUR message across to every single worker on his or her very first day.

There are thousands ? perhaps millions ? of low-priced salespeople on the streets of Shanghai right now. But if you are responsible for pulling in decent sales numbers, then you have to think about what you are going to do with those bodies once you?ve got them on the team. An untrained, inexperienced salesman is cheap ? but he?s not worth much. You need to either train them or hire people with great experience to make your business a success.

There are two approaches to sales staff development in China. You can start from the top and build down, or you can opt for a clean slate and hire bright young graduates without much experience.

Top-Down Development.

What?s old is what?s new. 15 years ago a chorus of China Pundits sang the praises of ?savvy local managers? who would effortlessly propel your China operation to success. Well, many ex-pat managers found it didn?t work that way. It turns out that savvy local managers didn?t know much about business in 1991 ? but they do now. Of course, the price-tag for an experienced local professional with a track record in your industry will cost you big bucks ? maybe even more than an ex-pat with comparable skills ? but there are benefits. He knows what he?s doing, can hit the ground running, and will hopefully help you with staff recruitment, development and management.

Pitfalls to look out for: Even in the west, good salesmen make crappy sales managers. Big-shot Chinese sales pros have been known to have MAJOR attitude problems, and won?t hesitate to pay bribes, misrepresent your brand and cut side-deals. There?s also the very real possibility of your super-star salesman taking your client list with him when he quits in 3 months.

BUT if you get the right guy you can really propel your sales operation to the next level. It?s like wishing for more wishes ? the right sales big-shot can not only attract other top-notch sellers, but he?ll help you train, motivate and manage the rest of your team.

Bottom-Up Development

Some China-based managers wouldn?t think of taking on key salesmen from the outside. They ?don?t want to hire someone else?s mistakes? or ?damaged goods?. They?d rather hire inexperienced graduates with good basic skills and then train them to do things the company way.

Pitfalls? Well, it sounds great. But make sure you budget yourself lots of time, budgets and personal effort on your part to make this work. You?ll need a systematic training program, and unless you plan on devoting 2 ? 4 hours every day on training & HR issues, you?ll probably want to hire an in-house training manager or technical supervisor who can guide your team of reasonably-priced neophytes.

You also shouldn?t assume that inexperience = moral purity. You have the regular laundry-list of challenges and problems to deal with when hiring staff in China. Don?t expect your new hires to be any more honest, moral, loyal or professional than anyone else just because you are giving them first big break. They will take your expensive training and leave in 6 months. Maybe.

BUT, it you put together the right program than you will have developed a systematic method for hiring and training a competent sales team. That will give your organization a significant competitive advantage. You will also have greater control over your own brand message and sales goal.

So which method is best for you? Hard to say, but the less you want to be involved in day-to-day sales issues, the stronger the argument for shelling out for a local heavy-hitter. If you are running the sales desk yourself anyway, you might be better off hiring pleasant, bright graduates ? it?s easier to train someone from scratch than to try ?un-training? negative behaviors.

Most managers end up doing both. Consider hiring an inexperienced graduate first, and using him to define the needs and goals for your training and orientation program. Then when you go to hire an experienced salesman, you?ll be able to discuss his role on the team. Remember ? successful salesmen aren?t known for being cooperative team players, so don?t assume that he will be planning to help develop the team. A good compensation scheme should help.

MNC and ex-pat run businesses in Shanghai and the rest of China are poised for their next step up the evolutionary ladder, and it?s likely to be a big one. Companies with a few years on the ground and rising profits are now set to flip out that model all over their market ? and open lots of new ones as well ? in a business shift what will alter their companies ? and the marketplace ? permanently and radically.

What are we talking about? Breakout growth. Sales, profit, headcount, expenses, client base ? all growing geometrically over months ? not years. Growth that is so fast that it literally breaks out of any past performance chart or limit.

Breakout growth is a result of finding a successful recipe for marketing, developing it into a systematic or ?cookie cutter? process, and then applying the same model wherever you identify a potentially profitable target market. At the most extreme end of the scale, think of MacDonald?s (if only for a moment). They have one basic model, a half dozen or so different formats, and one operating manual. All they do is ?flip out? new branches wherever they find the right demographics.

Breakout growth is different from organic growth, where you have a single operation that grows from reinvesting earnings and building a profitable brand. There?s nothing wrong with it, but you have to leverage with more branches or you will ultimately get crushed by competitors.

How are China-based businesses achieve growth rages of 250 — 500% over 18 months without spinning out of control? Well, lots of them do crash in burn. Some, however, will rise to be important new brands or marketing organizations.
Managing growth the China-based manager?s greatest challenges. Once the operating details are worked out ? and that is already true for a whole class of ex-pat managed China businesses ? it comes down to heavy-duty HR and marketing.

Boomtown managers would be best served to brush up an 2 skills that in the past they?ve only paid lip-service to. Time management and Training skills.

Not exciting stuff ? unless you are overscheduled and undermanned. In which case, the ability to manage Time and Training should be your top priorities.

We?re all looking for the top of the market. In China, we?ve been looking for Everest. That unique place where Chinese factory owners, HK real estate developers MNC managers, Overseas Chinese, Asian entrepreneurs and long term ex-pat business success stories all come together and spend as one. A lot of business models are based on climbing Everest and selling to the ?millionaire class? in China.

Not gonna happen.

Rich Chinese don?t spend like upper middle class Americans. Or like Europeans. Sure, there?s a lot of cross-over at the high end. But the top of the Chinese market is still developing, and will probably pull even further away from the western market.

Twin Peaks of the China Market

Think of China like two peaks rising above a whole range of smaller mountains.

You can climb very high on each of them.
But climbing to the top of one doesn?t really help you reach the top of the other.

Westerners will spend like westerners. They will spend the most money on things that replicate their lifestyle back home or reflect their long-held tastes. They tend to stick to familiar brands and styles.

Chinese spend like Chinese with money. They may want a lot of the western stuff at western standards, but they have the money to insist on their own details. And they are going to continue shopping until people give them what they want. It looks like the people delivering this type of service are other Chinese entrepreneurs and start ups.

Approaching the twin-peak market:

Check your plans:
If your business plan or sales strategy is trying to cater to both high-end Chinese and high-end International, you have to be very clear about your marketing approach.

Are you talking to westerners but selling to Chinese - or vice versa?
Are you selling to a market that doesn’t really exist yet? (Are you waiting for the Chinese Middle Class to show up?)
Are you talking to Chinese who work for MNCs? (What is your plan for dealing with the entire decision-making unit? )

Approach the high end as 2 overlapping markets:

If you are really sure that your market is truly Chinese and International, then figure out how to approach each one as a separate market - then integrate the approaches.
Hint — translators are a last resort.
It’s also potentially disastrous to rely too heavily on your 25 year old Chinese speaking assistant.

Solution? Look for Local Heavyweights

If your ex-pat sales reps are heavy hitters with 5+ years of experience and decision-making authority, then you need local reps with the same punch. A bunch of well-fed westerners giving orders to Chinese clerks isn?t a sales team ? it the 1920s. Don’t expect your Chinese VIPs to be satisfied with lightweight local salespeople. You’ll have to hire experience or develop your own team.

Bottom line - the Chinese market is growing and developing fast enough for a wide range of solid business models to succeed. But if you are piggy about it and try to be all things to all people, you are likely to get slaughtered and served up in a pot. Focus on your market strengths and develop competitive advantages that will help you secure the best market segment for your business.

Managing a sales-force in China is a bit more challenging than running a team in more developed markets, but sometimes we get a chance to kill two birds with one stone. Setting up a Key Accounts program can not only help boost your customer satisfaction and raise sales, but it can also be an important training and development tool.

Problem: Many managers in China think that a Key Accounts program would be a great idea…if they had the time, resources and sales talent to make it worthwhile. Those same mangers often site “lack of initiative and creative problem-solving ability” as a key shortcoming among their staff members.

Solution: Use the Key Accounts program as a means of training and development for your more experienced sales reps.

Many top managers – particularly of SMEs that have been in China for 2 or 3 years – already have a Key Accounts program without knowing it. You know all those clients who call you directly to solve problems and explain the new product offering? Well, those are your company’s key accounts, and the key account manager is YOU. The problem for some of you is that you haven’t budgeted the time or resources to do all of that high level customer service work yourself. The heart of the Key Accounts program is proper delegation of these responsibilities to a sales-professional who can satisfy the client.

WARNING: “To Delegate” is not Greek for “give the crappy, boring jobs to an assistant”.

Delegation should involve stretching job descriptions and granting real authority and responsibility to the managers you think have the best shot at rising in your company. It is very management intensive – at the beginning. Proper delegation involves a great deal of training and development, and in the early days it will have to be done by you. But the goal is to make the organization more efficient in the mid-term – not to give you time to go to lunch this afternoon.

Key Accounts is a great place to start delegating more systematically. Choose the person or people on your team who you would trust with the responsibility of dealing with your top clients. (If you have more than 3 salespeople and there is NO ONE you would trust with more responsibility, you are not hiring the right people. At least not in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen. The talent is out there – you just have to pay them and hold on to them.)

Training your senior salespeople should focus on planning, scheduling and understanding the client’s business. But you are also trying to improve your own organization, and this is a great opportunity to build skills. Have the salespeople discuss the goals of the program and develop milestones to judge their own progress, and then jointly set their quarterly and annual sales targets. This is a perfect opportunity to experiment with MBO – Management By Objective. This not only prepares your people for dealing with the Key Account, but also with other business situations.

Move training to a higher level by working important meetings together. Your salespeople are probably great at talking to their direct contacts and building relationships with a single point of access within the client organization. Use the Key Accounts program to teach your salesmen to move up into the DMU (decision-making unit) of the client’s company. At the beginning he may rely on you to handle the high-level meetings, but you will conduct de-briefs after each encounter to make sure that your guy understands what just happened, and why. Before long, he’ll be able to handle the additional pressure on his own.

An added bonus: team morale goes up. A Key Account should be treated like a mini-promotion. What do staffers consider important? More compensation is definitely first on the list, but they also like responsibility, prestige and RECOGNITION! Make the Key Accounts designation highly visible, and make sure that you spell out the compensation plan and title early.

China issue – I know it’s counter-intuitive, but consider giving a bump in compensation and a new title FIRST, and then look for signs of improved performance to come after. Chinese staffers are very wary of additional responsibility, regardless of how much it will help their careers down the road. A similar problem exists in sales offices in NY, HK, London – and just about everywhere – but it is a particularly big stumbling block in Shanghai. International managers have grown old and gray waiting for their local staffers to “step up” and show initiative.

A Key Accounts program should give younger salesmen something to aspire to, and will reinforce the idea that your team is a meritocracy that rewards specific behaviors. Frame it as a milestone along the career path within your organization.

Handled correctly, a Key Accounts program can also form the heart of a management development plan that aims to provide your organization with the managerial talent it will need to compete in the China market.

There’s a difference between market NEED and market DEMAND, and a lot of China-based MDs and Senior Sales Managers are starting to understand that difference as it applies to sales staff.

A few years ago in Shanghai, managers tasked with running the sales team could throw up their hands and say, “there are no good salespeople in China”, and go on with their lives. Standards were low, expectations were under control, and it wasn’t a critical success factor in most businesses.

Fast forward to 3Q06, and suddenly the situation is looking very, very different. MNCs have been dumping money into Training & Development in China for years — and we are now starting to learn that while that particular hole may have been very deep, it was in fact NOT bottomless. The top end of the service market is actually looking quite professional – and much of the sales and marketing talent is home-grown and trained in-country. Sure, there are still plenty of pricey ex-pats, overseas Chinese and returnees making big bucks in Shanghai – but now we are seeing more than a few “local locals” – Mainland Chinese who have gotten their education and front-line training right here in the good ol’ PR of C – performing just as well as their international counterparts.

This is all good news, right? Well, yes and no. It’s great that some of the “localization” talk is proving to be more than just self-serving nonsense to serve up at board meetings and CNN interviews, but there is a down-side to rising performance standards. The sales team of yours that you thought was good enough suddenly isn’t. And the competition’s just might be.

Let’s face it. There was always something just a little comforting about running a team of unmotivated under-performers. Once you got used to the idea of throwing your sales plan out the window and lowering expectations at the home office, you may have found yourself easing in to a kind of routine. After all, the phones were ringing, business was finding you, and if you were selling an international brand you could rest assured that whatever problems you might have, your product was still far and away the best in the market. In other words, you didn’t have to worry about the competition because they were at least as screwed up as you were – and probably far worse.

There have been two subtle changes in the market that are starting to hit home with many international managers in China, and by 1Q07 a lot of you are in for a rude awakening.

First – the Chundits (China pundits) can talk all they want about how Google will never overcome Baidu — but that doesn’t really change the fact that multinationals of every size, shape and market segment have been firing on all cylinders in the major Chinese markets for the last few years. They’ve gotten their marketing, distribution and new product development right. All that’s left is customer service and sales – and that is developing quickly as well.

Second – a lot of those furry, clueless English teachers who have been kicking around Asia since the bad-old days of Japan INC have grown up and started a whole new class of business – the China based service-company. They have been feeding the service side of the supply chain for the big MNCs, providing HR, education, training, accounting, real estate and other “soft service” needs.

Taken together, it means that the service-side of the 21st Century China economy is starting to look competitive. It’s a counter-trend to the larger ‘manufacturing-for-export” story that makes the headlines, and it is likely to have a bigger impact on China-based international managers. Expectations are rising for sales and customer service teams, and the big players in the fancy offices on Huai Hai Lu and around Xin Tian Di have already learned how to churn out competent sales & marketing people.

Once standards start to move up the market adjusts pretty quickly. I am hearing more and more managers talk about the need for more and better sales representatives. Whereas this used to be one entry on a long wish-list of challenges for ex-pat managers, lack of qualified sales reps is now becoming a serious bottleneck for mid-sized companies’ growth plans.

When it looked like your company might fail because you couldn’t get the necessary approvals or your quality control was inconsistent, then an untrained sales team was a problem – but not a top-priority one. After all, you could return client calls yourself from the cab and send out emails at night and over the weekend – until you got the production and registration hassles out of the way. You had a couple of bodies in the sales department to answer calls and follow-up on the proposals you put together, and your personal assistant was good at filling in the gaps.

But now that you are looking at opening up multiple branches in several different cities - that just won’t work. Scaling-up production was relatively simple – but training a team of competent self-starting sales people was another story.

That’s why 2007 is shaping up to look like the Year of the Overpaid Sales Rep. Remember how Chinese marketing managers could write their own ticket in 2005? And then it was experienced HR people? Well, hang on tight, because your next big headache is likely to be an ambitious sales manager who drops by your office looking for a 150% bump or he’s jumping ship tomorrow.

And let me promise you one thing – a Shanghaiese salesman with 2 job offers in his pocket is going to make any smug, ambitious, self-deluded Marketing VP-wannabe look positively warm and cuddly.

Consider yourself warned.

It’s another gray, steamy day in Shanghai. Summer is here, and many of China’s managerial-types have started arranging their schedules to minimize the amount of time they spend away from their own climate controlled offices — until they go on vacation someplace more hospitable. But business keeps moving, even though you may feel you don’t have the energy to go on another sales call.

Here are a couple of things you can be doing to make constructive use of the time while you are holed up in you office or lying on the hammock:

Plan to restructure your sales team.
If you have more than 5 people on your sales staff and no supervisor or manager, then you are probably spending a lot of time on admin jobs that you should be delegating. Consider bumping one of your more experienced people up the ladder to a more senior position. If you have more than 3 people on your sales team and not a single one of them can handle more responsibility, consider more training or hiring someone more senior.

Re-write those job descriptions and job specificatons for your staff.
Ok, maybe the phrase “re-write” is a bit optimistic, but if your team is growing then you are going to need a set of formalized job descriptions and specifications sooner or later. A job description talks about the requirements and responsibilities of each POSITION, while the job specification describes the requirements and skills needed by the PERSON doing the job. So a job description for a Sr. Sales Specialist would include things like, “customize service packages, develop new business leads, conduct after-sales service interviews….”, while the specificaton for the same job might start, “requires 2-5 years outside sales experience, ability to speak Mandarin, Shanghaise and English, college degree in technical subject…”.

Develop a training program.
When it comes to HR, you’ve got only two options — Build (train) or Buy (hire experience). If you operate in Shanghai, Beijing or Shenzhen, you are probably spnding a lot of time on BUILDING. Step 1 — figure out your training goals. Do you need team-building or skills-building (or both)? Do you have an orientation training program set up? What behaviors would you like to see changed, eliminated or reinforced in the next few months? Hint: “On The Job Training” is a great component of an overall plan, but it makes a lousy substitute for a systematic training program.

Reveiw your business plan.
You’ve got one someplace. A file buried deep within the recesses of your hard-drive or 3 pages of scrawled notes. Dig it out or start a new one. It’s a great vacation activity for workaholic types (ie: while your significant other is spa-ing, yoga-ing or shoppe-ing). Don’t worry about making it too formal, unless you plan on going IPO in the next 6 months. A BizPlan should include a marketing plan, an operational plan and a financing plan. Take this shortcut — imagine you want to give instructions to a younger version of yourself for opening that Beijing branch in January 2007. Jot down the goal and big-picture plans, and the rest fills itself in. Once you have the outline of a plan, compare it to where you are now. Now have a drink. Another. Ok — that’s enough. You should be ready to figure out how to take your company from where it is to where it needs to be.

Growth strategy
The summer doldrums are a great time to think about where you will take your company in the next 18 months. New branches? New products? Have you been thinking about a website or a CRM (customer resource management) system? Fire up the laptop, plug in the iPod and outline your plans during Shanghai’s summer lull.

If you responded, “I’ve done that already — in my head”, then you are a proud graduate of the Homer Simpson School of Management. If you are lucky, then you may up as successful as he is. For the rest of us, the relatively slow season of July and August represents the perfect opportunity to step back a little and do some strategic thinking. Before you know it, September will be here with the associated chaos and overscheduling.