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±ê Ìâ: Statement 2
·¢ÐÅÕ¾: BBS ˮľÇ廪վ (Sun Dec 20 18:47:56 1998) WWW-POST
In 1991, Monitor Software's (MS) management understood that real growth was
going to come from adding the sale of 'consulting services' to their core
product: specialized data-base software. As one of four consultants from
Condor Consulting assigned to help make this transition, my challenge was to
guide the government accounts sales force into selling consulting engagements
as well as products.
Because the government account sales force already perceived itself as
successful, the first thing I had to do was explain why a 'relationship
building' approach was needed for long term profitability. I met with each
member of the 30 person sales force in person for one-hour and from these
meetings I developed a 10-day "Change In Mission" training program. Also,
as the field specialist, I accompanied sales people on sales calls and
showed them how to qualify sales leads into real consulting opportunities.
Because closing a consulting 'contract' was more complex and prolonged than
selling a product, I also suggested a new profit plan to accommodate the
changes. I also built in other standard 'salesmen' incentives such as
premiums, bonuses, and prizes which were new to MS. In two years, the
software consulting practice at MS grew from zero to $ 8 million. Looking
back, one key was redesigning the compensation package, and selling that
idea to MS management. Management thought the package too 'rich' but I
stressed that they were asking the sales force to 'change' dramatically, and
this also required some radical 're-thinking' on their part. They still
balked, and I suggested a pilot program for volunteer early adapters. That
worked, and soon the benefits became clear to the sales staff and management
Comment: A good companion piece to Essay 1 since this guy was a junior
member of the same team. Good set-up, fast but maybe a little too curt
(might be hard to understand if you had not read Essay 1). The body mixes
lots of details with the usual "change buzz-set" [explained the need for
change, held meetings, listened to feed-back]. The writer also shows an
attractive variety of skills, including designing compensation packages and
accompanying the MS sales force as a guide, plus dreaming up the pilot
program. (When our writer acted as guide to the MS sales force it no doubt
struck the funny bell for all you Big Consulting firm types. This guy had
never sold anything.) Be that as it may, this is a very solid piece of work
which touches a lot of bases, deals with a dead-on 'change' situation, and
crams in a lot of specifics and buzz terms. In many ways it is a better essay
than 1, since the specifics are more telling and detailed. That is the
pay-off. Note that an entire essay could have been written by this writer about how he 'changed' management's mind about the compensation
package, but since the other specifics are so strong, it was probably better
to go with a wider approach. As a rule, though, the more narrow topic is
better. This candidate represents the very solid, very smart, non-charismatic
young worker bee that is the backbone of HBS. The writer of 1 represents the
extraordinary top 15 percent, but this could be judged the superior essay. In
truth both essays are outstanding.
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