The drive to succeed

DriveKore Inc. earns 2006 Progressive Distributor Sales Training Excellence Award

by Rich Vurva

Disillusioned with the traditional top-down, hierarchal sales management approach, Dan Emanuel wanted to try something different. The owner and president of DriveKore in Mechanicsburg, Pa., sought a way to lead and educate salespeople to inspire them to superior performance.

“Like a lot of companies, we’d tell our people what we needed to do, but through procrastination a lot of things didn’t get done. We realized we needed to do a better job of communicating with our salespeople and getting everybody on the same page,” says Emmanuel.

So, in October of 2004, he and his partner and chief financial officer Kevin Craig contacted sales consultant Warren Wechsler, whom they had met through their membership in the Evergreen Marketing Group, a national affiliation of 68 contractor supply distributors headquartered in Dallas. Wechsler, the founder and president of Total Selling Systems in Fairfield, Iowa, offers selling skills instruction as part of Evergreen’s training program.

Wechsler spent time helping the DriveKore management team devise a new approach to sales leadership. Instead of having a single sales manager like most sales-driven organizations, DriveKore assigned two experienced salespeople to step into the roles of sales leaders. Steve Bonsell and Jon Cagle now spend the bulk of their time coaching salespeople and helping them execute their sales strategies.

“We like our sales leaders to be out in the field with salespeople, finding out what’s going on with customers,” says vice president of human resources Tim Moyer.

Bonsell spends about 60 percent of his time in the field riding with salespeople, coaching them and helping them plan their sales strategies, and introducing them to decision-makers at accounts where he might already have a relationship.

“As sales leaders, Jon and I are there to support the salesmen in whatever way we can,” he says.

Other changes DriveKore implemented include instituting a weekly conference call between key management team members and Wechsler to review plans and actions they need to take to make sure the sales team is on track to meet its goals. The company holds twice monthly sales training meetings, established a written sales development program for new hires and also posted a chart in the conference room that tracks each salesperson’s progress toward earning the Evergreen Certified Tool Specialist designation, and a separate sign board that posts upcoming training opportunities.

Since implementing the changes, DriveKore’s sales grew by about 20 percent over the previous year. Between February and June 2005, the company had record-setting sales five months in a row. In recognition of its success, DriveKore was named recipient of the 2006 Progressive Distributor Sales Training Excellence Award.

Four components of success
At DriveKore, effective sales leadership includes four key components. First, salespeople need a sense of urgency about what they do everyday.

“A lot of companies hire people and turn them out on the street and say, ‘Make sure you bring us the numbers we need.’ That isn’t a good strategy,” Wechsler says.

He believes sales leaders need to give salespeople the instruction they need to succeed. As part of their training, new salespeople participate in a six-week program where they learn the business by spending time in the warehouse, in the rental and repair centers and DriveKore’s other divisions. They also set aside time every day to complete online training provided by Evergreen.

The second key component is making sure salespeople are engaged in selling activities. Every salesperson attends Wechsler’s Total Selling course and monthly sales meetings. They receive one-on-one coaching from sales leaders. All DriveKore salespeople are on path to achieve the Evergreen Certified Tool Specialist status. To earn certification, sales professionals must complete more than 130 hours of continuing education covering product, applications and selling skills.

The third component is accountability. At any given point in time, salespeople are expected to know their run rate, which tracks their total sales for the month. Sales management at DriveKore is a collaborative effort. Someone from the management team checks in with salespeople at least on a weekly basis to gauge their progress in retaining existing business, and discuss their plans for growing that business and finding new customers.

“Almost everybody gets a daily summary of our sales. It’s broken down by division, by each salesman’s goals, and by the run rate where they’re expected to be at any given time. It’s posted throughout the building. There are no secrets,” Emanuel says.

Bonsell says DriveKore’s approach to managing the sales team has reduced turnover. Instead of sending a new salesperson into a territory to sink or swim, they provide more support and direction, which has increased their success and job satisfaction.

“One of the main reasons we did this was to escalate the learning process for the salesman. In this industry, it takes four or five years to gain product knowledge and understand the sales process. We’re trying to shorten that learning curve,” he says.

The fourth component to DriveKore’s approach is to have fun. A salesperson might receive a certificate for a free dinner, a round of golf or some other incentive to celebrate hitting a particular sales goal.

“Every time someone has a record month, we hold a catered barbecue. We had three of them last summer. They’re big productions,” says Emanuel.

Wechsler says DriveKore’s approach to sales training and sales management works because it aligns the company’s goals with the individual salesperson’s goals and the customer’s goals. By setting clear goals, developing a mechanism to make sure people are performing the right activities, and following a repeatable, easy to implement format, DriveKore has managed to turn an average sales team into an exceptional sales team.

“I believe we have assembled the best trained, best motivated sales group in central Pennsylvania,” Wechsler says.

This article originally appeared in the January/February 2006 issue of Progressive Distributor. Copyright 2006.

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