Successful Sales Process & Culture

Recently, LinkedIn wanted people to recognize some of the mentors we have had over the course of our careers. I know personally, I owe them a significant amount of credit and praise for the success I have achieved in my professional career. One thing I learned from my days working in fast paced New York City’s Corporate America is that constant tracking, not micromanagement, is important.

At BlackBridge we’ve incorporated a magnetic board with magnetic card holders to track each type of material throughout the process. This may look familiar to some of you!

Here is an example. We’ve just started tracking some material this past week. We’re looking forward to filling up that leaderboard category.

The purpose of this board is not only to track and manage sales, but also hones in on our customer service. By tracking each type of material through the process, we can ask specific questions to one another in our morning meetings to move it along, in turn minimizing questions to suppliers and buyers. Our theory at BlackBridge is to provide top quality service and to let bot buyers and sellers only see results. We believe that what goes on behind the curtain to make things happen shouldn’t be broadcast to our customers.

We hope to accomplish accountability, attention to details, motivation and understanding each others book of business. We feel that if we work together, instead of competing with one another within the same organization we will be exponentially more successful. We would much rather split a commission and satisfy the needs of two customers. If you look at this inward on BlackBridge, the more we grow, the faster we can promote and expand.

We recently, as a team, read a book called “Rework” by the founders of 37Signals. If you have not read it, I highly suggest it. One of the topics we wanted to implement in our day to day work days, were about meetings. A big message they wanted to convey was that meetings should really only be for as long as they need to be. We make sure our morning meetings are productive and NOT repetitive. This board we are utilizing is a combination of the training I received in corporate America and the theories in Rework.

If you are in the trading business of any commodity right now, you realize the state of the US Economy and the World Economy is continuing to show significant signs of instability. Using a board like this to track progress and promote a culture of understanding amongst your team, fine tuning the details and encouraging communication will help us to continue to create a competitive advantage, but most importantly, provide the best possible service to the people we work to service.

What does your team do to track your deals and promote your culture?