The Maly's Way

Glen Pacek, Maly's Sales Director

About 4 1/2 years ago, Maly's embarked upon a plan to develop a world class sales skills training program. At that time, we had two primary objectives. First, build a productive, results-oriented sales team that consistently achieves its sales goals. Second, reduce our consultant turnover to less than 22% per year. The end result is a comprehensive program we call The Maly's Way.

The program has too many components to outline in this space, so I'll focus on one specific element that I believe is the backbone of any effective sales training and management system. Planning is the single most important step of the sales process and is probably the most neglected. At Maly's, the planning starts with a monthly Personal Development Meeting between the Region Sales Manager and the salon consultant. The meeting is designed to last 60-90 minutes, and the goal is to establish specific and measurable objectives each month.

We have a Personal Development form that each sales manager uses during the meeting with the consultant. On this form, they start out by listing the results the consultant achieved against the objectives they mutually established the prior month. This is our opportunity to make sure the consultant knows we're inspecting their performance and to also congratulate them for achieving their goals or to coach them in any area where they fell short.

Next, the sales manager and consultant discuss the new month and establish new sales objectives. They start by reviewing the consultant's sales quota for the month, and then they work together to develop specific plans to achieve that target. They will review each manufacturer's promotions and sales initiatives for that month, discuss which clients will be targeted and the quantities each specific client will be asked to purchase. The goals are then written on the Personal Development form, which will be reviewed the next month when new goals are once again established.

Once the salon consultant has finalized their sales objectives, the next important step is the pre-call planning process. This takes place either the night before or the morning of the sales day. In this process, each consultant utilizes the Maly's Daily Sales Activity Planner. Before they even start their day, they list all the accounts they will see and write down their sales objectives for each salon. These objectives must be very specific. As an example, if there is a new product that the consultant is launching, they need to write on the Activity Planner exactly how many of each new intro they are going to present. Then when the sales call is completed, they need to write down exactly how many they sold. When the Region Sales Manager reviews this report, they are able to stay abreast of the activity of each of their salon consultants and also provide support and coaching every day, even when they are not in the car working with their consultants. At the same time, our goal is to ensure that every sales consultant has clear objectives in mind before they even get out of their car, thus maximizing their efficiency and productivity on each and every sales call.

Again, these are just a few of the tools we utilize to help our consultants be as effective as they can be. In the end, our clients will be successful when our sales consultants have the right plans to help them succeed.