In the past couple of years with a pandemic and supply chain issues, it has become crucial to make sure we still deliver at high levels with low costs. Organizations have had to pay higher costs to ship goods from overseas, weather has affected larger parts of the country, and there are constant requests from suppliers to increase pricing in the name of higher costs.
As sales people we don’t always want to go to customers with price increase after price increase. It sometimes feels like death by a thousand cuts as one VP states. Sales people want to sell and then collect a pay check in most cases and hate the constant requests to get price increases. It is a difficult balance between customer relationship and keeping our organization afloat.
If you are in leadership, or in sales these issues have been hitting all of us quite regularly. It seems everything is increasing and there is no end in sight. There are plenty of factors to blame, but pointing the finger never resolves the issue.
I’ve worked in organizations that do not want to hedge market stability so they set up raw material adjustments. Now it seems like there is a request for logistics adjustments that will be needed. A great deal of purchasing and sales teams are wishing things would go back to what they were, but unfortunately the reality is that it will take a market crash to really level set. Especially with the consumption of raw materials increasing to where even lumber mills can’t keep up with demand.
There will need to be quite a few things that need to change in order for us to make things get to a calm state and fluctuations to calm down. Better forecasting will be crucial with greater levels of communication from customers and suppliers. There will need to be a seize to just in time delivery imposed by some industries. There will also need to be some holding more materials to support the demand right now.
We all need to work together, customer and suppliers creating a better communication system with lower finger pointing if we are to get back to a better quality of life. Every industry is impacted with these issues so simply jumping to a new organization is not necessarily the resolution. We need to really work together to find a better way.
Yes some ideas that we try, will not work. But that is the great thing about the lightbulb. It took over a thousand attempts for Thomas Edison to create the lightbulb. We now have the technology to improve efficiency, but we need to look at how we can work together, team up, and give each other the benefit of the doubt. No one software package, communication tactic, or demand will cure this. We have to have empathy for each other and work together to solve the issues.
Greater levels of communication and transparency will be required to move forward. Those are crucial in building trust. Let’s stop the finger pointing and find solutions and we will all get to a better life soon enough.
Have a great week!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom
“Businesses wonder why the majority of their sales teams struggle at winning profitable business. I equip your sales team to walk with the customer through the five buying decisions, and in the correct order to generate explosive revenues with greater profits!”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lWIVasmkFsoYL4h0AqIZgH6LC3qaw_gI/view?usp=sharing – client profile sheet
https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Process-Uncovered-Success-Influence/dp/0578421518 - Book
https://kevinsidebottom.kartra.com/page/5AF12 - Sales Process Uncovered Online Training
https://kevinsidebottom.kartra.com/page/68N10 - Trustworthy Online Training