Breaking Down the Wall between Production and Sales
Use communication to create realistic deadlines
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It’s an easy pattern to fall into. You huddle your team closely to protect yourself against “the others” in your company. The others might be executive management. They could be sales. They could even be other teams that perform similar jobs.
Without those other teams, you wouldn’t have a job. Your company needs every team member, or else it wouldn’t bother to pay them. How you deal with those other teams says a lot about your management style, your professionalism and your company’s culture.
The answers to Mark’s dilemma provide focus on the following plan of action:
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Communicate conflicts early
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Encourage cross-team communication
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Build trust by listening — and acting
Communicate conflicts early
Nothing is more frustrating than learning at the last minute that a project or product won’t be ready in time. It’s even more infuriating to learn that someone knew the delay would happen long before you were told about it.
Many readers think sales should be informed immediately when they have made an unrealistic commitment. They should also be informed as soon as possible when your team cannot deliver on a promise that they have made.
“As soon as you know that sales has made an unrealistic commitment,” says an anonymous reader, “make sure they are completely aware of your current situation.”
Steve Wilson of Brinkman Steel agrees that bad news is a part of business. “You don't want to kill the deal but to simply bring some reality to the table.”
“The best approach is honesty,” says Eric Plotner. “Work with your staff to reach a realistic date to deliver, and let sales know this delivery date ASAP. They may be able to negotiate the delivery date and still keep the client happy.”
Many readers wonder if Mark’s sales counterparts were effectively communicating the deadlines they had established with clients. “Is your sales team not telling you what it has promised?” asks an anonymous reader. “As soon as the salespersons shake hands with a client and agree on a date, they should share this information. You should all sit down together and work out a project management plan.”
Rebecca Schwoch, project manager for The Jackson Organization, takes this idea one step further. “In order to better align your sales team and your operations/development team, I would recommend requiring that sales managers have an operations person review unique proposals before they go out the door. This will mean some interruptions and could affect the speed of turn-around, but it can save a lot of time in the end.”
Encourage cross-team communication
We all want to attend more meetings, right? Not. The right meetings, however, can make the difference between promises kept and clients angered. Several readers suggest the sales force attend operations meetings and vice versa.
“Have someone from the operations/development team attend the sales meeting and vice versa,” Rebecca Schwoch continues. “When you help problem-solve together, it stops the ‘This is your problem’ attitude that can happen when there's a real separation.”
An anonymous reader adds, “We are all inundated with emails and memos. There is still something invaluable about sitting around a table and sharing your issues. Have one engineer attend the sales meeting and report back. A sales manager should also attend the engineers’ meeting.”
Some readers point out that a meeting generates organic discussion, much more than developed through an email or memo. “The physical act of taking time to sit down with ‘the enemy,’” says Gary Schiff of Martin Plastic Molds, “breaks down a lot of walls. It also means you are willing to listen to frustrations and come to a solution.”
Of course, you need to be considerate of everyone’s time to make the most out of cross-pollination time. “Don’t expect salespersons to sit through your whole meeting,” says Sean Lyon. “Put their input and discussion at the top of the agenda and let them go when they are done.”
Build trust by listening — and acting
Meetings are a great start. But are you willing to make practical changes based upon what you hear?
“Communication is nothing without action,” says Mark Novak. “Are you really listening to what sales is telling you? Is there something in your department that you could change to help them make more realistic deadlines?”
An anonymous reader adds to this thought, “Once you open the door to communication, you may hear some things you won’t like. Maybe sales needs you to get a product to a client faster in order to stay competitive. Maybe they have lost clients because you haven’t updated your processes to get things done faster.”
Diana Fraser says, “Once you break down that wall between your two departments and get some good feedback going, create a plan of action based on that communication. After we started attending each others’ meetings for a month, the two people who ‘swapped’ would sit down and write an action plan that both departments would follow. It created new processes and better overall communication.”
Bridging the gap
It’s easy to think that sales managers make unrealistic promises just to torture you or to save their own hides. By opening the door to better communication, you may learn more about the pressures they experience to compete and deliver products quickly.
Communication is key, but it’s only the first step. Create an action plan based on that communication and create new processes. With a plan in place, realistic deadlines that boost your company’s bottom line will become the norm. Creating voodoo dolls of sales managers will become a thing of the past.
