You may not know this, but the word “administration” comes from the Latin word “ministiare” which translates to “wearing multiple hats at once.”
Not really. But it would stand to reason.
Our admin teams power through so much more than just traditional administrative job duties. They’re plugged into every other department across our organization, with Alternative Energy Sources that help them charge ahead in multiple directions.
It goes without saying, but they’re a phenomenal resource for you, for me, and for our colleagues. Arkansas Admin Manager Kristen Finkbeiner, perhaps only half-jokingly, refers to this concept as the “nucleus.”
“By that, I mean everyone is coming to us for information, or providing us with information so that we can create some type of output… and that really entails literally every single department and role,” Kristen said. “To be on our team, you have to know how a sales order process works, how shipments and inventory work, what a technician is asking for, what billing looks like, etc. etc. Everything we do creates a domino effect.”
All those things she mentions, and so much more. An alternative energy source is a form of energy not derived from a traditional manner. Our Admin teams are, frankly, anything but your traditional administration department.
4 Areas Arkansas Admin Utilizes Alternative Energy Sources.
1. Software Systems Management.
When it came to introducing, onboarding, and engaging with the SalesForce AgentDealer CRM, Kristen Finkbeiner stood tall. She not only trained her team on a sales process in the back end, she immersed herself in the technology, through trial and error and countless hours of training, to learn how to best utilize it.
“I’m setting up new pricing levels with FTA pricing, used equipment pricing, creating rules for the orders, mapping items in the back end,” Kristen said. “There is a logic to all this that I’ve had to wrap my head around to hopefully utilize the software in the most succinct way possible.”
2. Community Initiatives.
Been to a Dragon Boat Festival in recent years? You’ve seen Arkansas Admin there. The entire team typically shows up every year to either row or spend the weekend getting to know their coworkers better and supporting a great cause in the Children’s Protection Center. Kristen even serves on the CPC Board.
“We genuinely love getting to know people outside the work environment,” Kristen said. “Everyone has something that they personally care about, and I know that as a department, we want to give back to something that is greater than yourself.”
This hits Kristen on a distinctly personal level.
“When you grow up with not much, and through your career, you get more than enough, you want to pay it forward,” Kristen said.
3. Client Relations.
Texarkana’s Lindsey Russett has one of the hardest jobs at our company. The role of collections is typically anything but a rosy topic. So why are people actually excited to hear from her? THAT’S having a strong customer relationship mentality.
“The amount of people that love calling her or aren’t the least bit upset when she’s calling is astonishing,” Kristen said. “It’s almost like… ‘Are you habitually staying past due so you can talk to Lindsey??’
Lindsey simply wants her clients and her colleagues to know… they can count on her."
“I try to approach every call with a calm, cool, and collected tone. I want to work with these customers, help them, give them options. The idea is, we can work with you. I’ve found that goes a long way,” Lindsey said in a recent Rave Review. “I know so many of these customers so well, they know why I’m calling. I’ve just developed such solid relationships with them that it works.”
4. Sales Collaboration.
Kristen stresses this from the interview process onward: Working diligently with the sales team is a nonnegotiable quality of administration. That often takes patience.
“You have the normal expectations of what I’m putting on the role, but I also need you to manage five other personalities. Each sales rep is unique in how they work, how they process things, how they talk, and I can’t teach that to you,” Kristen said. “You have to do this with the patience of a Saint and do it well without getting flustered. We all honestly have a certain sense of pride knowing what we helped these reps accomplish. Our job is to help these people – none of us would be there without their efforts.”
