It goes without saying, but to be the best, you’ve got to deploy best practices.
Keeping it on the rails simply means to ensure that what you’re currently doing remains effective and successful. Best Practices keep us moving in the right direction, full speed ahead – be it sales force, sales prospecting, administrative support, remote monitoring and support, eAutomate utilization, et. al.
Keeping It on the Rails: 4 Ways We Reinforce Best Practices
1. Best Practices Group.
Best practices? There's a group for that. The official Datamax Best Practices Group is a medley of executives and managers from St. Louis to Arkansas to Texas that meet on a regular basis. As Kristen Finkbeiner (co-chair of the group), the ultimate goal of the group is to keep synergy on the fast track.
"The ultimate goal would be to streamline our processes between all branches, meaning we do things as much the same as possible,” Kristen said. “This comes by open discussion and having the personnel best suited for each project in groups together."
Fellow co-chair Steve Kennemer adds that the group is part green light brainstorming on potential initiatives, and part checks and balances on existing projects.
“It’s about keeping a deadline and keeping people accountable for activities that affect Datamax as a whole,” Kennemer said. “You can’t have great ideas but if you don’t have targets to hit, it never gets done.”
2. Best Practices Sharing.
One routine agenda item in the weekly Sales Meeting in Texas consists of a sharing of best practices, in which a representative of each sales team shares something they’ve done in the last week or so that produced results. Could be how to handle an ITT. Could be a creative approach to prospecting. Could be a strategic way of scheduling your day. But they’re all ideas worth sharing.
Meanwhile, in Arkansas, sales managers meet on the third Wednesday of the period and do something very similar. “Each of us goes around the room and talks about best practices,” Hot Springs Area Sales Manager Lee Wheelington said.
3. A Best Practices Strategy.
In the next few weeks, executives and managers will meet in person (like they do every year) for our annual Business Plan meetings. It’s through these highly strategic meetings, with roadmaps drawn up for each department, that we begin defining where we are headed, setting a course, sharing our goals, and constantly keeping our eyes on what’s next.
4. Cultural Best Practices.
The best practices on how we roll as an organization couldn’t be laid out any clearer in the Datamax Little Blue Book. It’s our guide to creating a culture that trumps all.
As it has been written previously on our website, “It’s what we practice from what we’ve learned. Not a lofty concept—but an authentically lived-out culture. Our culture is colorful and marked by the dark blue in our logo—the color of knowledge, power, integrity, and professionalism. Our culture is one you can count on to be reliable and responsible because your career deserves and demands it."
