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Succession Leadership Today's & Tomorrow's Sales Management Challenge

Written by: Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Article Overview: Succession leadership with the forthcoming retirement of the Baby Boomers (representing the largest percentage of the workforce) is becoming a critical success factor for businesses from small to large. No where is this more apparent than in sales management.

Succession Leadership Today's & Tomorrow's Sales Management Challenge

Succession leadership with the forthcoming retirement of the Baby Boomers (representing the largest percentage of the workforce) is becoming a critical success factor for businesses from small to large. No longer will companies be able to justify not training and developing their people because of the FEAR that those dollars will be stolen by their competitors. Soon all organizations will be in the same boat because there will be far fewer people to steal.

During down economic times, those innovative companies who understood that knowing where the flow is going instead of just going with the flow will continue to thrive. These firms will weather difficult times because the executive leadership team truly understands human capital.

For example, one would think that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of any organization with more than 20 employees less alone over 150 would not have time to meet one on one with new employees over lunch? These executive leaders need to keep their pulse on the businesses 24/7 by having those important business luncheon meetings and they can delegate that relatively unimportant meeting to Human Resourcea or a department head. After all, time is money.

Speaking of money, what would happen if CEOs or Presidents met with each new employee within a certain time frame? Would these executives be able to:

• Learn more about their organization’s culture?
• Identify potential skill sets of the new employee not currently being utilized?
• Build internal customer loyalty?
• Realize greater profitability through employee retention?
• Determine new ways to do existing processes better?

From a time analysis, a one-hour meeting could potentially save the organization thousands of dollars given that replacing employees cost one to three times their current salaries. This negative impact to the bottom line can extend even further because of lost relationships with existing external customers.

Stu McMillian of Tax Force Tips (TFT) of NW Indiana is one CEO who makes such a commitment. He takes each new employee to lunch after six months on the job. This provides an opportunity for McMilliam to see with a different set of eyes and reaffirms what TFT states on their website: "At TFT employees are our most valuable asset."

Of course succession leadership starts outside the organization and begins within the education process. Local companies such as TFT to national companies such as FedEx are looking to the public and private high schools to help them. However, speaking from experience as an elected school board trustee many high schools believe that college is the only path for your people. Vocational schools continue to see funding cut even though the majority of future jobs will be technical in nature. Visionaries such as “Gene” Roddenberry saw what will be needed in future years – technicians.

Now is not the time to back off or shut down the development of your greatest assets. For to take such action will only cost you far more tomorrow and could ultimately close the doors of your business because you failed to value what makes your business run – your people.

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Article Tags: baby boomers, business luncheon, chief executive officer, critical success factor, customer loyalty, difficult times, economic times, employee retention, executive leaders, executive leadership team, going with the flow, innovative companies, internal customer, li li, luncheon meetings, negative impact, organization thousands, skill sets, time analysis, time is money



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