EDUCATION BLOG

It should be no surprise coming from Cato, but it’s good to see others coming to the realization that trade protectionism is nothing more than a regressive tax on the poor. It’s like a perverted Robin Hood: steal from the poor, and give to noncompetitive US businesses.

We all understand that those who have wealth should be willing to give their fair share for public health, clean streets, basic education, etc. You don’t have to be a socialist to realize that the budget for basic services has to come from somewhere, and taxes that disproportionately affect the wealthy are generally perceived as a fair solution.

But trade protectionism is aimed at cheap products and basic commodities, not luxury goods. Tires, food, clothes are all products that poor people desperately need. Raising tariffs in a recession is a disastrous policy that takes from the poor when they are least able to pay.

Michael Sandel is a renowned Harvard professor who teaches a class titled “Justice”. Its subject matter is ethical decisions and challenging students’ mental models. (ie: actually challenging people to think.) His class has been recorded in a high production value setting by WGBH in Boston and is now available online at http://justiceharvard.org/

It’s interesting and thought provoking material and the episodes come with suggested readings to go with them. I always appreciate excellent teaching and would encourage you to take a look at the site, even if you don’t have the time to watch all 12 episodes.

I finished my business cards a couple of weeks ago.  I am SO proud of them.  I am continuing to make them from recycled materials: mostly wallpaper at this point.  I ordered a stamp to be made from ACE Rubber Stamps a few blocks from my home.

Here is their store sign and my new business cards.  I look forward to handing you one soon.

Six Approaches to Empowering Sales Team to Become Asset Managers

When we hear of an asset manager, we often think of an investment analyst, financial planner, or a high profile position in the banking industry. However, there are many other types of asset managers who work in a number of different industries and fields. Assets are any item of monetary value to an organization. Whether it is the computer and office equipment, the building itself, or the manufacturing equipment, all are considered to have some monetary value. Therefore, an asset manager is simply someone involved in managing these assets and their values. We often hear how an organization will claim that its greatest assets are its people. While this is a nice endorsement of its employees, we will discuss customers and their importance as assets to the company and the sales team that manage them.

For some enterprises, an asset manager could be involved managing physical assets. For example, an asset manager could be employed by either a hospital or a construction company to manage their assets. This could include managing the monitors, sterilizers, x-ray machines, electrocardiogram (EKG) machines of the hospital, or the dump trucks, cars and bulldozers of the construction company. The approach to managing these assets is to apply a value to them. Whether they are new or used, is not important. There is still a value that can be applied. The asset manager analyzes these physical assets against repair costs, resell value, or scrap value, and tries to maximize their return. Some large corporations have full time asset managers whose sole responsibility is to manage all of the corporation’s assets. From capital expenditures on new equipment, to selling off old equipment to pay for future repairs or spare parts, the asset manager can be an important resource to manage assets and their values.

What would happen if sales professionals managed their customers like an asset manager would? What would the approach be, and is there an argument to support such an idea?

All sales professionals have small, medium and large accounts they manage on a day to day basis. What one considers big, someone else may consider small. Are they big because of potential, actual business, or because they take up so much time? Because there are so many variables that go into how individual salespeople view their clients, there has to be agreed upon criteria to measure the value of the company’s customers. There has to be some basic guidelines about how sales should determine their top tier accounts, versus their lower ranked accounts. The following six criteria provide support for sales to manage customers as assets, much like an investment portfolio would be managed by a financial planner.

1. Come up with an asset grading system correlated to how much money each account spends.

Redefine what it means to manage and sell to your customers. Refer to them as company assets that are managed by sales. There is no hard and fast rule to be applied here. You can refer to your top tier accounts with any kind of reference you chose. As long as you make it clear that the company’s customers are to be viewed as assets. What you call these assets, is up to you. As long as they can be differentiated by the amount they spend with your company. For simplicity, we have used the following example as a reference to how a company might determine their “A”, “B” and “C” asset accounts, by how much these customers spend in a given year.

•    Customers spending $10,000.00 and more are considered “A” asset accounts.
•    Customers spending $5,000.00 to $10,000.00 are considered  “B” asset accounts.
•    Customers spending less than $5,000.00 are considered “C” asset accounts.

2. How many “A,B,C” assets is the sales person in charge of?

It’s surprising to know how many sales professionals and companies don’t grade their customer’s value. They tend to know a customer spends a lot, and have an understanding that they are important, but where they fit in the big picture is usually left to interpretation.  Everyone should know how many assets are being managed. It encourages competition amongst sales, and provides the internal support sales needs by demonstrating just how many assets they manage for the company.

3. Make everyone involved, regardless of position, aware of the grading system and value of the company’s customers.

It’s never easy for sales to run around trying to convince everyone just how important a customer’s value is. Often, they have to justify the action that needs to be taken by explaining who the customer is and how much they spend. Those that work with sales, often view them as simply trying to save their commission. It is much easier when everyone understands what type of asset the customer represents, and can immediately know what value they are to the company.

4. How many customers has sales moved from “C” to “B” assets, and from “B” to “A” assets?

Has the sales professional done a good job of upgrading his/her accounts? How many accounts have they increased business with, and how many have actually declined in business? Analyzing the total growth of sales is important, but equally important is which customers are growing, can continue to grow, and what opportunities still remain. Indoctrinating sales to constantly move accounts up the asset scale, will provide motivation to manage customers like an asset manager would.

5. How is the sales professional performing when it comes to customer retention?

What are the reasons for the decline in business at some accounts? Is it service related, or something else entirely? Understanding how accounts move up and down the asset scale encourages everyone, not just sales, to become active participants in reviewing what went right and wrong with a given account. Coworkers tend to assume that business lost is a direct result of how the sales professional handled the account. While it does play some role in lost business, there are other factors completely out of the salesperson’s control that play a part. When everyone understands just how much is involved in winning and keeping business, it becomes that much easier to set plans in motion to correct mistakes, and duplicate success.

6. Liquidate under-performing assets or develop a new plan?

The approach here is not to dump customers as a financial planner might with under-performing company stock. No company is in the business of pushing customers away. However, it is important to know which accounts are occupying too much time without rewarding hard work with orders. Every salesperson will be faced with an account that drains their time and the resources of coworkers. It is important to be aware of who these account are, and develop new strategies to move them up the asset scale. At some point, the account either has to stop taking up so much time, stop using your company’s price against you to lower their own pricing, or move up the scale.

Sales can often walk a fine line between business won and lost. They tend to spend a lot of time chasing accounts who may not produce the desired results. Often they are unaware of their top tier accounts, and what role they should play in their day to day responsibilities. It is up to the sales professional and the company, to understand why a given customer is not providing the same returns as they were. The ultimate goal is not only to increase total sales, but to grow all accounts and keep them moving up the asset scale.

Carolyn Lesser

St. Louis author Carolyn Lesser continues to connect to students and teachers over videoconference live from Cooperating School Districts.

Carolyn works with students in second through twelfth grades, as well as professional development with their teachers. She offers a variety of distance learning programs, including nonfiction prose or poetry, journalism, and play writing. Past topics she’s covered are butterflies, polar bears, global warming as well as ancient China.

An avid traveler, explorer, observer and teacher, Carolyn uses her experiences from her trips around the world to motivate & encourage students participating in her interactive videoconferences. Questions on Carolyn’s programs? Contact Rebecca Morrison at CSD.

I have been researching multi-user virtual environments and I stumbled upon the River City Research Project, another virtual learning platform developed by Active Worlds The developers at Active Worlds have created an interactive computer simulation for grades 6 through 9 science students to learn scientific inquiry and 21st century skills. River City Project content was developed from National Science Education Standards, National Educational Technology Standards, and 21st Century Skills. Check out the presentation from the project web site. Click here

River City provides a virtual environment where students travel back in time to a 19th century town that has been besieged with health problems, bringing their 21st century skills and technology with them to help form and test hypotheses about the causes of the illnesses. Navigating an environment that is based upon authentic sociological, historical, and geographical conditions, the students use technology to test their hypotheses from clues and information gathered within the town. There are three different variants of the River City curriculum, guided social constructivism, expert modeling and coaching, and legitimate peripheral participation. Here is the web site.

World renowned children’s author, Patricia McKissack, teaches students how to write over distance learning. During hands-on and highly interactive videoconference sessions, participating students discuss plot, themes, character development and more. Patricia will also post to her blog and answer students questions during her series. Next up on her three part writing series: Winter Holidays Around the World.

In the first videoconference, the author meets with the teachers to discuss the goals of the author visit and refers them to the book she will be discussing, Christmas in the Big House, Christmas in the Quarters. In the second, the author dialogs with students, discussing winter holiday traditions and how she wrote her book about Christmas on a Virginia plantation in 1859. In the third videoconference, she gives feedback to students about the writing and illustrations the students have done. Past winter holidays students have written on include Chinese New Year, Ramadan, and Kwanzaa.

We hope to see you this holiday session! Here are the dates:
Teacher Session: Thursday, November 5 at 4 pm CT
First Student Session: Tuesday, November 24 at 11 am CT
Second Student Session: Tuesday, December 15 at 11 am CT

In a separate, 1 hour, offering, Patricia will read her story The All-I’ll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll. On December 15, 2009 at 2:30 pm CT, Pat will read from The All-I’ll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll. This book is for students 5-8; “It is Christmas, and Nella is beside herself with excitement! She and her sisters have been given a real gift – a beautiful Baby Betty doll. But it’s hard to share something you’ve waited your whole seven-year-old life for, and Nella grabs the doll for herself. It isn’t long before she discovers that a doll can’t do the fun things she and her sisters do together. So, as Christmas day fades, Nella shares it with her sisters. Set in the Depression era South, here’s a heartwarming story that captures the essence of the holiday.” (Amazon.com)

To sign up for any of these videoconferences, contact Rebecca Morrison at Cooperating School Districts.

To sign up for either Winter Holidays Around the World or for the Story Hour on The All-I’ll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll, contact Rebecca Morrison at Cooperating School Districts.

With the upsurge of the internet and the need for continuing education and training a niche arose in the market for instituitions to deliver, Computer, content and training over the internet. These organizations created online portals of information and courses, Computer, covering topics, Computer, such as IT, Personal Development, Human Resources and Businnes Sklls.These, Computer, educational portals are central resources for the delivery of Online Computer Training and Business Skills training to the internet community, offering everything from reporting to assements.So why use Online Training:* Online Training is convenient and flexible,, Computer, you can take courses anytime, work, home etc. Online Training provides people with an outlet to enjoy a better work life balance,, Computer, while still learning.* Distance Learning provides people who are travelling a lot with information on demand, if they need to learn something new they can just login and start learning.* Training provided through Online Learning is cheaper, in fact its over 90% cheaper than instructor led courses.* These websites are usually easy to use, all you need is an internet browser. The courses have bookmarks, help sections, tips and tricks and much more. Navigation is simple.* The course material is usually highly relevant, information that is not required is usually abstracted, Computer, . The content is clear and precise.* You should use e-learning because theirs an old adage Knowledge is Power. The knowledge you have the more oppurtunities will come your way, beside that e-learning is fun and easy to use.* E-learning is interactive by its nature, courses have simulations (graphical simulations of how to do things) and assessments, Computer, .* E-learning courses are usually assessment, Computer, driven, provides a way of tracking your progress. If you notice your progress is not good you can go back and start that lesson again.Author: Fergal Dalton : LearningSteps.com