Don’t look for the decision-maker. Your quest should be to determine who fills six distinct buying roles
{First of two parts}
Derrick had just sold the big deal to the chief financial officer of a very large company. For nearly a year, he’d been touting the benefits of his company’s product, a financial software package, to the CFO. At last he got the nod. But a week into its implementation, Derrick got a call from one of the CFO’s underlings: The customer was killing the project and uninstalling the software.
The customer firm’s CIO – chief information officer – had come up with reasons why Derrick’s software wasn’t a good solution for the company. Let’s put aside the question of where the CIO was before the decision to purchase was made. What was stunning about this turn of events was that the CIO actually reported to the CFO on the company’s organizational chart. And the CIO killed it himself – he didn’t convince the CFO to do so. Now that’s weird.
Some time ago, we touched on the subject of corporate power and influence in the large account sale. I promised to follow up with some specific how-to tips. This month and next month, I intend to deliver.
First, remember these important principles:
1. “Searching for the decision-maker” is a meaningless concept in a complex sale.
2. Your sales plan is only as strong as the contacts that support it. A whole lot of support for your solution doesn’t mean much if it comes from people with little muscle in the customer organization.
3. The contacts with the most power are the hardest ones to reach. The Business Resource salesperson recognizes that and, therefore, has a healthy skepticism about the influence that any contact possesses until that influence is confirmed.
4. In the words of Margaret Thatcher, “Being powerful is like being a lady: If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.” Truly powerful people go out of their way not to call attention to their own influence. The opposite is true as well: Those with limited power try to make the loudest case for how much power have.
And in this era of matrix management structures and virtual organizations, relying on a formal organizational chart to measure who has power is even less reliable than in the past.
In large organizations in particular, there’s no one “decision-maker.” Instead, there are “buying roles” – six in all. Four are official: The buying company would readily acknowledge that these roles exist and that people are assigned to them. Two are unofficial, neither designated nor acknowledged by the buying company.
The four official
buying roles are:
1. Approver. The person in senior management who gives final approval to a buying decision. The Approver can say “yes” even if everybody else says “no.” Usually the purchase comes from the Approver’s departmental budget. (That means, by the way, that people in the purchasing department are almost never Approvers. They don’t have a budget; they spend other departments’ dollars.) Approvers approve the need to make a particular purchase. They approve how much can be spent – and tend to be by far the most flexible on how much should be spent. Their view is much more holistic, focusing on total cost of ownership, not simply lowest unit price. Typically they approve the buying process and buying team, then disengage from the process – sometimes permanently, and sometimes re-emerging towards the end of the cycle. As a salesperson, your best chances of gaining access to Approvers is usually early in the buying cycle, sometimes very late, but almost never in the middle.
2. Evaluator. This is the person, or people, assigned to objectively analyze a proposed purchase, usually against predefined criteria or specifications. Evaluators can say “no” even if everyone else says “yes.” A “no” from just one Evaluator can kill a deal – unless overruled by an Approver.
3. User. Anyone who uses or is otherwise directly affected by the product or service in question. Users often are appointed to be Evaluators. But rather than weighing the product against some specified criteria, their primary interest is in functionality and ease of use, because they’re the ones stuck with using it.
4. Designated Decision-Maker. This is the term I use to identify the individual – sometimes more than one – who, hearing from Users, Evaluators and even from the Approver (the latter usually indirectly), makes the commitment to purchase. This person’s ability to “make a decision” has been granted or designated by a higher authority. Only when he or she is also the Approver can this person truly be called the Decision-Maker.
Now for the two unofficial buying roles:
Coach. A Coach truly wants you to win more than he or she wants your competitors to win. A Coach also has a good working knowledge of the business and organizational issues within the customer company. For whatever business, personal or political reason, the Coach is willing to share with you information and offer direct steering and guidance through the sale that other salespeople don’t get. A Coach does not have to have a lot of influence, however. For that reason, don’t ask a Coach to introduce you to others in the customer company unless you’re certain that the Coach is respected by the people to whom you’re requesting the introduction.
Information Source. An Information Source is any contact who is open to meeting with you and sharing reliable information about the buying company’s business or organization. Unlike a Coach, however, an information source will generally, if asked, provide the same information to your competitors. One of the big mistakes salespeople make is to label an Information Source a Coach simply because he or she is very friendly.
Take a look, then, at some of your more complex accounts and try to identify people who fill each of these six buying roles.
Jerry Stapleton is president of The IBS Group, based in Brookfield. He can be reached at 414-784-0812.

Local firms getting innovative in
the elusive search for valuable employees
Southeastern Wisconsin companies face the continuing challenge of how to find and retain good employees.
Bureau of Labor Statistics tell the whole story. The unemployment rate in the Milwaukee area averaged 3.09% in 1998. And yet our area civilian labor force only increased 1.5% from 1997 to 1998.
What, then, are companies doing to cope in this tight labor market? We recently surveyed our TEC CEOs and were surprised to learn that many companies are using a plethora of tactics to recruit and retain employees.
Some have innovative hiring tactics, such as offering employees $50 to $500 bonuses for referrals who become employees. They also offer signing bonuses to new hires. Others hold periodic “job fairs” and even have raffles to attract candidates. More recently, firms are advertising positions via the Internet, and totally re-engineering the content and message of advertised job postings to make them more interesting, eye-catching, and appealing.
Still, other companies are advertising in surrounding communities where the job commute is an hour or less. Many companies are training their supervisors to conduct effective screening interviews, while also selling the merits of being an employee at their companies. In some cases, that includes personality and skill testing to improve the match between the individual’s qualifications and job requirements.
Another frequently mentioned recruitment tactic is to find a temporary position for a strong candidate, even when an immediate full-time position is unavailable. Some companies actually have job candidates meet in a casual atmosphere with existing employees over refreshments and snacks in an effort to persuade the job candidate that the company is a good place to work. Most of our survey respondents indicated that they have taken the hiring process out of the “back room” and have glamorized not only interview settings, but the vitality of the interview experience.
Many companies invite the job candidate back two or three times before finalizing the hiring decision – a practice that is even used with part-time employees.
Companies have made contact with area high school counselors and have supplied offer sheets and other data about company benefits. In some cases, these contacts are nurtured over the school year. Other firms have hired full-time recruiters, mimicking military recruiters. These people not only manage the recruiting process, but they also serve as ambassadors in the community to represent the interests of the company.
Jim Cerny, CEO of EWC, a Pewaukee-based manufacturing firm, said, “Finding and keeping good employees is no less important for most businesses today than finding and keeping good customers.”
Our TEC survey indicated that a primary retention objective is to ensure that employees are always treated honestly, with respect and fairness. This places a high premium on well-trained and enlightened first-level supervision, especially supervisors who have been trained to be sensitive listeners and communicators.
Second, wage and benefit packages also must be competitive. Employee turnover correlates directly with pay and benefit packages that are inferior to what neighboring companies offer. Likewise, the chance to participate in direct payout profit-sharing plans and gain-sharing opportunities is a retention plus.
Third, many companies use ingenious techniques to make employees feel a more integral part of the business. Letting employees set their own work schedules, using integrated work cells, frequently recognizing and praising employee accomplishments, unscheduled personal time off practices, and maintaining a positive and uplifting and clean work environment are other ideas.
Companies also are offering flexible working hours, in-house day-care, ongoing education and training, and, increasingly, 360-degree performance evaluation opportunities. Some firms routinely “celebrate” business successes with employee parties, company-wide outings and routine communications about the details of the company’s competitive market strategies. Fred Lewis, CEO of MTE Corp., a Menomonee Falls producer of small transformers and related power equipment, says “routine reviews of your human resource policies and programs is an absolute must to ensure that you are equal to or better than other firms in the area.”
Many of our survey respondents said the job position must allow employees personal growth potential. Otherwise, people stagnate in their jobs and become apathetic, no matter how many of the other retention techniques are used. The best way to exploit this is by providing cross-training and job rotation possibilities.
Last but not least, companies are increasingly turning to creative and improved benefit plans such as paid child care, employee discounts on products, tuition credit, unpaid leaves of absence, family-friendly services and matching 401K plans.
The smart company today should be reviewing its current practices and moving quickly to seize new opportunities. John Howman, CEO of Inacom Information Systems in Milwaukee, one of the largest computer systems integrators in the Midwest says, “Any company that doesn’t believe its employees are its most important asset is on a collision course with ultimate failure in the new millennium.”
Harry S. Dennis III is president of The Executive Committee, a professional development group for CEOs, presidents and business owners. This is the first of a monthly column authored by him in Small Business Times.

management creates a strategic
advantage if you manage it right
Four years ago, executives at Stephen & Brady, a Madison advertising agency, determined that the firm’s clients were headed in a strategic direction known as relationship marketing.
Instead of relying solely on the channels of distribution, relationship marketing is all about establishing a direct relationship with the customer.
“In order to do that, you need to know an awful lot about the market and the customer so you can position your products in terms of meeting their needs more specifically,” explains Pam Black, who is in charge of strategic information services for Stephen & Brady. “It’s all about driving your company to serve your customer needs.”
Enter the emerging field of knowledge management, which is about having the ability to embrace all the information out there that is pertinent to your company, your customers, and even your own employees and the way they do their jobs. From that vast storehouse of knowledge, you take out what is relevant, understand it, and use it to your strategic advantage, says Cirsten Paine, director of IT consulting services for Virchow Krause in Madison.
Capturing the operational knowledge within your own organization is the first step in the process. That is the nuts-and-bolts information about how you create your product or service, and how you get it out the door.
“With downsizing and employee turnover, and the dissolution of the belief that you work at a company forever, we no longer have the luxury of relying on long-term employees who provided that knowledge in the past,” Paine says.
Add to that a staggering amount of new market information to keep track of, and it’s clear that an organization needs a structured, systematic way to manage its knowledge, or risk losing it when the valued employee walks out the door, Paine says.
“What you have to have is some documentation about where and how the knowledge is stored and how to get at it,” Paine says. “With the rise of the service sector, all of my inventory is with the people who work for me. The only way I can build equity within my organization is if I can somehow capture that knowledge and keep it within the organization, even if the people walk out the door.”
The next step in the process is documenting or capturing the collaborative flow. That’s harder to grasp, but represents one of the most critical areas of knowledge management, Paine says.
“It’s the culture, the mission and the folklore of the organization,” Paine says. “It’s all the stuff that isn’t in your computer system, and that can’t be put in a report, but it’s key to your business. If somebody leaves, those experiences walk out the door if we haven’t found a way to capture them.”
Where people sit in an office and how they interact has a lot to do with establishing collaborative flow.
“With our consultants, we have moved people as many as three times, because a lot of interactions have to do with where people sit,” Paine says. “We make an effort to have different people sit down and eat lunch together. It sounds trivial, but we really get a lot out of it.”
Next is reference information. Think of it as a vast library of everything that you need to know about your industry, and then picking out the pieces that help you achieve a better overall result.
Once a week, the CEO of Highsmith Inc., in Fort Atkinson, spends two hours a week sifting through stacks of articles rounded up by his corporate librarian, Lisa Gueda Carreño, looking to spot trends and nascent connections that have the potential to reshape his $55 million business supplying audio/visual materials, and educational software to schools and libraries.
Duncan Highsmith has woven that approach of thinking out ahead into his CEO presentations to the point where others are starting to catch on. Managers think more about long-term development instead of focusing solely on day-to-day operations. And it all starts with having a reference librarian who supplies him with the fodder he needs to think ahead.
A potential gold mine
Customer information is what Stephen & Brady is after as it seeks to assist its customers through relationship marketing, Black says.
In targeting the food service industry, Stepehen & Brady compiles and updates a database of chain restaurant menus so that sales and marketing people can better understand what the chains are doing, and how that might fit into what Stephen & Brady clients like Kraft and the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board have to offer.
Beyond menu tracking, it becomes a matter of tracking the companies, themselves, Black says. Factors like financial performance, overall business strategy and how they differentiate themselves from the competition are all catalogued.
“All of these resources are brought to bear in building the knowledge base, and answering the questions of our clients,” Black says.
In partnership with an IT consulting firm called Stratagem, Stephen & Brady plans to start helping its clients with a relationship marketing technique called data mining. All companies have a wealth of information stored in various places, Black explains. The trick is, to bring that knowledge into a usable, actionable format.
“This allows you to start using data in order to understand who are the likely targets of new products,” Black says.
Bar code scanners at supermarkets can be used to determine shopping habits if a customer has a frequent buyer store card, which allows purchasing patterns to be analyzed. With that information, advertising can be sent out to the right people, Black says. Banking is much the same in that banks have a wealth of information about their customers buying habits. The trick is to use that information to their advantage in marketing products and services.
“With the software that is available today, it can sort through the data, link different aspects and generate information for you,” Black says. “You can communicate with the customer on a more personal level based on the customer’s level of interest.”
For all of this to work right, it’s important to have a well thought-out plan with goals and objectives. The quality of the information that goes into the system is critical. Black says.
“You have to continually monitor who is doing what, and how accounts and markets are changing. We find that a report generated anywhere from three to six months ago is woefully outdated.”
If all of this is starting to make your head swim, consider that another critical element of data mining is setting up networks that ensure the right people have access to the information at the right time. That means setting up a communication network within your information systems. One key aspect is to set up a central place where updates are done regularly.
“We have mapped out the approach we are taking, including what information will be housed in the system and how it will be accessed,” Black says. “This is a huge undertaking, and it is happening at companies all over the world. You have to do this in stages. The volume of information, and all of the things you can do with that information, is absolutely huge.”
The call for knowledge management right now among middle market firms and small businesses is minimal, Paine says. But once the dust settles from Y2k concerns, look for a big push in this nascent field.
“Make sure that there is more than one person in the organization who is the linchpin of knowledge,” Paine advises. “You want it documented, you want it shared and replicable. If you know where your knowledge is, and what it is, that’s a big help.”

As business grows, it may get away from constraints of spreadsheets and move into databases
Question:
We use a spreadsheet to keep track of each employee and his or her holidays, personal, vacation and sick days. As the number of employees has grown, modifying or creating reports is a time consuming process and it has started to “crash” periodically without warning.
Our spreadsheet creator said we can improve the situation by modifying some of the original “code” or we could replace the spreadsheet with a database.
Can the existing data be “transferred” to the database easily or will it have to be retyped? Is it worth giving up the spreadsheet that we have spent time on and can fix to meet our present needs?
Answer:
Spreadsheets have always been the right tool for the analysis of data. They are particularly well suited to scientific, engineering, and financial applications where intricate mathematical calculations and precision are required. Lists of data can be sorted and filtered based on specific sets of criteria, or easily displayed in a variety of graphs.
While this enhanced functionality and ease of use has a tremendous upside, it also creates an interesting dilemma. Spreadsheets inherently are not designed for the management of large sets of data. Or to put it another way, spreadsheets can be an adequate tool for the management of simple lists, but they fundamentally are not designed to process large amounts of data.
Enter the true “database” program which specifically is geared toward storing large amounts of data, quickly retrieving information, and producing reports as needed. Databases tend to be less intuitive and more complicated to use and implement than spreadsheets. Moreover, the benefits of a database program may never be realized if not properly designed and implemented.
Consequently, the decision to implement a database often leads to the need for training, outside consultants and ongoing administration requirements, which can increase significantly the costs of the application.
Generally it is not a problem to transfer existing spreadsheet data into a new database. However the degree of difficulty will vary depending on the complexity of the original spreadsheet, and may not be easily accomplished without outside expertise.
It may be cheaper to modify the existing spreadsheet to meet your present needs. However, that may only be a “stop-gap” solution, and it’s likely that you will need to revisit the issue each time your requirements expand. From that standpoint, it’s better to look at a longer-term database solution now so you can meet your current needs and be confident it will accommodate future growth.
Question:
How much space does a single packet occupy on a LAN cable?
Answer:
All of it, and then some. Bits are tiny, aren’t they? There is an inversely proportional relationship of frequency to wavelength based on the speed that the information flows down the wire. That is represented by the formula: C = fw , where C=the speed of light, f=frequency and w=wavelength.
Bps (Bits Per Second) translates fairly directly to Hz (Hertz or Cycles Per Second). There are exceptions to that in data communications, but for this exercise it works well. The speed of light is 300 million meters per second, but in copper cabling the velocity of propagation is roughly 80% of the speed of light, so actually we will work with 300,000,000 * .80 = 240,000,000 for our speed. Finally, w (wavelength) will indicate the length in meters of a single bit on the cable.
Let’s do some math. We’ll use 10baseT, common Ethernet at 10Mbps.
C=fw can be expressed as w=C/f, so let’s plug in what we know:
W=240,000,000 m/s / 10,000,000Hz
W=24m (about 80 feet/bit) That’s a big bit.
Multiply the minimum 64k packet (512 bits) times that 80 feet and you get whopper 40,960 foot long packet. Imagine a 1,518k packet (the maximum) being 121,440 feet long. Obviously either of these is longer than the 328 foot limit for copper 10baseT cabling, so the beginning of the packet reaches its destination long before the last bit has left the source. So watch out for those packets, it seems you should only need to give them an inch, but they take a mile.
Question:
What is Java?
Answer:
Java is an object-oriented programing language made by Sun Microsystems. It was designed so that its users can build small “applets” (tiny Java programs that execute small functions that until now were obtained only as part of larger applications). Java was developed specifically for use on the Internet, although it also is being used as a general purpose programing language in other areas. Sun Microsystems claims that no Java program on the Internet can penetrate the rest of your computer. The reason why Sun can make that statement is due to the limited file-read and writing capabilities over the Internet. The main drawback with Java is for people who use old browsers. Many old browsers do not know how to process the Java script. Therefore, any enhancements that you have created on your Web page using Java cannot be seen by those users.
Tech Q&A is provided by EntrÃ&Copy; of Brookfield. Small Business Times readers with questions can contact EntrÃ&Copy; at 414-938-2139 x3022, or via e-mail at dschm@pcsentre.com.

Zion Lutheran School in Hartland has awarded a contract to Anderson-Ashton, New Berlin, to design and build a new addition to its existing building. The 15,500-square-foot addition will include space for a new gymnasium, offices, and classrooms for early childcare. Construction began in early May.
Wauwatosa-based architectural firm Torke Wirth Pujara has been selected to design a new facility for the Family Enrichment Center. The new 18,000-square-foot facility will be located in the Grafton Business Park and will feature a shared conference/meeting room, child-care room, central work area and kitchen. Selzer-Ornst of Wauwatosa is the construction firm on the project. The Family Enrichment Center began as a collaborative effort of four local non-profit health and human service agencies, working together to deliver more comprehensive, integrated and family-oriented services to the Ozaukee community. – Torke Wirth Pujara has been selected to design a new gymnasium for Rogers Memorial Hospital, a not-for-profit mental health care provider located in Oconomowoc. This multi-functional space will incorporate a non-traditional approach to rehabilitation by offering experiential programs including fine arts, a climbing and tightrope wall, and dance. The therapeutic program is designed to accommodate the inpatient, outpatient and outreach communities.
Beyer Construction, New Berlin, has been awarded a project at Goodwill Industries of Southeastern Wisconsin at 5420 21st St., Racine. Beyer is building a 58,000-square-foot addition to Goodwill’s existing facility, including a new warehouse and five-bay loading dock. Jim Bentz is managing the $1.6 million project to be completed in August. Architectural design is Uihlein/Wilson Architects, Milwaukee.
Gerald Nell Inc., Waukesha, has been chosen for the following design/build projects:

Fast forward and, for better or worse, that wish has come true for most of us. Now, we’re receiving messages in seconds through computers, cellular phones, fax machines and pagers. We’re still checking the mailbox – a computerized mailbox – on a regular basis and, good grief, all the mail is for us. Sometimes we find a message we’ve been waiting for, but it may be among 25 or 50 others. And some of those messages aren’t ours to begin with; rather, others who think we might be interested forward them.
Technology has been a boon to communication. We can exchange messages around the world, 24 hours a day, saving time and money. With all the benefits, why do we hear so many complaints about e-mail and voice mail? Well, when you’re on a superhighway, even an information superhighway, you have to learn the rules of the road. Savvy communicators are aware of them and use the new technology wisely, not only to send messages but also to solidify relationships. Here are four key road rules.
Be discreet when using your cell phone – I may be your CEO’s cousin
I was waiting to catch a plane last week, and the gentleman sitting next to me in the gate area made a call on his cell phone. He worked for a well-known local firm and was talking about who (by name) was doing well at work, who wasn’t, and who was running to “daddy,” the CEO, whom he named as well. This man was oblivious to the rest of us sitting around him, waiting to board our plane. If you’re using your phone in public, move to a private area. With respect to others, if possible, use a vibrating system rather than a ring outside your car or office. And remember, others can pick up cell calls over the air and listen in. Avoid using specific names and numbers whenever possible.
Use e-mail for taking care of business
Has everyone heard as many tales of woe as I have about people who have sent e-mails directed to one party, but which were accidentally sent to another? There was the marriage proposal that became a broadcast message, the gossip about a co-worker that was sent to that person. E-mail within a company belongs to the company, and while most companies don’t read what’s sent, they have the right to do so. Compose mail that, if read by someone other than the recipient, would present no problems for you or for anyone else.
Who is Larry
and why am I
getting his mail?
In my management consulting practice, I hear complaints about the number of e-mail and voice-mail messages forwarded as FYI’s (For Your Information). One busy professional told me that she was receiving many messages which she didn’t have time for and added no value to her work. The final straw was a multi-page e-mail to someone named Larry, someone she didn’t know or work with, and forwarded to her as an “FYI.” She decided FYI would now mean “For Your Irritation.” Not wishing to be irritated, she no longer reads any forwarded messages. Think twice before you forward e-mail or voice mail. Are you providing information or irritation?
Never lose sight of your colleagues on the receiving end
They’re receiving not only the message on the screen or phone, but seeking the message between the lines. Some messages are absolutely appropriate for e-mail or voice mail. Others, such as manager/staff issues, customer or client challenges or interpersonal conflicts deserve face-to-face discussion. Either way, clear, concise, caring communication is always appreciated. Your messages can convey that you are a bright, team-oriented problem solver. On the other hand, you may broadcast to many people at once that you are insensitive and unfocused and, by the way, have little ability (as demonstrated through e-mail) to spell or use appropriate grammar.
Final thoughts
Use technology to keep in touch, to save time and money, to clarify and simplify. As with any tool, you can’t use it for everything. Ask yourself, what is the best way to communicate this message at this time? Then, take a moment to organize your thoughts. Be clear, concise and caring as you send your message. Savvy professionals (and a number of studies) agree that reputations and careers are built on people skills as much or more than technical skills. Using both as you travel the superhighway will keep you cruising toward success.
Lynne Pearson is executive vice president of Joan Lloyd & Associates, a Wauwatosa-based firm specializing in organizational change and leadership development. She can be reached at (800)348-1944.

By now, most everyone is familiar with the popular notion that there is little loyalty left in today’s workforce.
Conventional wisdom holds that corporate downsizing and other trends which broke the unwritten cradle-to-grave contract between employer and employee have transformed the world of work into an “every man for himself” scenario.
Baloney, says Chuck Zwerg, a one-time senior human resources manager who now runs two business executive roundtable groups in the Fond du Lac area.
While loyalty to a single organization will probably never be what it once was, the companies that are truly successful owe it to a core group of employees who have been with the organization for many years, says Zwerg, who formerly headed up personnel for Giddings & Lewis for 23 years and who is now chairman of roundtable groups for Executive Agenda, the management and executive networking organization based in Brookfield.
“The knowledge and know-how of the company rests with these core people,” Zwerg says. “What separates companies from one another is the talent, the people, and the culture that these people operate in on a daily basis.”
Business owners or managers who come to that realization first are ahead of the game, as the organizations that ultimately survive and prosper are the ones which strive for continuous improvement at all levels, adds Ron Heilmann, director of executive development at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
“It won’t happen if the people within the organization aren’t continuously improving,” Heilmann says. “The organization has got to create the type of environment to encourage that.”
That training and education mantra touches all people in an organization, and is not just a blue-collar issue, Heilmann points out. At the IBM plant in Rochester, N.Y., electrical engineers get an enormous amount of training each year, because if they don’t, IBM can’t stay ahead of the design curve.
Over the years, Heilmann has brought Baldridge Award winners to Milwaukee. The award is the government’s recognition of organizations at the top of their field in terms of quality. In his travels to study these award-winning companies, the common thread he has noticed is that those organizations tend to spend anywhere from three to five times as much as the average firm on training, Heilmann says.
“It’s all about the commitment to the development of people within your strategic planning process,” Heilmann says.
With the reduction in middle management ranks, more responsibility now falls on the shoulders of each and every employee. An ever-increasing number of Wisconsin companies have seen the light when it comes to allowing their employees to have input into the way things are done, Zwerg says.
But it’s not enough to merely empower your employees, says Myron Rhodes, general manager of Milwaukee Wire Products. To empower employees without training is a prescription for failure, he says.
“You have to give them the tools,” Rhodes says. “They are not going to do what you need them to do if they don’t have the analytical skills and the knowledge that they need.”
With a roster of 250 full-time employees, the manufacturer of automotive components spends 5% of total wages on training. The classes typically center on teaching basic math, shop skills and team training. Another course educates employees in the basics of Milwaukee Wire’s business.
While the dividends are not always tangible, Rhodes knew it was working when he overheard an employee question another worker’s suggestion to add a step to the production process. “Will that be cost-effective?” was the employee’s response. When Rhodes sees evidence of that kind of long-term thinking, he knows the training is starting to pay for itself.
“We start to see people making good decisions, thinking broad,” Rhodes says. “This is not something that happens overnight, but you do see it.”
A&E Manufacturing Co. in Racine is now in its third year of providing in-house training to employees who are striving for their high school equivalency degree. The training is conducted by an instructor from Gateway Technical College in a traditional, classroom-like setting.
“The biggest thing is, it establishes pride in our workforce,” says Greg Coleman, A&E’s vice president of manufacturing. “And, we have found that our math-based processes such as labor reporting and parts counting has improved.”
With low unemployment, companies like A&E are getting people with little or no experience. The math and communications skills training is designed to focus in on the areas that apply directly to the critical processes within the company, which manufacturers professional quality hand tools. The training has worked so well that A&E plans to extend it to more experience workers.
“Overall, we feel it is a long-term way to lock in and keep employees,” Coleman says, adding that everyone who has been through the program is still with the company. “It’s an extra benefit, both to them and to us. It tends to improve almost everyone, because the math skills of the people coming in here are not up to par.”
At WICOR Energy Group in Milwaukee, all key managers within the group of energy-related companies were asked to read a book called “Every Business is a Growth Business.” The managers were asked how they would apply that concept to their own business units, then were instructed to write a theoretical newspaper article which would talk about their company or division five years from now.
“We ask them to come back and make a recommendation in terms of how we achieve the organizational goals that we have agreed to,” says Bob Puissant, senior vice president for marketing and strategic planning for WICOR Energy Group. “In effect, we have given them the keys to the castle.”
WICOR executives continually challenge one another by introducing relevant articles on management and leadership.
“We constantly challenge our current business practices,” Puissant says. “Are we thinking outside the box in order to better run our current business?”
WICOR has achieved a higher level of customer service within the last several years by creating a mindset among employees that service to the customer is paramount. A big part of offering the higher level of service is through continuous training and education of its workforce.
“We have come to the realization that the strength of our business are the people who help us run the business,” Puissant says. “If you are going to focus on service to the customer, you have to help build and give [employees] the skills that they need.”

There’s a proverbial “glass ceiling” that women in business encounter, impeding their advancement up the corporate ladder.
For some women, however, the struggle isn’t to break through the ceiling but to simply get through the door and into the room.
Milwaukee’s Pat Kandziora wants to open that door to more women. And her efforts to do so have caught the attention of the Wisconsin District of the U.S. Small Business Administration, which named her this year’s winner of the Women in Business Advocate award.
It’s a spotlight she’s not entirely comfortable with, but one which others say she certainly deserves.
“Both professionally and personally, Pat has committed herself to helping women business owners,” says Kathryn Cairney, program officer for the Helen Bader Foundation, who nominated Kandziora for the SBA award.
Kandziora can empathize with those she helps – she’s been there, too. And while she shuns the limelight, she’s willing to take center stage for a bit if her story will help inspire others to be advocates for women, or just improve their lives.
Kandziora is the vice president of private and business banking for Associated Bank in Milwaukee, working out of the office at Kilbourn Avenue and Milwaukee Street downtown. Her practice today focuses on developing new accounts in Associated’s private banking business as well as developing relationships with established companies with sales between $1 and $5 million dollars.
Throughout her 20-plus-year career in banking, Kandziora has always felt a special kinship with women business owners.
“I was able to empathize with the various roles women business owners face, having faced that myself,” she says. “So many of these women business owners are not only trying to start a business, but they’re often times going to school or raising kids or they have a spouse. I guess I seemed to have more of a corresponding role because I know as a mother, and a woman and a professional that we [women] have to wear so many different hats.”
Kandziora knows what it feels like to juggle multiple roles. At the age of 40, as a divorced mother of two, she decided the only way to improve her career prospects was to go back to school and earn a degree.
After starting out at 18 as a secretary in a savings and loan, she found whenever she changed jobs she was always starting at entry-level positions with entry-level paychecks. After going through vocational counseling to find what her interests and strengths were, she enrolled in MATC where she found the support and encouragement she needed to pursue an associate’s degree in business management.
It wasn’t long before she determined that the associate’s degree wouldn’t carry her career to the heights she aspired to. She enrolled in Mount Mary College’s Business Advantage program. Ultimately, she received her bachelor’s degree and associate’s degree in four years.
She balanced school, kids, volunteer work and two jobs all at once. In addition to working full-time during the day, Kandziora worked part-time at a retail clothing store to build her professional wardrobe.
“Sometimes I look back at that and I don’t know how I did it,” she says.
She gives her two children, Scott, 27, and Kelly, 22, credit for suffering through her college years, noting that children can either be resentful or supportive when a parent tries to better himself or herself.
“If I had to define why I advocate for women, I think a good part of it is because I have gotten the help, the direction and the guidance that I needed,” she says. “I now feel that I’m in a position where I can help others. And that’s no noble thing – it’s truly what I believe. So often women face doors that they can’t open, and if there’s someone that can turn the doorknob for them, maybe it’s something I can do – whether it’s finance or education.”
Cairney notes that Kandziora has always gone the “extra mile” when dealing with her clients. If Kandziora cannot help clients, she not only refers them to another institution, but also follows up with each client and institution to make sure the client’s needs have been met.
“I would say she has the tenacity of a detective to find creative ways to find financing,” adds June Schroeder, president of Wisconsin Women Entrepreneurs – Metro Milwaukee Chapter (WWE). “She brings encouragement and enthusiasm to our membership. She’s fostered the entrepreneurship of others even though she’s not an entrepreneur herself.”
Kandziora’s work with women business owners extends well beyond her role at the bank. She has worked extensively with groups such as Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corp. (WWBIC), WWE, Women’s Exchange, the Women’s Fund Educational Committee, and the Milwaukee Women’s Center as well as being responsible for initiating a Women’s Scholarship Program for nontraditional students at Mount Mary and Alverno colleges.
In her roles as banker, lecturer and mentor she is constantly preaching to women to clean up their credit.
Instead of sending would-be borrowers packing when their poor credit history is discovered, Kandziora takes the time to instruct them on how to fix their credit rating.
“I think women are very disciplined, and once they know what the game plan is, they’ll follow it,” Kandziora says. “But if they never know, and no one’s ever stopped long enough to explain it to them, they just say, ‘Sorry, you’re denied.’ Well, now what do I do?”
Despite her own humility, those who know Kandziora believe the SBA’s award is well deserved.
“She does it because she cares,” Cairney says. “She doesn’t do it for the recognition. She would rather have the people she’s helping be in the spotlight than to receive the recognition herself. And that’s why I’m glad she received this award.”
Position:
Vice President – Private/Business Banking, Associated Bank – Milwaukee
Greatest Business Motivation: Developing and competing for new banking relationships
Greatest Business Challenge for the Coming Year: Increase Associated Bank’s private banking visibility and increasing new business 20% by the end of 1999
Greatest Satisfaction from Business: Referrals from customers and professional resources
First Job: Secretary at Mitchell Savings & Loan
Education: Mount Mary College, B.S. in Business Administration; MATC, Associate in Business Management
Hometown: Milwaukee
Family: Son, Scott, 27; daughter, Kelly, 22
Interests/Hobbies: Travel, roller blading, race walking, flower arranging, friends and family, investment research, gourmet cooking and entertaining.
Favorite Vacation Spot: Cancun, Mexico
Favorite Magazines: New Choices, (Reader’s Digest) Food & Wine, Milwaukee Magazine.
Favorite Charities: St. John’s Cathedral, Mount Mary College, The Women’s Fund
Favorite Fish Fry: Benedetto’s

intranets bring everyone together
The “information highway” only tells part of the story on how individuals and businesses are using the Internet and intranets to become more efficient.
Knowledge management takes the information highway to the next level. It involves taking the information available on the ‘net and within data bases and using it to advance individual and company-wide knowledge.
SPS Productions, an animation and Web design company based in the Technology Innovation Center on the Milwaukee County Grounds in Wauwatosa, is an example of how knowledge management tools can work for small companies.
When SPS Productions started out four years ago in the Technology Innovation Center, the entire staff was located in one small office. Sharing information and checking schedules was a matter of leaning over a desk.
As its staff expanded to seven people and the company moved from one office to six adjacent rooms, it became apparent that tracking everyone down for meetings was no longer the most efficient method.
Multiple rooms and the “business-card book” are what prompted the company to investigate an office intranet using Lotus Notes, says co-owner Randy Berdan.
“We used to have this business-card book where we kept all of our clients’ cards,” Berdan says. “So every time you had to make a call, you’d have to walk over and look it up.”
That method worked well in the one-room office at first. But then people would take cards out and fail to return them.
“That’s what really made us look into using Lotus Notes,” Berdan says.
Anyone within SPS can check the schedules of the other employees to plan meetings.
Berdan notes that since SPS only has seven employees scheduling is relatively easy. But SPS clients such as theBrady company, with multiple locations and multiple conference room sites, utilize the program for maximum efficiency.
It eliminates memos which inquire about the three best times and dates to meet and the constant telephone tag that often precedes office meetings, Berdan says.
SPS has taken Lotus Notes to another level as well. The old business-card book has been converted into an electronic data base giving everyone on staff the ability to look up client phone numbers and faxes instantly. In addition, the system has fax headers for each company and tracks fax correspondence. It can also limit access to documents or portions of documents depending on who is doing the correspondence search.
As with many efficiency systems, SPS’s is only as good as the information people share. If employees are resistant to diligently entering information in their calendars, scheduling meetings using Lotus Notes becomes ineffective, Berdan notes.

Strong training can make winners of low-skilled workers
Question:
We are a small manufacturing firm and operate in a “job shop” environment. Our problem has been that the folks we bring in at the entry level are less and less skilled than what we normally would find to be acceptable. We’ve lowered our standards to the point where I’m not sure we can go any lower. Many of these employees have poor basic skills, low self-esteem, poor work ethic, etc. and bring their personal problems into work. With unemployment so low, we can’t afford to be choosy and turn people away. I guess what I’m wondering is how to go about addressing their low-level skills as they come on board.
Answer:
I’m sure this is a question with which many of our readers can resonate. This is an interesting question and one that does not have a lot of easy answers. But we’ll give it a try.
First, let’s step back for a second and talk about the general context in which people work here in the late 20th century.
Clearly, the nature of work has changed. Jobs have become more technical and demand higher skill sets, even at the entry level. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Education, approximately 90% of the jobs which have been created in the last eight years have demanded college-level math and reading skills.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, 21st century jobs will be increasingly even more demanding; 65% of all jobs in the new millennium will require more than a high school education. Twenty percent of jobs will require a bachelor’s degree and/or postgraduate education. Only 15% of jobs will be unskilled.
What you are seeing in your organization represents local evidence of the gap which exists between employees’ skill sets and the demands of the job. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that only about half of the students entering the workforce have the skills they need to do the jobs they are filling. Studies by other government agencies as well as private industry have concluded the same thing: US students graduate with poor academic skills, dysfunctional work habits, and inadequate occupational training. The widening gap between what is expected in the workplace and what prospective employees bring to the table is of concern to a variety of shareholders including educators, employers, and government officials.
Yet despite all of the negative commentary about the quality of education our students are receiving, it is also clear that one of the best things that a future worker can do is to stay in school. While it may be the case that staying in school does not guarantee the acquisition of skills which generalize to the job, leaving before graduation almost certainly portends a bleak future. In this regard, the U.S. Bureau of Labor tells us that the unemployment rate for high school graduates who do not enter college approximates 20%. Those who do not possess a high school diploma fare even worse.
So what then can be done to address this problem? One approach which is gaining momentum in some parts of the country is what is known as a school-to-work program. In essence, these are partnerships between business, labor, government, education, and community organizations that focus on preparing students for today’s high-tech business organizations. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the goals of such a program include:

Milwaukee’s Lincoln Avenue redevelopment on target
by Heather Stur, SBT Reporter
It all began with the purchase, renovation and sale of a residential duplex. In 1989, the Lincoln Neighborhood Redevelopment Corporation embarked on its mission to spur revitalization efforts of an area of Milwaukee’s south side stretching east-west from Lake Michigan to 21st Street and north-south from National Avenue to Oklahoma Avenue, with a main focus on the development of Lincoln Avenue.
Today, almost 10 years and $2 million later, the Lincoln Neighborhood Redevelopment Corp. lends its services – and its funds – to small businesses in its community.
“The businesses we lend to often are ones that might not be able to get a loan from a bank,” says Hilde Dewulf, project manager for the Lincoln Neighborhood Redevelopment Corp. “But that doesn’t mean anyone can come in here and expect to get a loan. If someone needs a loan to start a new business, he or she must show a grasp of what it really means to be an entrepreneur, and that doesn’t come just by going to a seminar on how to start your own business.”
In addition to business loans, the redevelopment group provides neighborhood businesses with technical assistance, especially in accounting, the area Dewulf says small and start-up businesses seem to need the most help in.
A restaurateur on Lincoln Avenue spent several years in business paying his employees and his bills in cash straight out of his restaurant cash register. The redevelopment corporation not only taught the restaurateur accounting and bookkeeping skills, it also bought the building that housed his restaurant and rented it to him until he could buy it back.
This year, the Lincoln Neighborhood Redevelopment Corp. received from the City of Milwaukee a $10,000 Community Block Grant to finance accountant services at the redevelopment corporation. The grant was renewed for an additional $10,000 for 1999. Thanks to the grant, businesses that receive loans from the Lincoln Neighborhood Redevelopment Corp. can get free accounting services for three months, including training to use the QuickBooks accounting program, and then pay $125 each month after that for continued accounting and tax-return servicing.
Although currently it owns no property, the redevelopment corporation has involved itself in renovation projects in the area. And through a partnership with Bay View High School from 1993 to 1997, students in a Bay View High construction class rehabilitated seven structures purchased by the Lincoln Neighborhood Redevelopment Corp. with the help of $60,000 in grants from the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County, and $100,000 in donations from various sources.
“We don’t want to own any property; we just want to fix up buildings so that private organizations will buy them,” says Michael Gapinski, executive director of the redevelopment corporation. “We want to get more people involved in the responsibility of redeveloping the area.”
The organization also participated in a project, known as “Basilica Square,” to enhance the physical quality of the street scene on Lincoln Avenue. The city approved a $750,000 capital improvement project, and Wisconsin Electric Power Co. invested more than $250,000 to bury overhead wiring around the Basilica of St. Josephat, while Landmark Lighting installed a system to illuminate the basilica at night. Harp lighting, newly planted greenery and a park were added to complete the project.
Initial project: renovation
In 1989, Merchants & Manufacturers Bancorporation was chartered and founded a community development corporation, the Lincoln Neighborhood Redevelopment Corp., led by Lincoln State Bank, which sought to comply with the Community Reinvestment Act via a community development corporation. Its initial action involved the renovation of a neighborhood duplex, but the holding company soon realized more was needed to help the area thrive. Thus, the Lincoln Fund was established.
In the same year that Merchants & Manufacturers Bancorporation was formed, Wisconsin Community Capital Corp. (WCC) approached Lincoln State Bank with a plan to create a pool of funds to be used for urban economic revitalization.
That plan evolved into the Lincoln Fund, a revolving loan fund of $550,000 for use by new or existing businesses located on Lincoln Avenue. Lincoln State Bank, Franklin State Bank and Lincoln Community Bank each contribute $150,000, along with WCC’s $100,000 contribution. In 1994, Warner Cable Communications, Inc., contributed $35,000 to the fund with the instructions that the money be used to start woman- and minority-owned businesses, and in 1996 M&I Marshall and Ilsley Bank joined the board of the community development corporation with a $150,000 contribution to the Lincoln Fund. To date, 60 loans – each ranging from $5,000 to $150,000 – have been given out for a total of $2 million loaned to businesses on and near Lincoln Avenue.
Historical precedence
Lincoln State Bank was founded in 1919 as a community bank to serve the local, widely Polish community that was underserved by downtown Milwaukee’s banks at the time, says Dewulf. The demographics of this south side neighborhood have changed over time – a largely Hispanic population has taken residence in the area – but the Lincoln Neighborhood Redevelopment Corp. functions much to the same end that Lincoln State Bank did almost 80 years ago.
When Jose Lopez decided two years ago to expand his National Avenue bakery by opening a second establishment at 1601 W. Lincoln Ave., the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce referred him to the Lincoln Neighborhood Redevelopment Corp., which aided him in all aspects of business expansion – from approving him for a loan to helping him get the proper licensing to set up a business in his chosen location.
“I saw a need in the neighborhood for the kind of product I offer,” says Lopez. “People in the neighborhood were tired of second-hand bakery and second-hand service. I have what they want. Also, the building on Lincoln Avenue was right for my business and was in a good location. I went to (the Lincoln Neighborhood Redevelopment Corp.) for financial assistance, and they helped me throughout the entire process.”
And the expansion of Lopez’s bakery isn’t stopping with the Lincoln Avenue store. In about two months, he plans to open a coffee shop and bakery at a third location at Mitchell and 11th Streets.
El Toro Bravo, a specialty meat market and deli located at 1518 W. Lincoln Ave., is scheduled to open in February or March due to the help of the Lincoln Neighborhood Redevelopment Corp., according to owner Raymundo Vazquez.
“[The Lincoln Neighborhood Redevelopment Corp.] has been holding my hand through the whole process of getting the business set up,” says Vazquez, whose family runs a similar business in Guadalajara, Mexico. “Lincoln Avenue was the right place for me to open the business.”
A model organization
In addition to continuing to act as a lending organization for businesses in the Lincoln Avenue area, the organization hopes other community development corporations will model themselves after the Lincoln Avenue one, says Dewulf. Such already is happening in the Midtown neighborhood around 27th and Galena Streets. According to Dewulf, M&I Marshall and Ilsley, Park and TCF banks put together a loan consortium to duplicate the Lincoln Fund in the Midtown neighborhood.
“Banks in other neighborhoods can look at Lincoln Avenue and see that neighborhoods that might have been neglected have great potential,” says Gapinski. “There are good businesses out there, and we’re hoping that more banks get involved to give these businesses a chance to revitalize the neighborhoods they’re in.”

Approach to senior management can make you a hero – or a chump
Fifth in a series
Last month we discussed getting to executives through a carefully positioned access letter. This month and next, we’ll talk about how to work through a contact at a target company to reach an executive.
No sales dialogue better tests a salesperson’s mettle than a discussion with a lower-level contact regarding getting to senior management. That single conversation requires every ounce of confidence, business sense and relationship skills you possess, along with a deep sense for the subtleties of the spoken word. Do it right, and you just might become immune to competition for the account. Do it wrong, and you could wind up toast.
You must consider several things as you decide how to frame your dialogue: