When body and sign language mean something else
In Bulgaria, people shake their heads up and down when they mean “no,” and side to side when they mean “yes.”
Russians knew that and complied with local custom when they entered Bulgaria.
By the same token, the Bulgarians when speaking to the Russians tried to follow the norm of up and down for “yes” and back and forth for “no.”
It’s safe to say that no one ever knew what the other meant.
When I was in high school, I remember one teacher making the statement that if two people from different parts of the world were stranded together on a desert island they would learn how to survive together through sign language.
But, gestures across cultures are frequently misinterpreted.
One of the classic blunders with gestures occurred with Richard Nixon. In the 1950s, Nixon, who was then vice president, made a goodwill tour of Latin America. As a youth I couldn’t understand why the people threw rocks at his motorcade.
The pictures from his famous trip showed him disembarking from the plane, flashing the “A-OK” sign. I didn’t realize the significance of that until much later in life. When I learned that the “A-OK” sign means the same as the middle finger does here where Nixon got off the plane, the reasons for the stoning fell in place. (US relations with Latin America hadn’t been all that good over the years.)
Another of our positive gestures, the thumbs up, is so obscene in Nigeria that American tourists who have tried to hitchhike there have ended up in fist fights or worse. In Australia a jubilant American giving an Australian a thumbs up can receive a quick punch in the nose.
In England where the “V” for victory sign originated, if the “V” is given with the palm facing inward, it can lead to a “bloody” situation from an irate Briton. The “Hook em’ Horns” sign of the University of Texas has some colloquial meanings in the US, but in Italy and parts of Africa you would rather give the sign to a University of Oklahoma fan.
When I have a speaking engagement, I always make an effort to find out as much as I can about my audience. Whenever circumstances prevent me from getting a good clear understanding of the audience, I always worry about the impact of my message. A joke that falls flat because it hits too close to a major problem the audience is experiencing, or an idea that you present that generates a lot of controversy are situations that may spell failure. Even company cultures can present enough difference to ensure that messages could be misinterpreted.
Professional speakers, salesmen, corporate executives, and others are all aware of the importance of knowing a client, audience, or the corporate culture of a potential customer. Learn as much as you can about the cultures where you are selling your products or hope to sell your products.
If you are interested in more stories like those dealing with gestures and body language, an excellent source is Roger Axtell’s Gestures, The Do’s and Taboos of Body Language Around the World. If you don’t have time to look into a book and are rushing off to catch a plane to your next international assignment, remember the obvious isn’t always so obvious, and how you interpret what you see may have nothing to do with the real meaning of a situation.
Waukesha international business consultant Joe Geck can be contacted via e-mail at geckj@execpc.com.
June 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Corporate identity process is really a strategic exercise
When Pat Zander had the opportunity to buy the company she worked for last year, she recognized that the firm’s name had to be changed.
The 50-person, Madison-based management consultancy had been named after its owner – Brian Joiner. But with Joiner out of the picture, Zander saw the need to also leave behind the Joiner Associates name.
But in working with a design consultant, she saw more than that.
The change wasn’t just the opportunity to rename the company – it would also be an opportunity to redefine the entire mission of the firm, and publicly declare that mission through the name.
“You need to define and establish your company positioning before naming your firm,” says John Thiel, president of Thiel Visual Design, a 16-person firm on Chicago Street in Milwaukee’s Third Ward. “You need to identify differentiating attributes of your company – what sets it apart. That will drive everything else.”
When Zander gave Thiel Visual Design the challenge of coming up with a new name, she was thus not just asking them to look in a dictionary to find a nice word. She was asking for help in identifying what her company was all about.
“It’s more than just a sign,” Thiel says, noting that the process can involve aspects of “branding” – creating an image of your firm. “Branding occurs in the mind.”
Zander had just two caveats for the design firm, which has created identifying logos for such firms as Firstar bank, Quarles & Brady law firm, Columbia Hospital and Marshfield Clinic. First, Zander said, the name should not remain Joiner. Second, she wanted to avoid the use of her own name.
Otherwise, “we literally had the option to name the company just about anything,” notes John Leaf, marketing director for Thiel Visual Design.
But the end result couldn’t be just anything. It had to say a lot about what the company was all about. And to get to that
“You need to define and establish
your company positioning before
naming your firm.”
– John Thiel, Thiel Visual Design
end, Thiel Visual Design would have to talk to a lot of people about what they thought of the firm.
“This isn’t just artwork,” Leaf says. “We’re approaching it from a strategic perspective, forcing the company to think about itself.”
“We couldn’t identify them if they didn’t know who they were,” adds Norene Thiel, John Thiel’s wife and operations director for the firm.
Thus, naming a firm can be one of the most difficult aspects of identifying a corporate mission, John Thiel says. There are legal issues, along with creative issues. Further, there just aren’t as many names available anymore.
“A lot of the good, obvious names are taken” Leaf notes. At the same time, the name a firm selects has never been more important.
“What’s in a name?,” Leaf asks. “How much time do you have?,” he responds, suggesting that there’s a lot in a name.
“A company name is an asset – if you manage it,” Norene Thiel says. “If you don’t manage it, it can be a negative, a liability.”
For Zander, the Thiel team would talk with employees and clients of Joiner Associates to learn those people’s perceptions of the firm – what it does, what it does well, and where they see it going.
Besides the interviews, the strategic design process at Thiel Visual Design includes an analysis of existing materials, products and services, and the culture of the firm.
From that analysis a positioning statement is made to define the project, including available design opportunities and implementation strategies.
The positioning design is then carried to the visualization step, where creative development of conceptual design alternatives takes place and the options are narrowed.
Finally, the approved design strategy is implemented and, preferably, maintained. Maintenance of the strategy beyond the identification and implementation process is crucial to successful marketing, image designers say.
Zander, who told the Thiel team she would be hard to please, was given 10 options stemming from the design study. Of those 10, attention was focused on four “favorites,” Leaf said.
The winner would be a word that reflects a thought that kept coming through in the review process, Leaf said. “The client kept saying, ‘We offer a better view.'”
The natural follow-up for that was for the Thiel team to work with a “window” concept. And from that emerged the word “oriel,” a term that describes a bay window in a castle – a window which gives the view a vast perspective. The Oriel logo thus incorporates a subtle image of an oriel.
A perfect name for a management consultant firm, John Thiel says. “It’s a beautiful solution that’s perfectly logical.”
Further, “oriel” is a real word with a real meaning, Norene Thiel notes.
For most people, however, the word is an unknown. Even Zander had to ask what it means. But that can work for the company, Leaf says. “It gives the company an opportunity to explain what they do.”
While that opportunity exists for business-to-business operations, consumer-oriented firms need to be more direct with their names, Norene Thiel adds.
“But in either case, you have to go back to a client’s positioning statement,” she notes. “You can get hung up if the customer hasn’t articulated itself.”
In the legal review, the Thiel team could find only one other application of the name – that by a medical products manufacturer in Hungary. [The Hungarian firm already had taken the “oriel” name for its Website, so the Madison Oriel Website is www.orielinc.com.] Because of the dissimilarity of the two firms, no conflict in usage was seen. It’s rare to find a real word so untouched, Leaf says.
Oriel used its Website and an open house to announce the name. The Web announcement – a first for Thiel – allowed the announcement to be shared with clients outside the state and with others who couldn’t attend the open house.
Printed materials announcing the new name led off with the Joiner name. As the reader unfolded the announcement, the new name was revealed. Employees were told of the name a few days prior, allowing them to attain a comfort level with it.
Not just a pretty picture
Coming up with a new logo or design element for your company isn’t just a matter of finding or creating a nice-looking visual.
It’s a matter of looking at what you really want your company to be, and then coming up with a succinct way of expressing that vision.
“Very clearly, corporate identity is a strategic initiative; or it should be,” says Bruce Renquist, of Renquist Associates design firm on Washington Avenue in Racine. “It offers the potential to an organization to clearly say who they are. It’s not design; it’s strategic positioning.”
Adds Tim Dodge, president of Hanson/Dodge design firm in Milwaukee’s Third Ward, “Design is driven by the vision of the company; it’s a defining thing.”
In a way, designers are management consultants, helping companies determine market position and growth strategy.
“You really have to crawl under their hide and take time to understand the organization,” Renquist says. Thus, the design process involves some fairly extensive interviewing, as the design team seeks to find a central theme which a firm seeks to project.
Those interviews are conducted with external audiences – customers, dealers, end-users and others, and with internal audiences – employees.
As part of the process, Renquist makes a word list, looking for repetition of quality. “These words begin to frame the nature of the organization, and the vision.”
The internal audience tends to be the most sensitive and critical, Renquist says. That audience needs to be very clear on where a company stands and where it’s going. “They’re the people who make the place go; they need to be together on the stand a company takes.”
If that stand is clear, the design and image identification process is not just a one-time exercise but, rather, an investment in the future, says Hanson/Dodge’s Ken Hanson, executive creative director. “We’re actually helping our clients to build equity,” he says, noting that for some companies, image is actually another one of their products.
A non-unified design/marketing approach can actually dilute that equity, he says, particularly in this day of a fragmented, multi-media messaging.
If you doubt the value of design and image, just look at Nike. A local parody paper once ran an article stating – facetiously – that Nike would stop making products and instead would focus on what it does best: make commercials. In reality, its image may be more valuable than its products. “You are as good as you are perceived to be,” Hanson observes, noting that, locally, the Wisconsin-based Trek bicycle company’s “greatest asset is its image.”
“You take the highest-priced products, and the difference between them and lower-priced products is design,” Dodge says. And that price difference can translate into greater profit margins.
While a corporation’s image can be a key element of its business plan, in many situations, images of a company’s brands may be more important, Renquist says. “The brand can be the name that carries your business to the customer’s mind.”- David Niles

Tailor presentations to your customer
Question: I recently attended an extensive product training session. We have more than 400 items. How do I organize my information to make sure it makes sense for my customer?
Answer:
This question reminds me of a greeting card that I once saw which read something like this. On the cover it had a picture of a man talking to his dog. It read,
“Fido, you’re my best friend
“I truly love you Fido
“I especially love how loyal you are Fido, and how you bring me my slippers when I come home from work
“Oh, by the way, I bought you some new Dog Food, Fido”
The inside of the card said, “And here’s what the dog heard”
“Fido, Blah, Blah, Blah,
“Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah Fido
“Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Fido, Blah, Blah, Blah
“Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Dog Food, Fido”
The moral of the story? Find the dog food! Having a lot of product knowledge is important. Knowing how to use your product knowledge to appeal to each individual customer’s interests and values is the real key to effective selling.
Recently, I was in the market for a new phone system for a house that we are building. The salesperson told me more about transmitters and other technical aspects that I really didn’t care about. When I left the appointment, I was a bit confused and overwhelmed by the amount of information. I looked at my husband and said, “So, can we pick up line two when we are upstairs?” While the salesperson gave us a lot of information, he never addressed the specific applications that we had.
For years salespeople had been taught to develop fairly standard sales presentations, incorporating as many features and benefits as they felt were important. That is sometimes referred to as traditional feature/benefit selling. The message is more of a monologue, told from the seller’s point of view.
A more effective approach in today’s competitive sales markets is a customer-centered dialogue, one which the customer helps to direct and one which emphasizes the specific values for that customer only. Today’s sales presentations may appear less structured than the traditional approach. Yet, in order to conduct an effective interactive customer-focused presentation, preparation and structure are essential. Here are some suggestions for conducting customer-focused sales interactions.
Before the call
Understand value – Value only relates to the individual that you are working with at the time, and the specific solution(s) that you are offering to that person. People do not buy features and benefits. They buy specific solutions. First emphasize value for that customer and then use features of your product to emphasize how you accomplish those values. Don’t worry if you haven’t told your customer everything.
Set an objective – Prior to each sales call, know the specific outcome that you expect. What action should result from the meeting? That will help you to stay focused and know when to close.
Use a needs checklist – Before the call, ask yourself specific questions about how you are positioned with your key contact and any other persons who may influence the sale. Examples may be questions about how they feel about you, your product, the competition, and what’s in it for them. Based on this checklist, construct questions to help you fill in the gaps and present solutions during your sales meeting.
During the call
Position your agenda – This may simply be a statement like, “Here’s what we will accomplish today.” That will help to ensure that you and your customer are on the same path right from the start.
Uncover needs and then position solutions – This is the heart and soul of customer-focused selling. You may choose to uncover many needs at one time and then position your solutions all at once. Or you may choose to uncover needs and position solutions one at a time as you move through the interaction. Either is fine. The latter is less formal, allows for more customer interaction and gives you an opportunity to affirm positive solutions throughout the presentation, making it easier for the customer to commit.
Use questions to guide the presentation – Questions are like the tools of a carpenter. They are only valuable when used at the right time. Here are some examples:
– Open ended questions allow the customer to respond freely. Use these to conduct a needs analysis at the start of your presentation in order to gauge the presentation according to the customer’s needs and interests. They typically start with who, what, when, where, which and how.
– Tie-down questions are used to get a customer to move with you. It is said that a customer will not do business with you unless he’s said yes at least twice. Tie-downs are simply statements that end or begin with a question such as, “Isn’t it?” “Wouldn’t it?”
No more than two of those in a row or they start to sound like a technique.
– Give customers some options. This is particularly useful when you’re working with a customer who doesn’t know what he needs. If you give too many options, he may get confused. Limit the choices to two or three at any time.
– Value questions are used to emphasize the value for the customer. You ask the value in terms of a question. When the customer responds positively, you provide them with the specific features and benefits that allow you to accomplish this, such as: “If you were able to process your orders faster, what would you do that you can’t do now?”
– Involvement questions – These are used to gauge the progress of the sale. During the presentation, you would ask a customer about something he would have to decide after the sale. Involvement questions usually begin with, “If you decide to, or “When you decide to.” The way the customer responds will give you a lot of information about how close he is to a decision.
– Reverse questions are used to close the sale. When opportunities to use the reverse are recognized, they are highly effective. You reverse by simply asking a question with a question. For example, If the customer says, “Can you start on this project next week,” you say, “When next week do you want to start?” Rule of thumb is to reverse specific questions and answer general questions.
Adjust to different communication styles – Present information visually, auditorally or kinesthetically depending on the type of customer that you are working with.
Close on actions – Go back to your initial objective for the call and close on a specific action.
Don’t forget to say thank you – Send a handwritten note at the completion of a sales meeting. It will help to separate you from your competitors.
Marcia Gauger is president of Impact Sales Training in New Berlin.
June 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Are you posting the required employment notices?
Posting certain notices is required by many federal and state employment laws – a fact that most business owners know, but frequently overlook.
After all, how important are a few posters on the timeclock wall, given the challenge of complying with a seemingly infinite number of other employment regulations?
The answer is that it’s better to be safe than sorry. Although chances are slim that improper posting will cause problems, the possibility does exist, as a large employer in southeastern Wisconsin learned.
Before discussing that case, it should be noted that many employers apparently are not fully aware of their obligations related to the posting of notices. That observation comes from conducting human resources audits at small and medium-sized companies over the past year. Of the more than 25 companies audited, not a single one was in full compliance with its posting requirements. Most were seriously deficient.
The potential liability becomes clear in the case mentioned earlier. In that instance, the lesson pointed to the importance of where posters should be displayed.
The case mentioned above involved an employee who was terminated for excessive absenteeism. Eight months later, he filed a wrongful termination lawsuit, claiming the company violated his rights under the Wisconsin Family and Medical Leave Act (WFMLA).
The law gives employees 30 days to challenge their termination based on violating the WFMLA. However, the 30-day window begins only after the required WFMLA posters are displayed in a location where employees can reasonably expect to see them.
In this case, the WFMLA notice was posted near the Human Resources Department, in a lobby entrance area that employees do not use. Since employees enter the building elsewhere, the posting was not in a location where employees could expect to see it. Thus, the terminated employee was not held to the 30-day limit for filing his lawsuit.
After four years, the company agreed to a settlement that included substantial costs – a $266,000 payment to the former employee, legal fees, plus management time consumed working on the suit. The company also experienced unwanted publicity in a front-page story on the settlement.
It may be presumptuous to assume that this firm would have avoided a problem if it had placed the postings in the proper location. In that case, the employee might have been more likely to file a charge within the required 30 days. However, the company’s exposure was increased by the posting oversight.
A more proactive approach would be to ensure that employees understand their options under WFMLA and any other law that requires posted notices.
For instance, as soon as the employee’s attendance problem arose, the company could have researched whether he was entitled to either state or federal FMLA leave. If it was determined that FMLA was not applicable, the termination decision would have been confirmed and strengthened.
This case deals with only one of the 17 postings that an employer may be legally responsible for displaying.
Posting in the proper location will greatly reduce your liability. Posting the latest revision of each notice is a less serious violation, but one that is much more difficult to ensure.
Unfortunately, the agencies responsible for issuing notices do not automatically send employers new posters when changes are made.
In response, some employers turn to vendors who supply regular posting updates for a fee that can sometimes be rather high. Certain vendors offer an “all-in-one” poster, but there’s a danger in using it because not all of the items apply to all employers.
For example, the FMLA has different implications for companies with 1 to 24 employees, companies with 25 to 49 employees, and companies with 50 or more employees. A vendor with a “one-rule-fits-all” mentality could produce a poster with items that might not fit your company.
Such a posting could mislead your employees and prompt them to file inappropriate claims, resulting in a cost of time, money and damaged employee relations.
If your company has an HR professional on staff, that person is likely to have the contacts and resources needed to keep abreast of posting requirements and revisions to specific posters.
For those who don’t have an HR staff, the State of Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development offers an automated phone service (453-7705) that provides information on which state posters employers are required to display, as well as the latest revision date of each poster.
The DWD also offers a brochure (“Workplace Posters FAQ Frequently Asked Questions”) that provides this information, as well as federal posting information.
While this sounds like an ideal solution for employers who are uncertain about their posting obligations, caution is recommended in utilizing these services – at least in the near future.
A recent call to the automated system found the information to be significantly out of date. And the most recent DWD brochure was found to be equally outdated. When the system is updated – the DWD is working on it – employers should have an efficient and accurate method for ensuring compliance.
Jim Rittgers, SPHR, is the director of human resources for EPIC Staff Management. Comments and questions are welcomed via e-mail to jrittgers@epicstaff.com.
Checklist
Do you know if your company has taken the appropriate steps to avoid serious problems related to legally required postings? It has, if you can answer “yes” to the following questions.
4 Are you aware which of the 17 federal and state postings apply to your company?
4 Are all of the postings that apply to your company
displayed in your facility?
4 Are the required postings displayed where employees are certain to see them?
4 Are all of your legally required postings the most up-to-date revision?
4 Is someone in your organization responsible for
periodically ensuring that legally required postings have not been removed, damaged or obscured?
Small Business Times, Milwaukee, June 1998

AHC’s Rich Blomquist puts emphasis on quality care
Richard Blomquist was in on the ground floor of the managed-care industry back in 1974, and he’s got a few stories to tell.
There was the time he was setting up his first dental managed-care organization in the Chicago area. Problem was, the few existing HMOs had close ties to the Chicago mob. Ultimately, Blomquist got around the problem without getting his legs broken, and went on to establish one of the nation’s first dental plans of its kind in the country – one the Wharton School of Business used as a case study.
Almost 25 years later, the 50-year-old Blomquist can afford to look back and laugh, and take stock of the growth of his 85-employee company, Associates For Health Care, Inc., in Brookfield, the largest Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) in the state.
Associates for Health Care (AHC) combines a network of physicians, hospitals and other providers who have agreed to provide affordable, quality health care in exchange for a larger volume of patients.
Essentially, Blomquist and AHC line up the patients with the health-care provider network, then AHC manages the costs by processing the claims and factoring in the discounts. The patients get affordable care and greater flexibility in choosing physicians, while the health-care providers gain a larger captive group of patients. AHC, meanwhile, ensures that patients receive the proper level of care through utilization management review.
And because everybody wins, AHC gets more business with each passing year.
In 1996, AHC handled $198 million worth of claims. Last year, that figure increased to $280 million. This year, AHC expects to represent $400 million in claims. Since 1989, the firm has grown at an annual 45% clip. That growth has been recognized by Ernst & Young, which nominated Blomquist as Wisconsin Entrepreneur of the Year for the second year in a row.
Not bad for someone who first came here in 1984 with only his knowledge of the health-care industry and a deep-seated conviction that PPOs represented the future of managed health-care organizations. While Blomquist commuted to Brookfield from the Chicago area, a utilization management nurse ran the fledgling operation from her home.
From those humble beginnings, today AHC operates out of a 20,000-square-foot facility on Corporate Drive in Brookfield, its third location since its inception.
AHC provides cost management services to more than 5,300 corporations which collectively provide health benefits to more than 370,000 people. Last year, more than 1.5 million health claims flowed through AHC. Corporate clients include Allen-Edmonds, Jockey International, Kimberly-Clark Corp., Snap-on Inc., Wisconsin Electric, Wisconsin Gas, Versa Technologies and a host of others. AHC also extends the PPO network to a number of large unions which participate through Taft-Hartley trusts.
Quality care saves money
Beyond the impressive numbers and the big names, AHC represents a commitment to quality health care that saves the marketplace money in the long run.
AHC’s utilization managers do not take the approach of: “How soon can we get Aunt Hattie out of the hospital,” Blomquist says. “Our orientation is, if you can provide the correct mix of care in the proper time frame, it’s going to result in tremendous economies.”
Blomquist says the message that goes out to members of the AHC provider network is one of doing nothing in the interest of economy that jeopardizes quality, because poor quality health care is very expensive.
“This is a significantly different message than what typically comes from the marketplace, but it is very effective,” Blomquist states.
AHC PPO members have some of the lowest hospital admission rates and some of the lowest average hospital stay rates in the state. Using the Professional Activities Study as a benchmark, AHC’s utilization management team has consistently achieved savings in excess of 25% over the study’s norms.
What typically happens in a managed care setting is a patient calls a nurse and indicates that he is scheduled to undergo a certain medical procedure. The nurse goes to a computer, which determines the average length of stay, or if it should be an outpatient procedure. AHC does not take this approach, instead applying a large case management approach, which is normally reserved for heart transplants and other substantial medical procedures. This means the AHC team applies medical need to every case instead of applying a rigid computer model.
“I’m not a big fan of trying to apply these very rigid programs to fit a patient’s needs,” Blomquist says. “There are so many variables for each individual that I just don’t think it works very well. By applying medical need criteria, it makes for a better outcome for the patient which saves everybody money in the long run.”
Why PPOs work
Today, fully 50% of the private sector’s health care is being provided under PPO-type plans. When people talk about managed care, they generally think about Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs). But in fact, HMOs represent a minority of the managed-care industry, or about 27% of health care in the private sector. Blomquist says HMOs are actually in decline while PPO organizations continue to grow.
“I think that’s because the basic principles of PPOs are more in concert with the mindset of the American people,” he says. “Such things as freedom of choice. People don’t like to be told: ‘You have to go to this doctor or that doctor.’ Or, you have to get the blessing of this doctor in order to see a specialist. There is much more freedom to choose under a PPO.
“Someone could go into a PPO primary care doctor this morning, and, if they didn’t like that doctor, they could go to see another doctor within the PPO,” Blomquist says. “Time and time again in meetings with employees, we get that positive feedback on the freedom of choice. We tend to get 85-90% of the people using the PPO after a year to 18-month growth cycle.”
Blomquist got the idea for setting up the Chicago dental PPO after reading an article by Peter Drucker about a new health-care delivery system in Germany. That served as the basis for what he established in the Chicago area back in 1974-75.
“It was a new approach which was being used in Germany where employers were contracting with the doctors and hospitals to provide care to their employees,” Blomquist recalls.
The term PPO was not actually coined until 1986. By that time, Blomquist had picked up the 5,000-member Milwaukee Graphic Arts health and welfare fund, and the former W.A. Krueger Co. But many people’s employers were reluctant to sign up with AHC in the early days, telling Blomquist to come back when he had assembled “some real numbers” which would allow for greater economies of scale.
Providing incentives
Blomquist says AHC has always looked for a balanced relationship with the medical community. In order to achieve that benefit, if AHC asks for a discount from the physician in order to enhance the benefit plan to give the employee an incentive to use it, Blomquist says. It’s a matter of putting together a benefit plan that says you will pay 80% of health costs outside the PPO and 90% if members stay inside the plan, he explains.
That 10% increase comes, in part, through a fee reduction on the physician’s side, Blomquist says. If the health-care provider gives you a 10- to 20% fee reduction, AHC reinvests that into the better benefit that is offered to the employee.
“That gives you a win-win situation, and that incents the employee to use the plan,” Blomquist says. “There are some PPOs that do not provide the financial incentive. We have always insisted that there be some kind of financial incentive for the employee to use the plan, but we are the only PPO in the state which has done that.
“I have turned away literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of business that didn’t meet that criteria,” Blomquist shrugs. “We have terminated the largest national PPOs because they didn’t meet that criteria, and others.”
Blomquist insists on having the PPO’s logo on the patient ID card, and on the remittance that comes back with the benefit payment. On the administrative side, AHC also delineates discounts from ineligible charges and co-pays and deductibles, as opposed to giving the doctor a single number and instructing him to write off that amount.
“You need to split it up so there is clear communication so that it works administratively so everyone understands how the program is fitting together,” Blomquist says. “Some people simply don’t do that.”
Other PPOs haven’t done that because the medical community hasn’t forced them to do it, Blomquist says. The worst transgression, he says, is a blind or silent PPO, where an insurance carrier or payor is able to contractually tie into a discount, yet the doctor or hospital is not notified that this particular patient is eligible for a discount.
“The doctor provides the services, sends the bill to the insurance company, then he gets a notice back that he owes $1,000 in discounts.”
That happens, to a large extent, because the medical community has allowed it to go on, Blomquist says.
June 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Don’t let the “It’s summer” excuse slow down your sales efforts

Eddie” came up to me at a recent sales conference. “Thanks for the great ideas,” he said. “Too bad it’s almost summer.” I knew what he meant, but asked anyway, “What do you mean?” His answer: “That’s our slow season. Everyone’s on vacation and it won’t help to start any new strategies until fall.”
Here’s my question: do procrastinating customers put us off in the summer, or do we do it to ourselves?
There are a lot of myths and misconceptions about selling. Everybody’s in meetings on Mondays, everybody leaves early on Fridays and (unless you’re retailing snowthrowers) summer slows down because of vacations. The truth is, summer is a great time to do business. If it weren’t, pent-up sales would make September 400% greater than any other month.
If you stop “selling,” or too readily accept “waiting until Labor Day” as an excuse, prospects cool off, budgets are diverted and competitors cash in.
Before you bite into that trap this summer, here’s some food for thought. Expect resistance from some customers. Some will have valid reasons. Plan accordingly, and be prepared with solutions that make sense for them now. A problem they have today could be three months greater if put off.
Start by probing a little deeper. Ask questions like “Is summertime a problem?” “Why is fall a better time?” or “Couldn’t you have a competitive advantage if we take action now?” The answers will often include staff vacations and suspended company meetings. Decisions are still being made, but yours may not be pre-positioned as a priority. Identify the urgency of your product or service by asking, “Aside from that, how do you feel about the plan?” Their put-off may be just a sign that there are unanswered questions or concerns.
Another course of action is to increase, rather than decrease, your activity. Sure, some customers have valid reasons to wait, but they don’t represent everyone. Somebody’s always in the market to buy.
It’s easy to get caught up in the myths and misconceptions of doing business. The pros are the ones who look at obstacles as challenges to be beaten, then take the action, and the risks, to overcome them.
Summer is a great time of year. My personal favorite. It’s also a great time to sell, no matter what anybody tells you.
Joe Guertin is president of Joseph Guertin & Associates, an Oak Creek-based speaking, training and coaching firm. Your comments are invited at 762-2450, or at jguertin@tcccom.net
Ten Tips
… for hot sales in the
summertime
1 Plan ahead
Set lofty summertime goals for yourself
2 Give prospects a reason to buy
Be creative and use special packages
3 Expect summer resistance
Be prepared to probe their reasoning
4 Use positive positioning
Help buyers see competitive advantages
of avoiding delays
5 Expand your customer base
New business will fill in the gaps
6 Take advantage of summertime activities
Treat clients to outdoor events,
or bring cool refreshments to hot meetings
7 Control your own mind-set
Don’t accept the first few setbacks
as an affirmation
8 Expand your summer business wardrobe People who dress for the weather
spend more time in it
9 Avoid quitters and pessimists
Negative talk rubs off easily
10 Always ask for another reason
The fact that it’s summer should never
be enough
June 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

Develop your strategic IT plan
The role of technology is expanding and, as the pace quickens, technology’s impact on all aspects of business is increasing significantly.
Now more than ever, business executives of emerging, middle-market and Fortune 1000 companies need to use information technology (IT) to increase their companies’ productivity, effectiveness and competitive advantage.
The key to success is developing a proactive strategy for incorporating IT into your organization, keeping in mind that technology should help solve business problems – not exist for its own sake.
Begin by examining the forces affecting your business and by articulating
a clear vision for your
company’s future.
Here’s a three-step framework for developing a strategic IT plan:
Vision – define your business needs and IT goals.
Strategy – allocate resources to maximize your company’s technology investment and improve performance.
Implementation Approach – identify IT initiatives to maximize the progress of your plan and vision.
You should focus on how using information technology can benefit all aspects of your business. The following steps are guidelines to help you begin the planning process.
Start with the vision
You must begin by examining the forces affecting your business and by articulating a clear vision for your company’s future. That vision should align your business needs of sales and marketing, operations and the marketplace, with your IT goals.
Technology’s traditional role of data collector, information gatherer and communicator has shifted to decision-maker, knowledge manager and collaborator. Keeping that in mind, you must define the role that IT is going to play in your business. In doing so, it is important to understand the organizational, social and technological trends that are shaping this evolution.
Eight trend shifts shaping IT, according to The Gartner Group, a research firm that specializes in information technology, are:
1. Data, to decision support
2. Communication, to collaboration
3. Information, to knowledge
management
4. Network computing, to
ubiquitous computing
5. Graphical, to cognitive
user interfaces
6. Situated, to mobile
7. Physical, to virtual
8. Business, to consumer
Utilizing information technology as a strategic component of your business is the key to success and, in order to do so, it is important for you to understand where you currently are in this shift and where you need to go to remain competitive.
The strategy
While the vision identifies your business goals, the strategy portion of your plan outlines how you will move toward this vision. Historically, cost has driven IT strategy development. However, businesses’ reliance on IT to improve productivity, effectiveness and competitive advantage has shifted the focus to how IT can increase business value.
The Gartner Group expects businesses in the United States to increase their IT spending by 7.5% in 1998 and 8.5% in 1999. The group bases its prediction on three factors, outlined as follows.
Factors influencing IT spending
Many companies are only now beginning Year 2000 compliance projects. Spending patterns are thus shifting from business as usual to a concentration on strategic IT plans and Year 2000 compliance – and nothing else.
The rise of the Internet and the availability of mobile communication technologies make it possible for enterprises to compete globally.
Technology convergence, coupled with organizational shifts in IT spending to business units, masks this increase.
This strategy step establishes the direction your business needs to take to get the best return on its IT investment
Using information technology as a strategic component of your business is the key to success. You need to understand where you are and where you’re going.
and improve performance. Each strategy within your plan, whether it be outsourcing, network consolidation or standards adoption must be developed around available resources so that you can determine a realistic approach.
Implementation approach
The implementation portion of your plan sets the parameters for accomplishing your IT goals – what needs to be done, how much it will cost and how long it will take. Those parameters should take into consideration your corresponding projects, technology investments and organizational improvements. To avoid a disconnected plan, which only limits progress, you should keep your initiatives to a minimum.
Reaping the value of information technology begins with a clear and focused strategic IT plan, composed of vision, strategy, and implementation components which management will champion and which your entire enterprise will follow. Your strategic IT plan is only what you make of it. Unless it’s implemented and referenced, it will be another document with limited value.
Bob Landgren is a partner and the Milwaukee branch manager for Whittman-Hart, Inc.. He can be reached via e-mail at bob.landgren@whittman-hart.com.
June 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

It’s tough to find quality employees in today’s market

Question:
Like many companies, we’re having a hard time hiring qualified workers. We’re also seeing a trend in which employees we hire don’t stay with us very long. This means that we’re continually filling the same positions, which makes it pretty hard to build any kind of consistency or teamwork. Do you have any suggestions about what we can do?

Answer:
Your situation is an increasingly common one. Unemployment remains low, particularly in southeastern Wisconsin. Job seekers, especially those in “hot” fields such as computing, often have their choice of positions.
From the point of view of the employer, this often means that they have to “sweeten the pot” in order to attract the candidates they desire, sometimes at a higher compensation level than they’re comfortable paying.
A recent survey of employers in Nation’s Business magazine revealed that 80% indicated that they were having difficulties finding qualified employees over the past year. So, you are not alone.

Interestingly, the same poll indicated that attitude and work behavior were the areas in which job applicants were deemed to be weakest. That suggests that people are being hired primarily on the basis of their technical or subject matter expertise.
Yet, the ability to work effectively with other people is at least as important as job know-how. That highlights the importance of the training/development function of the organization which I have discussed in some of my recent columns.
As a starting point, I would suggest that you examine your present employee-selection practices. Do you have a clear idea of the position requirements? With frequent changes in work technology and processes, job requirements sometimes outpace job descriptions. As a result, as we solicit job applications we may be out of touch with what the demands of the position really are. That can lead employees to become disenchanted when they come on board and find out that the job is more (or less) than they bargained for.
What are the competencies which are critical to success on the job?

That focuses on the human dimension of the employment equation. The basic thrust here is to make sure that the attributes which you are targeting are the ones that really matter.
As the survey we discussed above makes clear, job know-how matters; most employers say it is the most important thing they look for. Yet other attributes which must be considered have to do with the context in which the person will operate. For instance, a strong team environment demands that interpersonal and communication skills be assessed during the screening process. So, be careful to avoid being one-dimensional in your approach.
Is everyone involved in the hiring process (e.g., HR, department manager, interviewers) “reading from the same book”? Sometimes employee selection is “owned” by more than one individual or department. Human resources might develop the position advertising and do the initial screening, including one or more interviews. Subsequently, the manager who will supervise the individual will get involved and conduct a Pre-Employment Assessment before hiring a candidate. Some organizations make use of team interviews in which employees (peers of the person ultimately chosen) carry out the entire selection process. Some organizations make use of external consultants who interview or test prospective employees at some point in the application process.

Regardless of what approach is used, it is important that agreed-upon criteria guide the process so that “apples” can be compared with “apples.”
Does performance during the selection process correspond with performance on the job? If you are making use of sound selection strategies (e.g., reliable, valid interview approaches, simulations/work samples, etc.), then the way an individual “looks” as a candidate is likely to be the way they “look” as an employee.
Of course, when good candidates are few and far between, the inclination may be to lower standards just to get a “warm body” in the door. However, employing “pulse rate” criteria brings along with it great potential to be disappointed. It’s been my experience that very few candidates who come across as corpses develop into superstars once they have been hired.

Set a standard below which you will not drop. Painful though it may be, my sense is you’re better off in the long run sticking to your guns, as opposed to bringing on board candidates who are “projects,” at best.
You may want to consider some non-traditional approaches, as well.
How are you obtaining applicants? Are you making use of the Internet to solicit applications? Is your organization a participant at local job fairs? In light of W-2, are you looking to former welfare recipients as a pool of potential employees?
Are you offering your incumbent employees a bonus or reward for attracting new employees to the organization? Are you paying employees an incentive once they’re on board for performance and/or regular attendance? How does your compensation package compare with the competition?
Although these suggestions may be anathema from your vantage point, in light of the present employment climate, you may do well to explore them.

HR Connection is provided by Daniel Schroeder, Ph.D., of Organization Development Consultants in Brookfield. Small Business Times readers who would like an HR issue addressed in this column can contact Schroeder at 827-1901, fax is 827-8383, or via e-mail at odc@execpc.com.
June 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

In the eyes of your customer, which one are you?
I frequently make the point that customers will perceive your value based much more on how you sell than merely on what you sell.
At the lowest level, they see you as a vendor. Moving up just a little, you become in their eyes a problem-solver. I see scant difference between the two.
As a salesperson, you take a quantum leap when you become a business resource to your customers. As a business resource, life is good and your margins are high. But you can’t just will yourself to that level. Becoming a business resource requires business acumen, organizational savvy and discipline.
Take this quick test to see if you’re there – or if you have what it takes to get there. Which one are you?
You’re a vendor/problem-solver …
If your motto is “look for the decision-maker” – overlooking the complexity of decision-making processes in customer organizations, where crucial purchasing decisions turn on the ebb and flow of shifting influence and evolving business conditions and goals.
You’re a business resource …
If you recognize that making decisions in the real world is complex and subtle. You understand that title and influence don’t always go together, and make it your business to figure out who in the customer firm may have high influence despite having a low title – and vice versa. One question you never ask: “Who makes the decision.”
You’re a vendor/problem-solver …
If you dismiss the importance of selling to senior executives. “I’ll alienate my contact,” you may say. Or, “The decision just goes to senior management for a rubber stamp.”
You’re a business resource …
If you’re executive credible. It’s your standard operating procedure to approach senior management, usually early in the sales cycle. You prepare thoroughly and understand what it takes to be viewed by the customer executive as a Business Resource.
You’re a vendor/problem-solver …
If your principal sales tool is the proposal, ignoring that most are about as inspirational as a consumer brochure on aluminum siding. If you lose a sale, you have a ready excuse: “What can I say, boss? They just didn’t like our proposal.”
You’re a business resource …
If your principal sales tool is the business presentation. You know that nothing has a higher impact in the sales cycle, and that an effective stand-up presentation is much more sophisticated than sitting across the table discussing your product, solution or company. And you know that the proposal is nothing more than a confirmation tool.
You’re a vendor/problem-solver …
If you rely on your gut feelings and hunches to qualify opportunities. You spend way too much time on sales opportunities that you end up losing (“Nothing ventured, nothing gained” is your philosophy) rather than undertaking a cold, hard evaluation up front about the likelihood of winning them.
You’re a business resource …
If you force every sales opportunity to pass a three-part test: 1) Should we pursue? 2) Can we win? 3) Will it be good business? You have objective criteria for your sales campaigns and your competitive situation that you can use to answer those questions. You apply those criteria throughout the sales campaign, not just at the beginning.
You’re a vendor/problem-solver …
If your objective is sales activity. You rack up stacks of proposals, fire off quotes, wear your index finger out making phone calls and figure it will all help you make the customer’s short list or even close the sale. Nobody can say you don’t work hard.
You’re a business resource …
If your goal isn’t mere activity, but to own the customer – to reach a relationship in which customers will turn to you first whenever they have a need that you can be reasonably expected to fill. You strive to be seen as having much broader value than a vendor, and you know you’ve reached that level when a customer gives you the right of first refusal.
You’re a vendor/problem-solver …
If you are content with fulfilling known opportunities with nominal solutions. “Is there a budget?” you ask, then try to show the customer that your solution is the best one within that constraint. You learn about your own product line so you can proffer it as the answer to your customer’s problems.
You’re a business resource …
If you create opportunities. You understand that if you know the customer’s business well enough, you may perceive a need before the customer does. You know that when a company wants to do something, it won’t be limited by existing budgets but will find the budget dollars. Instead of product knowledge, you focus on a deep knowledge of your customer’s business, and on gaining access to the executive levels where budgets are created.
You’re a vendor/problem-solver …
If you like nothing more than a good competitive fight. You’ll outsell competitors on whatever grounds they choose: price, product specifications, quality – who cares? Or if what you’re selling is little more than a commodity, then you try to win by force of your personality.
You’re a business resource …
If you know the real contest isn’t about price, specifications or quality, but strategy. You know when to go head-to-head against the competition and when to divide and conquer, or even when and how to change the ground rules.
You’re a vendor/problem-solver …
If you are a talker. Schmoozing customers, you listen for signs of a need that will give you an opportunity to pitch your product. Or, at best, your conversations with customers are the traditional problem/solution dialogue.
You’re a business resource …
If you’re a listener – and more. You listen with a strategic sense of curiosity and discipline, applying business acumen and analyzing what you hear. Most important, you listen for the need behind the need.
You’re a vendor/problem-solver …
If you sell tangible solutions, with a value that can be measured in return on investment, superior technology, price for performance, speed or savings to the customer.
You’re a business resource …
If you sell intangible value, and can communicate to the customer the value of having a business relationship with your company.
You’re a vendor/problem-solver …
If you see the customer as your friend and focus on building rapport.
You’re a business resource …
If you see the customer as a business peer, and live out the confidence you have that you have the ability to bring business value to your customer.
You’re a vendor/problem-solver …
If you understand the customer’s business – but only up to the point that it applies to what you’re selling. Your efforts to understand the customer’s problems are simply a search for opportunities to sell your product.
You’re a business resource …
If you focus on the customer’s business – in depth. You temporarily forget what you’re attempting to sell as you learn the customer’s business, its context and its environment. You’ve developed that unique ability to align the value your company brings with the business direction of the customer company.
Jerry Stapleton is president of The IBS Group, a large-account sales consulting firm based in Brookfield.
June 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

“People [in Boston] always express surprise when I tell them all of the big companies that are located here, like Northwestern Mutual Life and Johnson Controls.”
Kate Krill, a Milwaukee native who just moved back from Boston
“Milwaukee is not people’s first choice. When you are trying to get people to move from a place like the Silicon Valley to Milwaukee, it can be an obstacle. But once they bring their families, they like the values and the lifestyle.”
Ron Roth, Manhattan-based executive recruiter
“It appears that people on either coast have difficulty pinpointing locations in the Midwest. I’ve had people say to me, ‘Oh, Milwaukee … Isn’t that on Lake Superior, or across the river from Minneapolis?’ We are terra incognita to these people.”
Jude Werra, Brookfield executive placement specialist
“The major obstacle with Milwaukee is climate.”
Ron Roth
“My impression coming here is that it was going to be a small town, that everyone would be from here and that it would not be a very cosmopolitan city in the sense that it would have no great restaurants, nightlife or people coming here from all over the place. At the same time, I also expected it to be a very friendly city, and a place that was livable and affordable. To some extent, these are still my impressions, although the restaurants are actually better than I expected.”
Stacey Watson, a 31-year-old market analyst with Harley-Davidson who moved here last September from the East Coast
“I showed one of my co-workers this picture of the downtown lakefront, and she said she had no idea it was that beautiful. They (former Boston co-workers) all want to come and visit me because I have talked about it so much.”
Kate Krill
“I like to call Milwaukee the land of milk and honey.”
Ron Roth
“My boyfriend, who is from Pittsburgh and lives in Chicago, has a very negative impression of Milwaukee. But, he has never been here.”
Stacey Watson
“If Governor Thompson ever gets tired of it, I’ll take up the mantle as the state’s number one cheerleader. It’s a great place to live, and it’s not superficial. The people here are real.”
Dick Tilmar, a Milwaukee native and CEO of the T.E. Brennan Co. who lived in Southern California for eight years before moving back
“There is an inferiority complex built into life here that is detestable. There is a negativity that creeps in. The message seems to be one of ‘You ought to come back and give us a try.’ That’s called leading with your chin.”
Owen May, former Channel 4 television reporter and general manager of Metro Video Services in Wauwatosa who moved to Milwaukee in 1988 from Boston.

Controlling doctor behavior is path to controlling costs
Milwaukee dermatologist Kathleen Stokes listens with envy when her father-in-law reminisces about practicing medicine in “the good old days” before managed care.
He made house calls and treated patients “with no one looking over his shoulder, judging his efficiency, or checking his treatment outcomes,” she recalls.
Traditional indemnity insurance of his day paid practically any bill submitted, allowing him to try whatever he thought best to cure his patients’ maladies. Even patients with no money and no insurance were no problem. Before managed care, doctors could “cost-shift” by charging their insured patients rates designed to cover their overall costs. Consequently, everybody could trust his or her doctor to provide the best medical treatment available.
Managed care changed the rules and fundamentally changed the way doctors practice. While most doctors say they still strive to do whatever is in the best interest of their patients, managed-care organizations have finally succeeded in controlling costs primarily by influencing doctors’ behaviors.
Managed care has tightened the purse strings through financial incentives, administrative strategies such as utilization reviews, referral requirements, and profiling systems linked to administrative sanctions.
Medical directors for managed health-care organizations say they are forcing doctors to consider economics when making medical decisions rather than giving them a blank check.
Doctors say the economic pressures do impact the quality of health care provided.
Booming health-care inflation heralded the new era of managed health care which began in Wisconsin with the introduction of HMOs in 1972.
Since then HMOs and their off-shoots (an alphabet-soup of health-care options including HMOs, IPA-HMOs, open HMOs, PPOs, and POSs) continue evolving as they strive to answer the market’s demands for cost-effectiveness and quality service.
The array of managed care options grew from the original staff-based models that pioneered the state’s managed-health frontiers. Staff-based HMOs use salaried doctors at specified medical centers. They bring several systems under one roof: medical, financial, and administrative. With their closely-knit operations, these HMOs have proved most effective in controlling costs and maintaining low monthly payments.
However, for consumers who were used to seeing any doctor they like whenever they wanted, the controls seemed too restricting. To keep their employees happy, employers asked for more options. What they got were new HMO structures aimed at bringing in more health care professionals, such as IPA-HMOs and group and network HMOs.
Preferred-provider organizations (PPOs) sprang up in the mid-1980s as an alternative providing more choice while controlling costs. Employers found that groups of hospitals and doctors would be willing to cut prices in return for assured volume of patients. For employers, they provide a cost-saving compromise for workers who resist joining HMOs.
Soon hybrids of those forms appeared, among them open HMOs or point-of-service plans. They allow patients to go outside the plan’s HMO providers when they choose to share in the cost through co-payments and deductibles and take responsibility for filing claims.
Today managed care accounts for 85% of employer-based insurance enrollment. Traditional indemnity plans are down to 15% of active employees.
Evidence shows managed care has succeeded in controlling costs. For the fourth year in a row, the 1997 costs of providing health benefits to active and retired employees by US employers with 10 or more employees increased more slowly than the medical component of the Consumers’ Price Index (2.8 in 1997).
While some predict premiums will rise this year and next, managed care controls are expected to keep tight reins on increases. Thanks to managed care, more companies can afford to provide health benefits to employees.
Employers, who foot much of the bill, are glad someone has lassoed runaway health care costs. But lower medical inflation doesn’t necessarily mean better value. As one doctor put it, “you wouldn’t buy a Yugo and think you’re getting a Mercedes-Benz.”
Consequently, concerns are being voiced about the quality of medicine available under managed care. State and national initiatives to regulate managed-care organizations are being debated.
June 1998 Small Business Times, Milwaukee

There’s a new twist on accounts receivable financing
When businesses think of accounts receivable factoring, they can conjure up unpleasant thoughts of insensitive third parties beating on their hard-won customers for payment.
But most small business people know very little about factoring because it has historically been limited to certain industries such as textiles and apparel, and to larger companies. Recent technological and software advances have spawned factoring programs for smaller businesses that are strapped for cash.
Factoring has been used since colonial times in the Americas and even before that in Europe. Factoring involves the sale of accounts receivables to a factoring company. Prior to those sales, the factor will have approved the credit and set credit limits for the customers.
Thus, there are three parties in any factoring arrangement: (1) the seller who sells both the merchandise to (2) the customer and the receivable to (3) the factor.
Factoring arrangements can be set up for notification or non-notification, which governs whether the customer is notified that the account has been sold to the factor.
Also, factoring arrangements can be recourse or non-recourse. When the factor has recourse, the factor can look to the seller of the accounts receivable if the customer does not pay in 120 to 180 days. The non-recourse factoring arrangement has been the arrangement with which most business people are familiar.
The normal steps in the factoring of an account are: