“Using the Coffman system, we have gone away from the boom or bust cycle of sales. Now we are continuously busy. Plus, we’ve boosted overall staff and revenues by 50 percent.”
Name: Ron Davis
Title/Firm: Co-owner and current sales manager, Harvest Productions
Employees: 48 employees, 7 in sales
Industry: Audio visual design/build and event productions
Territory: Regional, with emphasis in Kansas City area
Objective: To provide ongoing coaching and get everyone on the same page, using the same model and process.
Harvest Productions has grown from a two-person shop back in 1986 to a regional supplier of light, video and sound services for events, theatres, schools and churches. They handle accounts such as Starlight Theatre and the Kansas City Symphony and now employ 48 people.
Nevertheless, their sales cycles had fluctuated more than they liked over the years, and Co-owner and Sales Manager Ron Davis and his partner Bob Ditsch knew they needed a better system to guide their sales efforts.
“We knew we weren’t providing the guidance, reporting and accountability to help our sales staff succeed.” Ron explained. “We were pretty free-wheeling, and they didn’t have a grasp of where they were going.”
So Ron and Bob brought the Coffman Group in about two-and-a-half years ago to help them with coaching and developing a unified process for their sales effort. They wanted to “get everyone on the same page” and working on the same model.
“At first it seemed like an awful lot of meetings, but the more you meet, the better and more cohesive the effort gets,” Ron said of the system that Coffman initiated for them.
“The process is continually integrated into the company with regular coaching, classes and meetings—versus attending a sales seminar once every six months. It’s like a baseball or football team: you don’t play without learning the job first. It’s a philosophy we’ve come to believe in strongly.”
And, that philosophy has paid off for Harvest Productions.
Ron says it has helped him grow as a sales manager by learning the Coffman sales techniques and reporting systems, firsthand. What’s more, it has enhanced teamwork. His sales staff now sees one other as colleagues, not rivals, so they work more effectively as a team in solving problems and boosting sales.
And how has all this affected the bottom line?
“Using the Coffman system, we have gone away from the boom or bust cycle of sales,” Ron said. “Now we are continuously busy. Plus, we’ve boosted overall staff and revenues by 50 percent.”
