Opening a remote office is a milestone. It is a boat approaching Plymouth Rock. Don’t mess up the landing.
A remote office should not be an indulgence or a vanity, nor permitted creative freedoms, it is not a coffee shop that will hang the paintings from the local artists. The company headquarters is the mothership, its internals thoughtfully designed so that it can be precisely replicated throughout the country.
Each sales office is a franchise.
This can be a problem when the ‘franchisor’ is urgently trying to appeal to the aesthetic and ping-pong senses of millennials. Let’s look far past those excesses and focus on the particulars that can be recreated in each remote office.
The home office should have a color scheme that includes all the details and minutiae that a franchisor has to consider. The welcome area, reception desk, carpeting pattern, paint schemes and wallpaper, pictures on the wall, conference room table, chairs, phone system, cube sizes and design, collateral materials displayed on the same shelves in the same way, lighting fixtures, signage.
Everything exactly the same, just smaller.
This is an investment in both the home office and its subsidiaries, it’s not cheap and it’s an attention to detail that is exhausting. It is a design that is entirely transferable. Winning is game of inches, this is just one of them
Employees will feel disconnected from the mothership. Some part of the intimacy with the corporate office can be preserved with familiarity. “I was there for training, now I am here, same thing”
We want the employes to know they are working within a disciplined system
It is comforting to the prospect to know there is rigidity and processes and the consistency is a display. Something they can see. It is business decorum to give prospects and clients a tour
You may think it’s ‘corny’, The prospect won’t
The End?
This is a long essay that I have divided up into its component pieces:
The Cultural Shift
Define It or the Prospect Will
Exploiting the First Mover Advantage
Reverse Engineering a 300% Price Increase
Each Sales Office is a Franchise
Why Good Salespeople Fail
Why The CEO Should Not Be Selling
Intimacy is a Premium
Breeding Your Competitors
SDR’s. Million Dollar Solution. Hundred Dollar Problem