Transcript Welcome to the Human Resources exchange
Goal of the Exchange Process
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Help each Member professional to expand their business networks in order for you to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of how you tackle you job functions.
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Provide Members with a dynamic and reliable resource to help you solve problems and find new implementable ideas
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Rules of Engagement
Do not use your HOLD button on your telephone – hearing elevator music in the next 60 minutes is not good!
No body language signs – please be aggressive and speak your mind and thoughts.
Please identify yourself with name and company before speaking.
Take Notes about who is saying what… Warning: My goal is to facilitate aggressively so we can cover as many topics as possible.
Last but not least, I need your feedback on how to make this process better for you and the participants.
Keep in mind of Anti-trust laws.
Question: Ron – Lauren: How are other companies experiencing the year?
Jennifer: Doing well; higher sales than expected.
Kelly: Slightly down from last year from the top line due to diesel products related to oil. In US 5% slower than last year. Up in China over 20%. Brazil: Up 30% over last year.
Mindy: Little over to even with last year’s quarter. Against forecast a little softer.
Ron: Some softening of business due to the long shore men strike. Teri: Slightly up over ‘14 but behind projections. Tim: Record breaking month in January; great first quarter Vallencia: Doing well in 1 st qtr with strong 2014. Schedule adherence: exceeded forecasting.
Question: Spencer – Recent Trends at attending Trade Show Kelly – Viking Plastics: AHR show in January for HVAC in CHI. Show was well attended and better attended than in the past. Very good booth traffic and have spent time post show on the follow-up system. Called each lead. Percentage of good leads: 15-20% meaningful leads.
Jennifer: PMT has not exhibited in at least 10 years. We go to them, like MD&M West and are now reevaluating our strategy. We are exhibiting at local industry events. Mindy: Have concentrated only on 1 trade show. Have been simply attending shows. Window and Door…Glass Build America…primary branding Vallencia: Decatur Plastics – We have not attended a show in 5 years.
Tim: Attended the Fastenal Trade Show…a very busy show for us. Also exhibited at the Grainger Show Teri – Seals Unlimited: Hydro electric damn show. Have been exhibiting for a decade. Have been walking shows and trying to figure out if we should or should.
Spencer: No trade shows D-P Show (Design to Part Show) in IL.
Ron: Have walked several shows. Markets are changing. Kim: Attended shows and not exhibiting. Pool and SPA
Question: How serious do you take SEO for your website presence? Tim: This is important but it is not the main focal point. We do invest in popping up closer to the top as it is a way for us to get recognized.
Teri: Redoing website now – we do get customers from our site. We did not do anything this year but will look at 2016 spending the money to do so.
Spencer: Extremely important. Use fee for click. Search engines are being used more and more. Started 1.5 years ago. Organic search results seem more relevant; currently investigating where to go. Much strategy behind figuring out key words. (we have a daily cost per click – ad words and key words. Increased daily budget to see how this impacts organic searches results.) Sheryl: Important, but it’s not the most important. Mindy: Are current site is not as SEO driven; new one coming will have more content and activity. We invest in directories. We see referrals from
Thomas Net
; been using them for about 10 years now.
Pushing out more relevant content to targeted audience. Kim: We are heavily focused on SEO. We’ve picked up customers from the SEO. Challenge is attracting quality leads.
Ron: With demographics and younger engineers having a place on the net will grow in importance. Vallencia : We don’t make extra investments in SEO.
I lost phone system but can hear you so go!
Question: What are you doing for sales reps?
Spencer: A member of MANA Kelly: Use a number of reps and are in the process of expanding the network. Using peer to peer networking. We have been very successful in other areas, LinkedIn has been a very good “finding” tool used for finding people and positions.
Jennifer: Have been using CEO and company LinkedIn strategy
Question Rickfelder) : What percent of sales is typical for a marketing budget for a contract manufacturer? (John
Question: What are some best practices to engage and develop new sales opportunities with a tenured team of sales/engineering experience? (Ryan Clem)
Question: What is the most cost effective way to gain new customers? What is the top 3 criteria you give to a lead generation company? (Bart Stuchell)
Question : How do you find your leads? How do you calculate your SG&A when quoting? (John Bellett)
Question: How are you going to prepare to certification to ISO: 9001:2015? (Vern Meurer)