Leadership Case Study 3

Tim Puts His Charisma Online

Tim is the sale manager at a national auto parts supplier. Among the many accounts his company serves are small auto supply store, service stations, repair shops, supermarkets, and small retailers. Tim has a staff of fifteen external sales representatives, as well as five internal sales specialists who deal with online and telephone sales.

The auto part supply business is highly competitive, with most of the competition providing equally good parts and service. The personal touch therefore becomes quite important in gaining sales. Providing good service - such as refilling orders on frequently purchased parts and delivering on time – is essential. Tim also believes that inspiring the sales staff is vital in gaining a competitive edge. He notes, “If I inspire my sale reps, they will do a better job building relationships with other customers. If I inspire the reps to sell more and better, they might inspire their customers to buy more parts and supplies from us.”

Tim reasoned that his attempts to inspire and motivate the sales staff were working fairly well, but improvement was needed. When appropriate, he sees members of his staff in person, telephones them, and sends out frequent voice mails and text messages. Yet Tim thought that he could do more: “I have been described as charismatic by my boss and several friends. Maybe I could get a bigger bang out my charisma, if I made better use of the social media to inspire my staff.”

Tim decided that for the next month he would post inspiring messages on the Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages of all the members of his sales staff, including the internal staff. Tim would also post the same messages on his pages. Six of Tim’s postings designed to project his charisma and inspire the staff were as follows:

· The only limits we have are those we impose on ourselves.

· If you are still breathing, maybe it’s not much a bad day after all.

· I want to wake up the inner greatness in each and every one of you.

· Welcome every rejection. It means you are one step closer to a Yes.

· The harder you try, the luckier you get.

Tim received fewer responses than he anticipated, but a few sales representatives thanks him for the positive ideas.

Questions

1. How effective do you think Tim’s posts are in terms of expressing his charisma?

2. How effective do you think Tim’s posts are for purposes of inspiring the sales representatives to sell more auto parts and supplies?

3. What else do you recommend that Tim do to express his charisma via social networking websites?