What would you do to increase Benco's Sales Morale?

I am someone who has come across the Chief Revenue Officer role at Benco. I am doing my diligence to understand if I was to be offered the job, what I would be walking into. I have read a few message boards and it seems as though morale is down. I would love to hear suggestions on what you believe to be true and if it is bad, what changes you would like to see made to increase morale to get the team to greatness. Please leave people's names or pointed remarks aiming at any individuals out of your reply.

Thanks in advance.

 

As someone who worked at Benco for a long time and left I will give you my 2 cents. Benco used to be a great company when Larry was in charge. Chuck has ruined the company. He is very unpopular with manufacturers.

Benco has lost major brands:Adec, Sirona, Planmecca.
The micromanaging has become ridiculous. Too many worthless meetings and call notes. We work on 100% commissions. This is a waste of our time.

Work harder, deal with more bullshit to make less money is not a winning formula.

Until major brands are brought back and the micromanaging is stopped, the company will continue to be a joke.

The job has a short shelf life, I would pass if I were you. Chuck thinks he is a lot smarter than he is.

 

Where do you start? Benco is looking like Patterson in terms of management. Inept above their pay grade managers who justify their positions by pushing out others who are strong competent and well respected. The team environment has all but evaporated. Chuck is as disconnected from reality as one can be for a person who's supposedly running a company the size of Benco.

I'll agree micromanaging is horrible, and sucks the motivation right out of you. It's hard enough competing without having to check boxes and such each day.

We are not respected by manufacturers, not seen as a viable entity to those we do carry and as such don't get the support we need to grow.

Budgets are shoestring at best and we're expected to sell more and in turn make less and push programs no one asked for like Benco Select (charging for things our competitors give for free...). And then when we don't "sell" the program we're berated for not doing our jobs and questioned as to what we actually do. I dunno maybe $2+mm a year in sales, but that doesn't matter. All that matters to the people in Pittston who've concocted this program or that program is that we sell Their idea.

Benco used to be about choice. What the Dr's wanted not what we were being forced to push ala Patterson and Sirona. Now it's about just checking a box and hope to god your manager actually understands sales much less dental... and stands in the gap when someone up the food chain gets a bug up their butt and wants you gone ala KT.

We're professionals, give us the tools we tell you we need and some cool ones we didn't know we wanted and support our efforts. Stop 2 day meetings, stop the "sell the promo" vs sell what the dr wants and needs. I could go on for a long time. But there's just so many issues... I love working here but man its trying at times with the uber corporate mentality that's crept in, in recent years.

 

Run. You won’t make any decisions. Chuck Cohen makes all the decisions and will use you as a puppet and then blame you and force you out when his plan doesn’t work.

Funny, I thought Anna DuHamel was going to be the next CRO.

As far as morale is concerned, too many of us have seen a loss in commission because of the way things were restructured. We are constantly being hounded to push certain products, we are being hounded about call notes and signing customer la up for Benco Select (which they want us to position as an amazon prime type of offer which it is NOT).

We are seeing our regional managers quit or be fired. We are seeing our best ES’s go to Burkhart because the commission is more lucrative and the environment is actually family oriented over there.

I used to constantly tell people that what I loved about Benco was the family feel of the company. We didn’t used to be so corporate, we were told that our families come first and that Chuck, Rick, Larry, etc were all available to any of us at anytime. Now, it’s a mess of channels to go through to get anything accomplished.

The company has changed so much. I get it, we need to keep turning profits and we need to pay for all the legal fees associated with the court cases we are facing. But it’s not remotely the same place, we have to fight that much harder out on the street and then get beat up on all the conference calls and team meetings we have.

 

Run. You won’t make any decisions. Chuck Cohen makes all the decisions and will use you as a puppet and then blame you and force you out when his plan doesn’t work.

Funny, I thought Anna DuHamel was going to be the next CRO.

As far as morale is concerned, too many of us have seen a loss in commission because of the way things were restructured. We are constantly being hounded to push certain products, we are being hounded about call notes and signing customer la up for Benco Select (which they want us to position as an amazon prime type of offer which it is NOT).

We are seeing our regional managers quit or be fired. We are seeing our best ES’s go to Burkhart because the commission is more lucrative and the environment is actually family oriented over there.

I used to constantly tell people that what I loved about Benco was the family feel of the company. We didn’t used to be so corporate, we were told that our families come first and that Chuck, Rick, Larry, etc were all available to any of us at anytime. Now, it’s a mess of channels to go through to get anything accomplished.

The company has changed so much. I get it, we need to keep turning profits and we need to pay for all the legal fees associated with the court cases we are facing. But it’s not remotely the same place, we have to fight that much harder out on the street and then get beat up on all the conference calls and team meetings we have.

 

Run. You won’t make any decisions. Chuck Cohen makes all the decisions and will use you as a puppet and then blame you and force you out when his plan doesn’t work.

Funny, I thought Anna DuHamel was going to be the next CRO.

As far as morale is concerned, too many of us have seen a loss in commission because of the way things were restructured. We are constantly being hounded to push certain products, we are being hounded about call notes and signing customer la up for Benco Select (which they want us to position as an amazon prime type of offer which it is NOT).

We are seeing our regional managers quit or be fired. We are seeing our best ES’s go to Burkhart because the commission is more lucrative and the environment is actually family oriented over there.

I used to constantly tell people that what I loved about Benco was the family feel of the company. We didn’t used to be so corporate, we were told that our families come first and that Chuck, Rick, Larry, etc were all available to any of us at anytime. Now, it’s a mess of channels to go through to get anything accomplished.

The company has changed so much. I get it, we need to keep turning profits and we need to pay for all the legal fees associated with the court cases we are facing. But it’s not remotely the same place, we have to fight that much harder out on the street and then get beat up on all the conference calls and team meetings we have.

 

I too am researching the CRO role. Keep these comments coming. They are helpful.

 

I would avoid the job if I were you. Morale is at an all time low here. The endless micromanaging really sucks. Reps are going to be leaving in droves soon. The money is nowhere what it used to be. You could not have a worse boss than Chuck Cohen. He is hated through out the industry. A true dictator.

 

But, but, but, but Vatech.

 

But, but, but, but Carestream, itero, Voco.... throw any brand in here that they are pushing us to sell that will "revolutionize" our sales or what have you. We don't need gimmicks we need leaders. We need real solutions, not reports or meetings or call notes and please God no more Benco Select. It's not revolutionary it's not even anything other than a way to hammer reps for not hitting arbitrary benchmarks for a product that makes no sense and no one even asked for.

 

In my time with Benco we must have had 6-7 VP of Sales as they used to be called. The comments are correct here that you will be doing what CFC tells you to do. You really won’t be able to bring any ideas of your own. The Directors as they used to be called are a joke. Support at corporate Benco knows nothing. I would look at a smaller growing dental company.
Burkhart, Midway etc. I was at Benco for over 23 years.

 

Oh did someone mention all the lawsuits and millions of dollars going to attorneys since 2014. FTC is supposed to issue their decision on October 18.

 

To answer the question as to what I would do to improve sales moral.....
1. Hire and retain an inside sales force capable of supporting outside reps. The turnover is not good for anyone.
2. Get rid of the old order taking reps. Too many people just riding it out for retirement, with accounts in their name and $0 in sales. You know they are not calling on them, simply hoping equipment comes falling from the sky.
You could bring in hungry individual who will actually enter call notes and call on the accounts.
3. Make billing more transparent with the customers. That is always the #1 complaint, billing is unorganized.

 

4. Fire 35% of the sales force immediately and another 10% in 2020.

 

We're already thin, who's going to sell the products (is this Dave Misiak from Young Dental... because that worked so well at Patterson)?

This would do nothing but make the competition salivate. And those old order takers, well while I agree they are a drain somewhat on the system their relationships are making money and statistics show that when they leave you always lose $$ no matter how good the new reps are.

We need to bring things to the local level again and stop dictating from on high. We need new blood agreed of young aggressive sales reps but they like the old dogs need the support they're not getting from the internal sales team.

 

“We're already thin, who's going to sell the products (is this Dave Misiak from Young Dental... because that worked so well at Patterson)?”

LOL - Best Comment Ever. What a piece of work that guy was. Benco, Schein, and many others owe him a debt of gratitude for all the business Patterson lost under his expert leadership.

 

As if making stupid moves repeatedly weren’t bad enough, Dave Misiak is also a genuine dick and a bully.

 

I agree with all of these wholeheartedly.
1. The Inside reps are the next wave of growth. We need good ones.
2. The old order taking reps are what is going to completely drain this company. They are set on the old ways and they don’t adopt e-commerce at all because they’re scared of it. Eventually all of them will become obsolete despite their greatest attempts. “But I’m a full service rep, my customers WANT me to place their orders”. Yeah, maybe that was true at one time but younger docs don’t want this level of “service”. Why do you think amazon is so successful? Because they take all of our orders for us? Come on guys. I would gracefully allow these reps to retire if they aren’t up to a challenge and willing to change their approach. Leverage the reps who are and combine that with the inside sales team.
3. Billing is atrocious. I also spend way too much time trying to help offices figure out their invoices, how their payments were applied, etc etc. We don’t have a customer facing accounting/billing department and customer service can’t handle it which means the TRs and ESs are tasked with this. Half the time I don’t even know what the hell happened with their invoices because they’re all over the phase.

I would add another:
4. Benco Select needs to go in its current form. It’s very very confusing when presenting it to an office, they don’t save any $$ and it further complicates everything. Make a simpler program, why do we have to reinvent the wheel? Amazon prime has been successful for a number of reasons, the most important being that it’s easy. You pay a yearly fee, you get free shipping, whether you spend $5 or $500. Returns and exchanges are a piece of cake. They throw you promos throughout the year. Instead we are raising margins, requiring a minimum purchase, and downgrading them if they fail to spend enough $ with us. We aren’t even being competitive with our pricing and then we add this curveball? KISS - keep it simple stupid.

 

Fix the billing issue.
Benco customer service: hello
Customer: hi I have a question about my bill
Benco customer service: did you check teams?!? Oh wait you’re a customer. Hold on let me transfer you.
Customer: thank you
Benco customer service #2- hello how can I help you?
Customer: I had a question regarding my bill.
Benco customer service: we actually do not understand our own billing. We are are unqualified, over worked, and underpaid, in addition we are from the northeast, aka rude.

 

Curious as to if you are going to save benco?