FOUR SAMPLE HBS ESSAYS, WITH COMMENTS
CHANGE ESSAY 2 — Same Situation - Turning Salesmen Into Consultants - Seen From The Trenches
In 1991, Monitor Software’s (MS) management understood that real growth was going to come from adding the sale of ‘consulting services’ to their core product: specialized data-base software. As one of four consultants from Condor Consulting assigned to help make this transition, my challenge was to guide the government accounts sales force into selling consulting engagements as well as products.
Because the government account sales force already perceived itself as successful, the first thing I had to do was explain why a ‘relationship building’ approach was needed for long term profitability. I met with each member of the 30 person sales force in person for one-hour and from these meetings I developed a 10-day “Change In Mission” training program. Also, as the field specialist, I accompanied sales people on sales calls and showed them how to qualify sales leads into real consulting opportunities.
Because closing a consulting ‘contract’ was more complex and prolonged than selling a product, I also suggested a new profit plan to accommodate the changes. I also built in other standard ’salesmen’ incentives such as premiums, bonuses, and prizes which were new to MS. In two years, the software consulting practice at MS grew from zero to $ 8 million. Looking back, one key was redesigning the compensation package, and selling that idea to MS management. Management thought the package too ‘rich’ but I stressed that they were asking the sales force to ‘change’ dramatically, and this also required some radical ‘re-thinking’ on their part. They still balked, and I suggested a pilot program for volunteer early adapters. That worked, and soon the benefits became clear to the sales staff and management. [word count– 272]
| Comment: A good companion piece to Essay 1 since this guy was a junior member of the same team. Good set-up, fast but maybe a little too curt (might be hard to understand if you had not read Essay 1). The body mixes lots of details with the usual “change buzz-set” [explained the need for change, held meetings, listened to feed-back]. The writer also shows an attractive variety of skills, including designing compensation packages and accompanying the MS sales force as a guide, plus dreaming up the pilot program. (When our writer acted as guide to the MS sales force it no doubt struck the funny bell for all you Big Consulting firm types. This guy had never sold anything.) Be that as it may, this is a very solid piece of work which touches a lot of bases, deals with a dead-on ‘change’ situation, and crams in a lot of specifics and buzz terms. In many ways it is a better essay than 1, since the specifics are more telling and detailed. That is the pay-off. Note that an entire essay could have been written by this writer about how he ‘changed’ management’s mind about the compensation package, but since the other specifics are so strong, it was probably better to go with a wider approach. As a rule, though, the more narrow topic is better. This candidate represents the very solid, very smart, non-charismatic young worker bee that is the backbone of HBS. The writer of 1 represents the extraordinary top 15 percent, but this could be judged the superior essay. In truth both essays are outstanding. |
