The worst movie ever made, based on some criteria and judgment from the Medved bothers in their work called The American Turkey Awards was Plan 9 From Outer Space.
Thousands and thousands of pages of critique have been made about the movie. There is still much debate about how bad it really is.
In the system we use, box 9 is the most critical box out of the 12 that we use to examine the operations of any business. Most of our clients use the term Sales Handoffs for that space. Its the place between when the sale is made and implementation of the sale commences.
It is the most overlooked, under-appreciated spot out of the 12 things we monitor for a client.
Its also the place where the most mistakes are made, most customer dissatisfaction starts and easiest place to make immediate gains to improve results.
Its tricky though. Converting the raw emotion of a completed sale into getting the use of it started well is an art. There are many companies who specialize in this field. Many call it Change Management. Enterprise level companies pay a pretty penny to actually professionally convert sales to implementation through good sales handoff processes.
Its also the weakness of CRM. CRM lets you track sales but it just stinks at helping you convert that sale into a happy new customer who knows how to use and ACTUALLY uses the product or service.
Doing this badly guarantees that your customer service department will be filled with exceptionally mad people who want what they were promised but now don’t have it or don’t know how to get it.
Its also the number one headache of small business owners, in our opinion. Bad handoffs after a sale create lots of urgent emails and phone calls. This distracts the business owner and staff from making meaningful, consistent improvements in their business.
Plan 9 from Outer Space is now a cult classic. It actually has a 67 rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is actually decent from them. There was a movie about the creator of Plan 9, Ed Wood starring Johnnie Depp. The fantastic character actor Martin Landau won an Oscar for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi in that movie.
Box 9, Sales Handoffs, can either be the worst thing that your company does or it can be a classic for you. We cannot guarantee you an Oscar for it.
But we can guarantee more cash flow and fewer unhappy customers.
That’s kind of is why you are in business, isn’t it?