The Briefing – THE BOSS’ MANAGEMENT STRATEGY Quality Logic Inc., which provides quality assurance services and tests computer hardware and software, had just had its biggest year ever and sales were expected to keep climbing in 2001 or so CEO James Mater thought. But when revenue began dropping and customers started finding his competitors, Mater realized he had to rethink the way his company did business. As one of the only players in its field, the company had grown steadily year after year, but suddenly with a slew of new, albeit smaller, competitors, Mater knew things had to change, and change fast. Mater spoke to Business Journal staff reporter Carlos Martinez about these changes. “Our sales operation was basically answering the phone and closing sales wasn’t that hard because we really didn’t have competition. It was that way for years. We were used to seeing that, if you make a really good mousetrap, the people would come. “But all that changed in 2000. All of the sudden there were new companies out there that were taking our customers and it was a shock. I saw it in the revenue numbers when they started going down, but it’s one thing to see it and it’s another to do something about it. “My background is in sales and marketing and I knew right away that we needed to change and change fast. We lost 50 percent of our revenue from the previous year and we had to change. “We didn’t have a really good system in place. We’ve been doing it for so long that we didn’t adjust and we were losing customers. “I convinced Karen Zeller to take the vice president of sales position she was with Disney Consumer Products doing a great job there and I brought in a telemarketing guy who really understands telemarketing and showed us how to do it. “We did a lot of sales training and got people to get out and knock on doors and really work on sales because that’s what we needed to do to survive. “Changing the mindset of everyone was difficult, but there wasn’t any resistance because people want to succeed. We had to be more competitive and we all worked toward that end. “It was hard to get things moving because we have people scattered all over the place. Half of my company is in Boise, Idaho, and a small group in Seattle, a few people in the Bay Area, so we had to schedule these regular meetings so we could communicate with everybody. “We’re coming back up now, but I was happy just to be flat in this environment. I know a lot of other people aren’t as lucky.”
