The Rooster
"Okeydoke"
Having a dedicated sales force matters. Today, businesses rely far too much on cyber. Person to person contact makes a difference.
January 21, 2019
By Mike Averill
Three years ago (click here) Educational Development Corp. was in the midst of a growth problem.
The Tulsa-based publisher of children’s books was enjoying the payoff from the gamble its CEO took from removing its books from Amazon, its largest customer, and competitor.
The risky move resulted in skyrocketing sales, led by its direct sales force, which consists of tens of thousands of individuals, many of whom are stay-at-home moms. The publisher’s popular lines of books include Usborne and Kane/Miller.
The staff grew from 75 to 350 people with three shifts working around the clock to keep up with order fulfillment. That speed of growth came with a cost. The first holiday season in its larger facility, the company had 25,000 customer service errors in three months at a cost of roughly $1 million, said CEO Randall White.
Since then, the company has invested about $7 million to update and fully automate its distribution process. The investments led to enough efficiency and reduction in errors to cut the customer service department in half and now only one shift of workers is needed each day.
“We have become so efficient,” White said. “Profits are up 30 percent.”
In the last three years EDC has gone from $36 million in sales to $65 million to $106 million....
