Large Dry Erase Board
How a Large Dry Erase Board Can Help Your Business
Here’s the true story of how a manager used a large dry erase board to increase revenue and motivate his employees:
Bob was the operations manager at a bottled water distributor. It was his job to motivate and evaluate the sales reps who would be out on the road. Each day he would print out the results from the previous day’s sales and tack the sheet up in the break room. Stacy, the sales manager, mentioned something about using a large dry erase board, like the kind she used at home to leave chores for her kids. Bob thought a spreadsheet was better, because he liked lists of stats and didn’t care for messy markers and erasers.
At 4:30 in the afternoon, the sales representatives would start coming back in from the road. Some were glum, some were cheery, but all of them were tired. Bob noticed that many of them wouldn’t even venture into the break room. Since they were on the road all day, they probably had lunch at a fast-food joint or restaurant with a client. Even though he had instructed them to check their stats daily, at the end of a long day they just simply couldn’t care less. And when they did look at the stats sheet, they had to crowd around it, a little 8.5” by 11” sheet of paper with data for 15 sales reps on it. Bob thought about getting a large dry erase board instead. Maybe if they had something bigger to look at, that would help them.
Bob purchased the large dry erase board online from an office supply company. It was shipped the same day and he received it two days later. He immediately noticed that the markers weren’t smelly and messy as he had thought. He pictured his hands full of ink after one use. He made rows and columns just like he was used to doing with his spreadsheet, and used different colors for each statistic. Having a his new board allowed him to update stats from day to day. He put it in the front office where everyone could see it, and noticed that his sales reps were becoming eager to compete with each other and get their numbers up. It also saved a lot of money on printer paper and ink. His staff no longer had to crowd around a small sheet of paper; everyone could stand comfortably and see all the information in bright text. Sales started to increase as the sales reps used the large dry erase board as a sort of scoreboard – competing among themselves and motivating each other. Once Bob added a second board to show stats from another competing branch, he realized not only was he providing information in a better way. He was creating a better work environment.
Think about a large dry erase board for your corporate information, too! You may be surprised at what it can really do for your staff, just like Bob was.