Learning by Doing

When I was a young engineer in product development at P&G, I fell into many opportunities to learn on the ground floor how things actually worked in a real company, one of the best companies in the world. I especially learned about innovation when I was transferred to a brand new division called Industrial Cleaning Products. The other twelve divisions were all selling products that could be bought off grocery store shelves. Most customers were homemakers and were brought into stores by television and media advertising. In contrast, the customers in our division were industrial organizations such as hotels, restaurants, large commercial laundries, manufacturing facilities, and hospitals. At the beginning, I was one of a small crew of mostly sales and product development employees, so we had considerable freedom in how we worked together. There weren’t many rules. 

When I developed our first product, a unique heavy-duty detergent for large industrial laundries, we wanted to introduce it to our customers but lacked a sales approach. The salespeople arranged for me to go to a few customers and experiment how to install our product. I engaged one of the sales reps to go with me and observe. As I worked with key people on the floor as a team, we discovered a simple way to insert our product without changing their routine, it was a very successful pilot. The sales department got a huge purchase order, and our service work was very impressive to the customer and his co-superintendents, particularly the overall handling of the situation. They liked the way we went about our business, putting our product to work without finding fault with existing equipment or conditions. They said that others in the past had not left as favorable an impression. 

Inadvertently, we discovered that in addition to what we sold, how we sold it was very important. Identifying a customer’s needs was the most important part of the sales cycle. Getting involved in this new experience, unexpectedly taught me that creativity not only belonged in the Product Development Department but also in the Sales Department.