Town halls or small meetings or when I visit a
site, I generally am out with customers in all
those locations, or I talk about customers in all
those settings.
You mentioned customer obsession and customer
focus. How do you embed this customer focus in
your day-to-day operations, your discussions with
your leadership team, et cetera?
You cannot just snap your fingers and create a
customer-centric environment. I am constantly out
in the field talking with customers, riding with
sales reps, standing at the booth at conventions,
and interacting or going to medical programs or
dinners and other events. So I see customers, if
not every day, then every week, and they all have
my cell phone number and can interact with me.
So that sets an example. It sets a tone at the
top that cascades. I actually have always done
this. I say to my executive leadership team, if
you are not out in the field at least one day a
quarter, you are not eligible for your bonus. The
second thing I do is I talk about customers all
the time. So at town halls or small meetings, or
when I visit a site, I generally either am out
with customers in all those locations or I talk
about customers in all those settings. Then the
third thing I do is I prioritize our frontline
salespeople as the most important people in the
company because they are the tip of the spear.
When you go out and ask a customer -- and we
have done this --"What is Bausch and Lomb to
you?" they will generally, first box, answer the
name of their sales representatives, not our
products. The name of our sales representative.
Those colleagues are the most important people at
my company. I spend a lot of time prioritizing
them, talking about them, and making sure they
have the best resources to do their job.
I always say that I am overhead. Most people in headquarters
are overhead. Our job every day we should wake up and
say, "What have we done to help support a sales
rep, make that relationship they have on our
behalf more meaningful and stronger?"