Recognize the actions you want repeated

I always find is funny when a manager complains about a team member not doing the right thing. My first question is did you train him and do you recognize the right actions when they happen. And what I mostly see is leaders that expect employees to know everything they already know and don't have any recognition programs in place to coach the proper actions. It's not heard to put something in place to drive the correct results. It's just many don't see that as a leaders job.

If your not correcting bad behaviors then your just plain coaching them.

A learning culture is a must

This week we focus on train always. Create a learning environment that develops people through education.
Invest in your people and reap the rewards. Roll playing is a great tool for training. Always look at what you can do to develop your team. Webinars and peer groups are great resources

Also look at starting a mentorship program to pass along the knowledge of the veterans you have. Work on these and reach out for help if you need it.

Hiring to Win, Not Just Filling HOLES.

Hiring to WIN

All too often leaders hire to fill open spots rather than hire to win. I always say hire hard manage easy rather than hire easy manage hard. The decision is up to you; just don’t complain about your team to me if you hire easy.  It’s all about getting the right people in the right spots. You can never have too many all stars on your team if they are the right people for the position. If you are filling open positions with the person that has the best skills rather than the person with the right personality and the ability to learn you will always have high turnover. Focus on how someone handles a situation rather than how many sales achievements they have. A superstar that is a cancer in the organization can bring the team down.

How do you find that great fit for your team? Always take the time to interview. Don’t miss the chance to hire a superstar because you are too busy to give them some time. Block out a certain time of each day to interview every week. You have to make this a priority; if you don’t have any candidates use the time to observe and coach your current team. We all can admit when don’t observe and coach enough.

Don’t get caught up in experience and skills; they can be all that but if they don’t have the right personality to create a great customer experience then those skills loose you more customers than they can gain you. You can’t train personality but you can train hard skills.

Insure you have a two interview system so that a candidate has to be able to impress two people rather than just one. Get your front line managers involved in the process; these people are going to work for and with them every day.

This should get you started on the right path; after you get this in place get back with me and I will give you some more steps to Hiring to WIN.

Keeping Good Players

Keeping Good Players

This day and age requires managers to work at keeping good players on their teams. No longer do people take a job and stay loyal to them until they retire. They aren’t looking for the watch at the end of the career.

I’m here to give you some things you need to do to keep good people.

First hire tough and manage easy. Talk to everyone that applies; you never want to miss the chance to add a great person because you didn’t take the time.

Second train always. Create a learning environment that develops people through education.

Third create employee recognition culture. Always recognize the results and attitudes you desire.

Fourth communicate effectively. Finds ways to communicate to everyone often; try daily huddles and monthly team meetings.

Finally Have Fun. People want to enjoy what they do; help make that happen every day.

Let me know if I can help with any of these.

Market Share

Market Share and Customer Experience

What kind of sales experience does your team create for your customers?  Recently we were in the market to buy new cleats for one of our boys. Seeing as we have four active boys price was a key decision on where we would take our son to select his shoes. After some online research we chose a sports box store based on overall prices knowing they wouldn’t carry all the cheaper pairs but would probably be the most competitive in overall pricing. I find it hard to purchase shoes and such online not know how they will fit our ever growing boys.

So the location is picked and before swim practice we embark on the buying journey. Now I’m here to tell you we didn’t have a bad experience but it wasn’t memorable either. The sales associate was neither offensive nor friendly. He was plain vanilla. Now before I go too far I know some of you like vanilla but to gain a wow experience vanilla doesn’t cut it. My son has some loyalty to certain brands but was willing to try many shoes on to insure he got something he was happy with. The associate never engaged with the true decision makers; they were there guiding the influencer through the purchase. The associate never asked any questions or built trust and value with any of the buying parties. He simple fetched the different size shoes for my son to try on. There were no recommendations, up sales or add-ons. Here we have a situation where we haven’t trained and or don’t observe and coach team members. Ok here are things that were missed.  Shoes are only one small piece equipment for a baseball player. We have four active boys and plenty of needs. The influencer also plays other sports and could have used new goggles or swim trunks. All this could have been learned with the proper questions and engagement. What kind of market share are your associates and sales manager losing for you?

Have you watched your team engage with your customers? Do they know what the expectations are? Have you given them the tools to succeed? Do you observe and coach in the moment? If you didn’t answer yes to all these questions then you need to create a game plan and put it in to play before your peak season begins. Don’t lose market share due to poor sales management and customer experience!!!!!!  Vanilla doesn’t gain you market share; it only creates bland experiences for your customers.

Contact me if I can help in anyway with your team from Customer Experince to Selling.

618.534.5460

Insight on Celebrity Apprentice

I enjoy watching the show Celebrity Apprentice. It is hosted by The Donald Trump and has celebrities playing against each other to not be fired by Mr. Trump. I watch it mostly for the marketing ideas they use but have also enjoyed watching the management dysfunctions of the players on the show. My favorites to watch are Penn, Paul Sr. and Arsenal Hall. The women are a totally different story; I wont share with you the list I would like to see get fired.

The women’s team Forte lost 5 of the first 7 challenges; leaving Donald to have to break the team up this week. When we look at the downfall of this team we see back biting and in fighting. There are many different leadership styles but very few have been effective. Actually the only women that have survived don’t have the skills to lead anyone and The Donald did them a favor by dividing them up and adding them with the men’s team.

Take this as a lesson to review your leaders and their leadership style. Do you have the correct players on the right teams? Do you have the correct leaders leading the right teams? Making the right moves could save you some turnover of people. Sometimes you can lose good people to the way their leader is leading. The cost of turnover doesn’t allow you to over look this for long period of time.

Customer Engagement

We often have great experiences and poor experiences in life. What do you think affects those results? I challenge that your interaction with others greatly affects the outcome. If this is true then why don’t we do a better job insuring our customers get the correct engagement form our teams?

I can give you a laundry list of what keeps this from happening or I can set you on the proper path towards increasing your Customer Service with better engagement.

Step 1 Set the expectation

Insure that your team knows what you want from them.

Step 2 Give them the tools

Teach them how to properly engage the customer.

Step 3 Practice

Role-play Customer Situations to hone their skills.

Step 4 Observe

Take the time to inspect what you expect.

Step 5 Celebrate

Acknowledge the correct behaviors when you see them.