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Category: Personal Development

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Best Practices Marketing Personal Development Sales

An Insight from the Queen of the Customer Visit

A respected friend gave me a great insight a few days ago about her role in organizing customer visits…you know, when a large prospective customer comes to the factory/headquarters to perform detailed investigation of one or more critical issues.  She was renowned for arranging high-impact presentations…when she got the right inputs.

My friend was in charge of scheduling and all local arrangements once a visit request came in.  She described one of her major challenges:  when a salesperson requested a visit without a plan.  A visit is a significant investment for both buyer and seller, and needs to create maximum impact.   Frustratingly, my friend was hamstrung without understanding what issues were significant – especially any key issues being weighed by that customer.

Then she dropped the Insight Bombshell.

Key insight:  it was only low-performing salespeople who said “just wow them” or words to that effect. By contrast, high performers consistently articulated what had to happen during the visit, what issues to emphasize, and what “success” would look like with each attendee. Sadly, the low performers put the company in the position of trying to arrange an impactful meeting without any charter.

Typically, sales at this company involved a variety of technical issues (mechanical and electrical), aesthetic/design considerations, flexibility, durability, and more.  Capabilities available exceeded time to cover them.  Great salespeople knew what value they needed to show, and made it a point to focus everyone’s attention on impactful, leverageable differentiation.  They set aside any differentiation not relevant to the selling situation at hand.

Does this sound familiar in your business? How often do you demo without a differentiation plan?  Do you ever place trial systems without a definition of success or without a clear idea of what the trial customer is trying to learn?  Bottom line, do you know what knowledge and perception gaps you must try to fill?  If not, do you think you might be one of those “just wow them” sellers?

Don’t waste opportunities

Even ignoring the expense and time investment of the typical “plant visit”, you need to learn from this insight. Don’t waste scarce demo specialists, even on a virtual demo. Point subject matter experts at critical value gaps beforehand.  Perhaps most critically, your selling time is precious; spending it on non- or marginally impactful differentiators is two mistakes in one:

  1. You are wasting selling time on issues that don’t move a deal.
  2. You are distracting attention away from deal-moving differentiation when you dilute it in low-priority information.

The second point comes directly from consumer choice research:  If you dribble critical value into a stream of irrelevant product (or service) promotion, you’re asking your customer to play “Where’s Waldo” with your value.  Unfortunately, customers would rather just go somewhere else (a competitor?) to obtain a useful (to them) stream of key value points.

This is why “show up and throw up” sales calls are so harmful.  Discover specifically where you can show value to a customer via customer-focused interaction, then demonstrate those specific value creators that connect to the customer-perceived value gap.

Takeaways:

Here’s what high performing sales people do:

  1. Discover value gaps first – before sharing anything about your solution.
  2. Share your differentiated way(s) of addressing those value gaps. Use experts and customer visits to address gaps, not merely to spray them with features and benefits.
  3. “Yada yada” (de-emphasize) areas where you have parity with other solutions. Just make sure that those personas responsible for confirming basic functionality are satisfied– separately if at all possible.
  4. Make sure the customer has connected your differentiation to their value gaps.
  5. Walk your customer through a thought experiment that causes them to envision all primary and ancillary outcomes of closing the value gap….in as much detail as possible.

Discuss below, or reach out to me to discuss how you and/or your salesforce can have those kinds of highly impactful interactions.

To your success!

Categories
Growth Management Personal Development

Executive Leaders: Give a Different Kind of Gift this Holiday

As I considered what I wanted to write about this month, I read through the feedback cards from the leaders in a recent program I’ve been doing for an organization in Mississippi. What’s cool about this organization is that they really connect the dots between leadership development, employee engagement, customer engagement, and ultimately, the bottom line. Not to brag, but I’m happy to say that we received consistently positive, glowing feedback. Okay, I guess that was a bit braggy, I digress. The comments that I received over and over from this and from many of my programs, is that I helped leaders to see what they may not have seen or struggled to see about themselves, and this will help them to be better leaders.

As I was walking through the airport recently I saw a service dog walking with a gentleman who was blind. As I walked along, lost in my own thoughts, I realized that we are all a bit blind in one way or another.

Before you can lead others, you must be able to lead yourself. So self-awareness, or intra-personal info is necessary before you can build inter-personal relationships. We always work on self-awareness first in my coaching and leadership development programs, and we do this by having everyone complete a self-assessment. Heck, this is our starting point regardless of what kind of program I’m facilitating, and regardless of the participants’ roles within the organization.

And we don’t stop there. We pay it forward. We give the gift of this self-awareness to team members, so that everyone in the organization is speaking the same language.

But, back to my guide dog analogy. As a leader, your job most often involves serving as a coach for your team members. Your role is to help them to see what they can’t see about themselves. You guide them around potholes and missteps, and help them to learn from every experience.

If you would like reveal the blind spots in your leadership and your team members and give the gift of self-awareness this Christmas, here are a few quick tips:

Understand that every team member has a preferred way of doing things and accept that your preferred way isn’t the only way. Have everyone on your team take a self-assessment. But for the love of all that is holy, don’t stop there. Get some good coaching to help everyone interpret and understand their results. Just handing someone a report and expecting them to read and interpret it on their own is a complete waste of time and money (or as my Mama would say, “That and a dollar will get you on the St. Charles streetcar!”).

Ask open-ended questions. Influential leaders don’t necessarily have all of the answers, but they do ask great questions.

Use stories, analogies, and examples to give context to what you want your team members to really get. Remember, people would rather use Tabasco for eye drops than listen to someone lecture! Tony Robbins says it a little differently: “Information that is not attached to emotion is not retained.” Stories evoke emotions. Use em’.

To be a good coach, you need to have a good coach. Hire one. I did. Professional athletes do. It’s pretty hard to see the label when you’re inside the wine bottle… er, or as my coaching client said recently, “ I don’t know what I don’t know, Jen. That’s why I need you to help guide me along this leadership path.” A good coach helps you to not only see your own blind spots, but to identify and leverage your strengths.

Invest in team and leadership development. Notice I said invest. You should be able to expect ROI, such as improved communication, amped up employee engagement, enhanced customer service, and ultimately, a beefed-up bottom line. And don’t forget to measure the results.

As a coach, your role isn’t so much to teach people WHAT to think, but rather to teach them HOW to think – for themselves. It’s a fine distinction, but you don’t want to create order takers who need to be spoon fed and told what to do. By asking for their ideas, opinions, and suggestions, you’ll help them to think in terms of solutions and options.

Be a lifelong learner. You can’t give to others what you haven’t first learned. ‘Nuff said.

In my experience, most people need a guide on the side, a coach to help them along the way, because we’re all a bit blind in one way or another. What a way to spread your love and appreciation to your team members! Just remember that this is an ongoing process, a journey, and it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Jennifer Ledet, CSP, is a leadership consultant and professional speaker (with a hint of Cajun flavor) who equips leaders from the boardroom to the mailroom to improve employee engagement, teamwork, and communication.  In her customized programs, leadership retreats, keynote presentations, and breakout sessions, she cuts through the BS and talks through the tough stuff to solve your people problems.

To receive solutions to your people problems in your inbox every month, and to receive our report: “7 of Your Biggest People Problems…Solved,” click here.

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Categories
Best Practices Marketing Personal Development

What Kind of Editor Do You Need?

Some writers, those who have just begun the process, know that they need editors. Others, who have a little more experience, may question that need. “I know how to spell and punctuate,” they say. “I have good grammar skills.”

Editing, though, involves much more. Think about your home and car. How much of the work needed for maintenance and repair do you do yourself? For how much do you hire professionals?

An editor, in any of the categories I describe below, has a professional ability to make your  manuscript shine.

To simplify these descriptions, I’m taking the example of a nonfiction book, although these forms of editing can also apply to fiction, blog posts, marketing materials, and other forms of writing.

At What Stage is Your Project?

 Have you ever started this kind of project before?

  • Do you have an idea you want to develop?
  • Do you have a rough draft?
  • Have you finished a manuscript?
  • Do you feel stuck at any stage of the writing?

Developmental Editor

In the early stages of a writing project, consider a developmental editor to lend structure or organization. Say, for example, that you want to share the lessons you’ve learned in building a business. Maybe you can’t decide whether to have the lessons unfold in within the context of telling your life story (autobiography) or to tuck the autobiographical elements within the format of each lesson.

A developmental editor can help you make these decisions and also break your information into individual elements so that they can be best organized.

This kind of editor may work with you from the beginning to the end of the project.

Content Editor

This editor will evaluate your manuscript and make suggestions for changes that can be minor or major. This may involve fine-tuning the smoothness of flow from one topic to the next. If you’ve inadvertently repeated a story in Chapter 11 that you told in Chapter 2, the content editor should catch that. He or she gives your book a macroscopic (looking at the larger aspects) polish.

Line Editor

This editor provides the microscopic polish. She or he looks for clichés, poor pacing, run-on or overly long sentences, overuse of passive voice, incorrect word usage, and other errors. This kind of editing may include grammar and punctuation.

Copyediting and Proofreading

From my viewpoint, most of the differences between these forms of editing are too minor to be noted. This editor works on punctuation, grammar, and spelling.

A proofreader has an additional role worth mentioning. For a print publication, proofreaders check the overall appearance of the pages before printing, looking for unintentional space, missing titles, mis-numbered pages, and related issues. If they see typos and other errors, they will mark them for correction.

You  may end up needing all of these professionals in the course of your publishing journey in order to ensure that your book is as good as it can be.

One well-qualified editor can provide more than one type of editing.

The editor will save you from embarrassing typos, improve your work, and make you shine.

Pat Iyer is one of the original 100 C Suite Network Advisors and is an editor and ghostwriter. Contact her through her website, www.patiyer.com

Categories
Marketing Personal Development Sales

If You Don’t Know Your Differences, You’ll Never Know Your Value

It’s simple:  Your offer’s value exists only in a customer’s mind. When you hear the phrase “customer perceived value”, I want you to remember that the “customer perceived” is redundant; there is no other kind of value besides customer-perceived.

Customers only derive value based upon differences. There’s more to it, which we’ll come to in a minute, but let me simplify half a century of consumer choice research for you.

Hueristics:  Shortcut Mental Processes

Buyer choices are based upon differences between different offers, which is a mental shortcut, or heuristic (an academic researcher word.  Impress your friends).  We shortcut a complex set of choices based only on what’s different.  Think about buying an automobile, for example.  When comparing the options, you don’t go down the list of “what is the same”.  Your brain knows that is a waste of mental energy.  You won’t even take notice tires, spark plugs, cylinders, steering wheels; every option has the same number, and any differences are unimportant to most buyers.  However, you might notice that one option has a comfortable leather-wrapped steering wheel…but really only if the other car doesn’t.

Not all differences are the same (sorry for the pun)

Differences become differentiation (in the consumer choice sense) when two things occur.

First, those differences need to be factored in to a decision process.

Second, they need to be given weight, or value.

For value to “occur” in the customer’s mind, you need to do both.  Let’s start with the first.

Differences need to park between your customer’s ears as differentiation before they can grow into value.

Differences are promoted to differentiation (differences that the customer uses in a decision) under a consistent hueristic.  Buyer (all personas; not just a purchasing agent) decision-making follows a consistent prioritization of differences which:

Come to mind easily. The buyer psychology term is “ the availability principle”.  This means that decision makers default to easy-to-recall differences. Differences that you give to a prospect (especially without confirming conversation) are not as “available” as differences they can describe unprompted. Let’s go back to an auto purchase example:  I’ll recite advantages of one of your two “acceptable” finalist options to you.   Then, I’ll ask you to explain to me the advantages of the second option.  Which one will you end up buying the next day? The reason is the availability principle.   Availability is part of why a customer believes what they tell you much more than what you tell them.  Use conversation to get a customer to process differences into differentiation.

The customer has to produce themselves. If nobody produces any differences,  some buyers will dig deeper to uncover them. This does happen, but you’re leaving things to chance.  Differences which don’t enter a customer’s consciousness don’t create differentiation or value.  I once learned that a customer valued my company’s responsiveness, and willingly paid a small price premium — which could have been much larger.  When there was a “both parties’ fault” problem which shut their production down, we made things right in the way they knew we would…and which we took for granted.  This was the exception, not the rule.  Because we didn’t uncover it, we never had the option to sell (and possibly price, had the difference been something a little more image-positive).

Price becomes a primary differentiator only when no other differences exist in the prospect’s mind.  Note:  some procurement/purchasing folks will lead you to believe that your differences (above) are insignificant or nonexistent – purely to drive a price-centric conversation. It is the responsibility of a seller to determine how real this gambit is. If your sellers respond only by discounting, you may have a significant opportunity to improve.  I work with sellers to understand how and when to play this game.

Status quo becomes your biggest threat when no differentiators have appeared as your customer goes down this decision pathway. It is a threat almost always, of course, but if not even price seems different between the top two choices, status quo always wins (consumer choice research has established this using dozens of experiments repeated hundreds of times).  If status quo is not one of the finalists, customers will produce a differentiator that might seem so frivolous that it feels like they used the dartboard to make their choice.  These are frustrating wins…and even more frustrating losses.

When Differentiation becomes Value

I often quote Bob Miller, who pointed out that Customers don’t buy our offers, they buy outcomes. Buyer research shows that people decide based upon differentiation… differentiation they value due to the outcomes that differentiation yields.

How does differentiation turn into value?  When a prospect gives it weight by connecting it to an outcome or outcomes. The value/weight of an outcome increases as it progresses through “theoretical”, “possible”, ”likely”, ”probable”, then “assuredly”.  It also increases as the desirability of the outcome progresses through “unquantified tie breaker”, to “I’ve visualized the outcome”, to “I’ve visualized myself realizing that outcome” then “I’ve quantified the outcome financially and personally”, and finally,  “I’ve also quantified ancillary outcomes”.

The same rules of availability apply to value building.  If you build a value case and deliver it to a prospect, it is far less available(and thus less value is built) than if you walk the prospect through the exact same validation/quantification process such that they build it themselves in their own mind.

Buyers (other than purchasing folks) seldom use price as the primary differentiator.  Far more frequently, they use your price premium (that’s your price difference, remember?) vs. their own estimate of value. Using an auto purchase example, a consumer might justify whether the leather upholstery option is worth the $1500, quantifying comfort, longevity, prestige, in a way that translates each of these differentiators into a dollar justification.

Bottom Line

If you never help your customer identify your differences, they probably won’t think you have any, and you will never enter the finalist stage.

When you fail to help your customer process differentiation into your (outcome-based) value, they won’t fully appreciate what you offer, and won’t be willing to pay you what you’re really worth.

When you don’t know your value, you’ll never know how to sell or how to price.  Your achievable price premium depends on the value of your differences to the customer.

I invite your comments and feedback.

To your success!

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

But Wait, There’s More – Negotiation Insight

“Never forget that you have the power to choose what you wish others to see in you.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

When do you reflect upon where you are in your life? Does it occur when you’re beset by misfortune or when you’re in a state of exhilaration? It’s a thought that warrants attention because you’re always being moved by your thoughts. And, your thoughts transfer into actions.

When you’re in a certain mental state, note the words you use to represent that mindset to yourself and others. Words have power. Thus, the way you use them will influence your actions and that of those around you. When you muse to others and yourself about what you’re thinking or how you feel, you’re giving insight into your personality. That insight allows others to assess who you are, what you might do in a situation, and how they might interact with you during those times.

Anytime you’re not feeling normal, whatever that might be for you, and you don’t wish to expose it, cloak it by displaying a different demeanor. If you’re a frequent reader of my writings, you know you’re always negotiating; that means, what you do today impacts tomorrow’s opportunities or lack of. You don’t have to consider your actions as being a negotiation. Nor do you have to consider air as a vital part of life. Nevertheless, both are truisms.

To achieve more, you must be mindful of how you represent yourself to others. The more you wish others to perceive a certain persona, the more aligned your actions should be with that persona. If you leave people with the thought that there’s more to you than they know, you’ll have them in a state of wonderment that states, but wait there’s more. That will heighten their intrigue of you, which will serve to increase their interest … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

Predictability vs. Unpredictability

During a negotiation, a collage of thoughts, words, and actions will attempt to drive the negotiation down different paths. The predominant collection of that makeup will determine your success; another consideration will be your past demeanor. The latter will serve as input about how you’ll respond to certain stimuli.

In a negotiation and in every aspect of your life, people will believe of you what they see. Sure, they’ll color their perception based on their biases. The rub is, if you don’t present yourself based on how you wish to be perceived, they’ll fill in the blanks without your input. Don’t wonder as you wander. Show others what you want them to see in you.

People like predictability. But, if you want to win more negotiations, they’ll be times when it behooves you to be unpredictable. During such times, leave others wondering if there’s more to you to uncover. Doing so will serve your benefit. They won’t be able to completely figure you out. Thus, they’ll lack the ability to predict what you’ll do next. That’ll serve to foil their negotiation plans. To keep them off-balance, create a state of mind for them that says, but wait, there’s more.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

To receive Greg’s free “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

#HiddenValue, #More, #Aware, #Success #Emotion #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #NegotiatingWithABully #Power #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #liars #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions

Categories
Entrepreneurship Human Resources Leadership Personal Development

Three Simple Training Tips to Dramatically Boost Company Performance

Many companies view training as a “nice to have.” They think it is important to create an attractive, engaging training program for new hires, and that it might be good to have a focused course that teaches employees how to perform certain tasks or use certain pieces of company technology. Once those companies cover the bases by offering training in just a few areas like those, they turn the page and start to think about other realities of doing business.

But what if . . .

What if those companies thought about employing training in a larger, more strategic  way to improve performance in a wider range of business activities? What, for example, if they stopped to consider that a $10,000 investment in training could net a 10% increase in the sales made by each salesperson, resulting in an additional $10 million in annual sales revenue? What if they stopped to think that a similar investment in training could result in a 10% increase in the accuracy of order filling, and would save $1 million a year?

In short, what if companies made the connection between training, performance, and the bottom line?

And what if your company did? You see, training offers you the potential to dramatically increase profits and performance. Here are three tips to get that to happen for you . . .

Start with the End in Mind

Chances are you know where you would like to see improved performance or profits in your organization. But specifically what would those improvements look like? Would there be fewer defective products, better company reviews online, a 15% increase in the sales of one of your product lines . . . specifically, what?

Specific goals begin to emerge when you consider questions like those. They help you define the specific business challenges and goals you need to address. And once you have defined those issues and goals, you can begin to determine if there is  training that will assist in  reaching them.

Develop an Appropriate Curriculum

Your curriculum should be designed to teach people the skills they need to learn or improve in their specific role. But developing an effective curriculum is a bit more complex than simply defining skills. It should be right for the people in the roles who are performing the tasks and jobs that your training addresses. And it should be designed to have a focused, specific impact on the business items where you are trying to “move the needle” and bring about change.

An appropriate curriculum is also about more than just a list of skills and behaviors. It should consider how those lessons will be delivered – by a live training presenter, on phones or tablets, enlivened with games and exercises, in short “chunks” or longer lessons, for example. Creating an effective curriculum depends on considering who your learners are, where they are, and how they would prefer to learn.

Measure Results, then Tweak and Adjust Your Training Accordingly

At this point, you loop back to the decisions you made in the first step we explored in this article, when you started with the end in mind. The difference is that you are now going to develop ways to measure the change you have brought about through training.

You might decide to measure how much more each of your retail salespeople is selling on an average sale, whether fewer of your products are being returned, whether your rates of repeat business are improving, whether your online reviews are more positive, or other hard or soft metrics that tell you how effective your training has been.

Once you are measuring, you can tweak, modify your training, and find ways to improve results. But one thing for certain? If you don’t measure and adjust, your training will never deliver the results it is capable of.

In Summary . . .

Start with the end in mind . . . develop an appropriate curriculum . . . then measure results and adjust your training. That is a simple, yet powerful, approach to improve company performance. And you can use it to improve more company performance  that you have probably stopped to consider.

 

Categories
Entrepreneurship Marketing Personal Development

This Entrepreneur Saw the Glass Half Full and Perfected his Product into the Perfect Holiday Gift!

Perfectly chilled beverages, no more shattered glass, and a solution for every can size!

BrüMate, The Dehydration Company:

On a mission to put an end to boring drinkware, one sip at a time. Hate warm beer? Can’t stand warm wine? They have a solution for everyone.

“There is no better feeling of accomplishment than taking an idea on pen and paper and creating something great from it. That is my passion,” says Jacob. 

REDUCE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT

KEEP YOUR DRINKS AT THE PERFECT TEMPERATURE

WORKS WITH HOT OR COLD BEVERAGES

PERFECT FOR ANY OCCASION

Brumation is a term used for the hibernation-like state that cold-blooded animals utilize during very cold weather. On the other end of the spectrum is a state known as aestivation, which like brumation, provides a way for reptiles to handle temperature extremes.

Check out the interview here: http://brainhackers.com/the-brains-behind-it-dylan-jacob-brumate/ 

Categories
Growth Human Resources Leadership Personal Development

Keys to Effective Training

Let’s take a look at two professional trainers. For this article, let’s call them Joan and Jack.

Both Jack and Joan are energetic trainers who get their audiences laughing quickly. They will both do whatever it takes – using props or quacking or asking trainees to do silly things – to illustrate a concept or get their trainees excited and engaged. And when trainees leave at the end of the training day, they feel energized, happy and ready to take on new challenges.

But there are significant differences between the results that Joan and Jack achieve. A few weeks after training is over, the performance of the people who trained with Joan has improved dramatically and measurably. The performance of the people who trained with Jack? Well, it hasn’t improved much at all. Most of them quickly went back to “business as usual.”

In other words, Jack’s training is edutainment. Joan’s isn’t, because it gets results. And that is true, even though someone who peeked into either of their training rooms wouldn’t notice much difference.

How Can You Avoid Wasting Money on Frivolous Training?

The first step is understanding that although good training is often entertaining, it is not entertainment. In other words, training is supposed to achieve demonstrable results, not just make people laugh or enjoy themselves or kick back and enjoy a day out of the office or away from the selling floor.

I call the wrong kind of training edutainment. It’s entertaining, it does well on the “smile sheet.” but doesn’t actually have long impactful results.

How can you make sure that your training is hitting the right targets? Here are some steps that can help assure that you are getting a good ROI on every training dollar you spend, because your trainers and your training are hitting the right goals:

1. Think of training as a strong combination of education, engagement and usefulness. Training must educate by teaching skills, transferring knowledge, cultivating attitudes and hitting other specific targets. Yet training that is purely educational doesn’t get results. That is why training must present information in ways that are engaging, interactive and require the learner to think and use the information learned.

2. Apply the VAK Attack model to increase learning. VAK stands for the three ways that people learn, and your live training should make use of all three. Visual learning happens when people watch materials that can include videos, PowerPoints, charts and other visual elements. Auditory learning happens when people learn by listening to people who might be other trainees, compelling trainers, visitors and others. And kinesthetic learning happens when people get out of their seats and move around as they take part in work simulations, games, and other meaningful exercises.

3. If you’re hiring an outside trainer, speak with other organizations where he or she has worked. When you do, ask for specifics about what the training accomplished. Did average sales orders increase by a certain percentage? Did customers report measurably higher levels of satisfaction when they were polled? Did thefts and losses decrease by a certain significant percentage when training was completed? Remember to look for hard data about results. Statements like “We loved Paul’s training!” might be nice, but they don’t tell you much about whether Paul’s training was worth the money it cost.

4. Define outcomes and make sure your trainer can reach them. Do you want your salespeople to contact 25% more new prospects? Do you want the people who deliver and install appliances for your store to give true “white glove” treatment to customers? Or do you want your hotel front-desk staff to delight guests with exceptional service?  Your trainer should explain his or her plans to break those processes down into individual steps and address them directly through training.

5. Help your trainer know who your trainees are. A good trainer will want to know about their ages, prior experience, educational level, current jobs, and all other factors that can be leveraged to engage them more fully in training.  A concerned trainer will also want to be aware of any factors that might cause them not to engage.

6. Let your employees tell you what they need to learn during training. Your salespeople know the biggest challenges they face on the retail floor every day. Your service technicians know the glitches that arise most often when they are interacting with customers. Why sit back and hope that your training developers will guess or already know what those issues are and address them in training? It is less haphazard to ask your employee what they most need to learn in training, then make sure those topics are covered.

7. Work with your trainer to develop meaningful metrics. If you work together to define what you will measure after training is completed, chances are good that your training will accomplish much more, because its goals are well defined.

8. Monitor sessions and make sure that training stays on track. If you are a company training director or a member of senior management, you might not want to attend sessions, because your presence could put a damper on trainees’ ability to relax and learn. If that is the case, ask a few trainees to check in with you at lunchtime or other breakpoints to tell you whether the trainer is hitting the benchmarks you created. If not, a quick check-in with the trainer can often get things back on track and avoid wasting time and money.

The Special Challenges of Training within Franchise Systems

The structure of franchise systems makes it even more difficult to deliver effective training, especially to front-line retail and service employees who work at the franchisee level – in other words, the people who are doing the work. Delivering training to them becomes a two-part process because it is first necessary to train the franchisees, who must then train their employees.

Strategic use of e-learning technologies can go a long way toward simplifying and optimizing that process. In fact, that is why Tortal Training was created: to create effective training at low cost via e-learning to franchisors to offer franchisees.

It’s All About Getting Your Money’s Worth and Getting Results

If you are a training director who wants to record serious results from serious training, it’s important to work closely with professional trainers who don’t only entertain, but educate.  That’s the difference between training that’s frivolous and training that offers a good ROI on your investment.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Leadership Personal Development

Small Businesses are the Heartbeat of Our Neighborhood

Get Your Walking Shoes Ready! 

On Saturday, November 24th we have an opportunity to pay it forward, celebrating small businesses and all they do for the community. Created by American Express in 2010, Small Business Saturday showcases the importance of shopping and dining local, which fuels the economy as a whole. Small Business Saturday is the analogue to Black Friday and Cyber Monday which spotlight big retailers and e-commerce outlets. Small business is defined as privately owned corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships that have fewer employees and/or less annual revenue than a regular-sized business or corporation. , during one of the busiest shopping periods of the year.
According to the US Small Business Administration, there are nearly 30 million small businesses in the United States employing 47.8 percent of US workers, all of which have a big impact on the US economy. Small businesses create jobs, drive innovation, and give cash, time or goods to support local nonprofits or other community groups. They also provide opportunities for entrepreneurs to achieve financial success and independence, and often adapt quickly and creatively to changes in the economy.
A surge of national and local initiatives have increased the popularity of Small Business Saturday with 88 million consumers shopping small last year, up 14.9 percent from 2013, spending $14.3 billion at local and independent businesses. In a world where much of human interaction is through a digital platform, it is vital to experience personalized service and create relationships. Small Business Saturday helps keep the little guy in the public’s mind.
Small business owners are key to a thriving and developing community and it’s no secret that small businesses are BIG business. Thanks to their unique character and charm, attention to detail, and one-of-a-kind personas, small businesses make a profound impact on our communities and neighborhoods. Putting small businesses center stage on this day is the least we can do as customers for businesses and the people that work within them who do so much for us year round.
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Growth Management Personal Development

9 Ways Leaders Can Prepare Key Players for the Unexpected

What if one of your key players:

  • got a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity and left your organization?
  • was in an accident?
  • had a family emergency and was out for an extended period?
  • God forbid, died suddenly?
  • got sick and was in the hospital?
  • won the lottery and said adios amigos?

This week has been a bit challenging, but nowhere near the catastrophe it could have been. My computer hard drive unexpectedly crashed. Since a majority of my work and business are contained on that hard drive, it truly could have been devastating. Fortunately, though, I was prepared with backups to a local external drive and to an online/cloud service. So, yes, it has been inconvenient, but I didn’t lose data thanks to my backup plans.

This experience got me to thinking about how, as leaders, we need to make sure that we have backups for our people, not just our data. Would you be prepared if some unforeseen event happened?

I know no one wants to think about such things, but as an executive leader, you have a responsibility to ensure that your business operations could continue if some unforeseen event like this happened. Pulling the covers over your head, burying your head in the sand, or sticking your fingers in your ears won’t help you if one of the above events occurs. (I know. I’ve tried.) Author Ryan Holliday says that we should literally engage in negative thinking. For you leaders, that might mean thinking about worst case scenarios so that you can set up contingency plans to deal with the unexpected challenges that might crop up.

Organizing a contingency plan for your people is just good business. While many think that succession planning is just the HR Director putting names in boxes on an organizational chart, it’s actually about thinking ahead and being prepared, and yes, even thinking about the worst case scenario. And BTW, succession planning isn’t just for the CEO. If you’re a leader of a division, department, or a small business, you still need to think about this and be proactive. And repeat after me: It doesn’t have to be complicated.

Steps that you can take to jump-start your succession planning:

1. Start today. There’s an old Chinese proverb that says: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” Identifying and prepping someone to step into a leadership role can take some time, but you’ll be so glad you did if the unexpected happens. Just do it.

2. Don’t go it alone.  Get your leadership team, your board, and any other stakeholders involved. You’ll want their input and perspective on this.

3. Discover the skills and strengths of team members. If you’ve never taken the time to do this, the whole process will be beneficial for everyone involved. You may unearth a latent talent or strength that a team member has never put to work for your organization. Ideally, you want to have everyone working in their areas of strength so that they’re making their maximum contribution to the organization and they’ll feel engaged and dialed into their work. (If you’d like some help with this, give me a call. We’ll work with you to determine the best tools to help you tap into the strengths of ALL of your team members.)

4. Identify high potential leaders. Regardless of their current role, look for people who exhibit the characteristics and strengths needed to be successful in the leadership position.

5. Include high potential leaders in strategy discussions. Show him the big picture so that he has context and a broader perspective of the organization.

6. Assess your high potential leaders’ interest, willingness, and enthusiasm for taking the reins one day. No matter how good you think he might be, if he says he never, ever wants to be in a leadership role, you may need to look for someone else.

7. Offer coaching and training to top performers. How will you need to invest in her today, so that she’ll be ready tomorrow? While she may have the technical skills necessary for her current role, she’ll likely need some help with things like communication, delegation, coaching, and performance management.

8. Identify talent gaps. As you go through the process of identifying high-potential leaders within your organization, make note of where you may be lacking talent or skills.  Keep your succession plan in mind when hiring and recruiting and see if you can fill those gaps.

9. Refresh, revise, update. Your succession plan doesn’t have to be complicated, but it should be a living document that you update regularly as people, circumstances, and the business environment change.

Working through this process may open your eyes to the strengths and talents of the folks you’ve already got on your bench. And from my experience, helping your employees to recognize their strengths and putting them to work will cause them to be more engaged and eager to contribute their best.

Succession planning, like backing up the data on your computer, may seem like a task you can put off to another day. I encourage you to view it as insurance against a business-busting catastrophe. Just do it. You’ll be glad you did.

Jennifer Ledet, CSP, is a leadership consultant and professional speaker (with a hint of Cajun flavor) who equips leaders from the boardroom to the mailroom to improve employee engagement, teamwork, and communication.  In her customized programs, leadership retreats, keynote presentations, and breakout sessions, she cuts through the BS and talks through the tough stuff to solve your people problems.

For more resources on leadership and employee engagement, be sure to sign up for our monthly Ezine and you will receive our report: “7 of Your Biggest People Problems…Solved.”

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