According to Jim Clemmer "Research consistently shows that 70% of efforts to improve customer service, quality, safety, productivity, innovation, employee engagement, restructure, or introduce new technologies fail. Leadership and organization culture are THE critical X factors. "Soft" leadership and culture boosts or BLOCKS strategy, structure, and change initiatives."
So where do you fit in that spectrum? Is the "how we do things here" culture in your business healthy? How do you know?
You can't measure your culture by the results that are achieved.
High performing teams don't necessarily have a culture that produces a happy workplace.
Experience of PCE members has been in boiler room cultures, sales at all costs and unsustainable work practices and environments : work hard play hard the doctrine that may deliver numerical success but at what cost?
Auditing your team culture can be confronting. Resistance to behavioural change or even simply questioning behaviour can be difficult to start but if the focus for longevity and sustaining peak performance and simultaneously delivering quality consistent WOW customers experiences, financial rewards and success and a happy, engaged, motivated workplace : then a culture audit and culture change is a necessity.
The steps involved:
1) analyse how the team communicates : is it effective, is everyone on the same page, included,
2) what expectations are set for team members : written and unspoken : what behaviours are valued and rewarded
3) what political structures have evolved in the team : where is the power base
4) what practices and processes are the most successful in the team for delivering results : if you documented that process would you be proud of it
5) are the behaviours exhibited in the team ones you want to replicate, model, change
6) do team members have balance in all areas of their lives : are they living their lives or paying a price
7) is team think dominated by a few players : do we have a process that delivers parallel thinking after considering all the issues at hand
This can be a confronting and rewarding process. It requires team members to be led by high EQ leaders.
Developing EQ is possible but requires committment and a desire to assess and progress.
Showing posts with label Sales Team. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sales Team. Show all posts
Friday, 9 August 2013
Monday, 16 July 2012
Creating creative sales strategies
Fun Fridays! The day when your prep/grade one children get to run a muck dressing up and acting and having free run of the facilties and using every aspect of energy enthusiasm and spirit possible.
The art of learning in this environment delivers an experience that allows self discovery and importantly the ability to look at things from another persons point of view. Play acting or taking a part requiring one to step out of themselves comes easily to these children but eludes us adults restricted by the conventions of our workplace compared to the uninhibited playground of Fun Friday.
So the solution : create the fun Friday environment in your workplace.
First step in this is to recognise the strengths of the individual's in your team and then importantly recognise and document the valid learning experience required by each team member.
The exercises you need to then employ draw on De Bono and Gardener's multiple intelligences. This is where you need help and a professional to execute the programme.
The first step though starts with you and your willingness to take yourself and your team on a journey of discovery and have fun doing so. What you will find is new skills and a new way of looking at things with your clients your staff you and your business the beneficiaries as you further differentiate your client engagement.
The art of learning in this environment delivers an experience that allows self discovery and importantly the ability to look at things from another persons point of view. Play acting or taking a part requiring one to step out of themselves comes easily to these children but eludes us adults restricted by the conventions of our workplace compared to the uninhibited playground of Fun Friday.
So the solution : create the fun Friday environment in your workplace.
First step in this is to recognise the strengths of the individual's in your team and then importantly recognise and document the valid learning experience required by each team member.
The exercises you need to then employ draw on De Bono and Gardener's multiple intelligences. This is where you need help and a professional to execute the programme.
The first step though starts with you and your willingness to take yourself and your team on a journey of discovery and have fun doing so. What you will find is new skills and a new way of looking at things with your clients your staff you and your business the beneficiaries as you further differentiate your client engagement.
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
Creative Sales Engagement Through Disciplined Process
Is it possible to have a disciplined sales methodology and process and at the same time provide an environment of innovation and creativity.
At PCE we think the two go hand in hand.
By providing the boundaries and automation of process staff are empowered by understanding how the core of their required KPI's can be built into daily, weekly and monthly process - some of which can be automated, the balance of which becomes habit.
From there staff, you and your sales professionals, have the freedom, flexibility, well defined boundaries, empowerment and most importantly the time to be innovative.
So how do you create a process that leads to freedom and flexibility?
At PCE we believe it's all about communication and transparency and leadership by example.
A mechanism to communicate with clarity and transparency is a good old fashioned communication board.
Now let's get this straight - having worked in the boiler room environments of high performance and cut throat sales - we are not talking about a leader board that is fear driven.
Rather we are talking about a pulse board. A snapshot of the mood of your office, of the development plans for individuals. Yes it's also about results and activity that people have achieved and have committed to. This is an important component but it is also about what you as a leader of your sales team have delivered in removing hurdles for outperformance and what incremental improvements have been made in the previous week for example.
It's a mechanism for communicating success and for looking at what conversations and techniques the team will try in the next period (say for example over the next fortnight) in their sales conversations.
So very quickly this type of communication becomes not only a performance tracker but a performance monitor and a guide and mechanism to share ideas.
Most importantly having leaped over hurdles it allows for time out for ideas development. By allocating 20% of sales team time for them to innovate - after of course this type of board has been in operation for a period that you are comfortable that the right behaviours have been adopted - you give through a process the right and autonomy to be creative.
Creativity through disciplined process.
At PCE we think the two go hand in hand.
By providing the boundaries and automation of process staff are empowered by understanding how the core of their required KPI's can be built into daily, weekly and monthly process - some of which can be automated, the balance of which becomes habit.
From there staff, you and your sales professionals, have the freedom, flexibility, well defined boundaries, empowerment and most importantly the time to be innovative.
So how do you create a process that leads to freedom and flexibility?
At PCE we believe it's all about communication and transparency and leadership by example.
A mechanism to communicate with clarity and transparency is a good old fashioned communication board.
Now let's get this straight - having worked in the boiler room environments of high performance and cut throat sales - we are not talking about a leader board that is fear driven.
Rather we are talking about a pulse board. A snapshot of the mood of your office, of the development plans for individuals. Yes it's also about results and activity that people have achieved and have committed to. This is an important component but it is also about what you as a leader of your sales team have delivered in removing hurdles for outperformance and what incremental improvements have been made in the previous week for example.
It's a mechanism for communicating success and for looking at what conversations and techniques the team will try in the next period (say for example over the next fortnight) in their sales conversations.
So very quickly this type of communication becomes not only a performance tracker but a performance monitor and a guide and mechanism to share ideas.
Most importantly having leaped over hurdles it allows for time out for ideas development. By allocating 20% of sales team time for them to innovate - after of course this type of board has been in operation for a period that you are comfortable that the right behaviours have been adopted - you give through a process the right and autonomy to be creative.
Creativity through disciplined process.
Friday, 11 May 2012
More sales by connecting what you do with why you do it
This is one for the sales leaders. For the state managers, the heads of sales. The financial planning practice manager. The senior adviser. The team leader.
This is one for any one who leads or aspires to lead in a sales environment.....and yes financial planners and strategy solution coaches...that means you too....all sales people....trying to engage a client with an intangible....with a promise.
When we look at our teams we see people on different journeys who have come from different destinations and ended up in our team at our place of work. We induct them, some more in depth than others and we show them what it is that we do here. And some of them even get it. Others don't ...and it's really not their fault. Some do the same job for years and don't really understand at all how the company makes money and stays in business. They don't get how all the things that happen in the work place are interconnected.
They live in their silos ...the silo's mind you ...that leaders have created and maintain.
And then we ask them to share our vision, our goals, to work together to meet our objectives, our sales targets, to put the clients at the centre of their world, to practice stewardship and make customer focussed, commercially sensible decisions at the front line.
Yes, that'll work.
Well actually it won't but yet in our industry businesses operate like this every day and get by. They however are constantly on the look out for new opportunties for the next big idea, the clear water where they can get slightly ahead of the competition if only just for a quarter.
They spend money building new systems, new processes, new campaigns....new yes....innovations no....it's catch up in the donkey race.
Amabile and Kramer, The Progress Principle, HBR Press, 2011, write of their observations, study and findings discovering the essence of progress at work and its' connectedness to meaningful work. And there it is in all its' simplicity.
Progress can be achieved by connecting employees with meaningful work and celebrating the small daily progress that is achieved on the way to a goal.
What does this mean for an insurance providers sales team or for example a financial planning practice?
What it means is this:
1) do an audit of your staff - what in their own words does the business do?
2) what is their role in that objective?
3) what does it mean for the customer?
4) what are some of the daily hurdles that get in the way of their role?
5) what do they see as being daily wins that they feel proud of?
Now, you are not getting to get through to number 5 straight away. PCE thinks you might be talking about 1 for a while.
What's the pitch of what you do that all staff can embrace? And next and most importantly are they willing to walk that talk? Do they embody, practice and believe in the core promise of your business?
For insurance businesses it's pretty easy to work this one out. Do all your staff from front desk to admin, from claims staff to the sales team......do all of them have/or have discussed/planned for:
1) a comprehensive insurance package for themselves
2) a comprehensive insurance package for their significant other
3) insurance such as trauma cover for their children
4) for their siblings they know what cover is in place
5) for their parents they know there is adequate estate planning and powers of attorney
6) for their parents they know how aged care accomodation may be funded
7) for their friends they have encouraged and made sure they they speak to an adviser to get a plan in place for all the above
If the answer is yes to all of the above, then you have a leap ahead of your competition far more than any system upgrade will provide.
What you have at your disposal is a team that understands what it is that the business does and WHY the business does it. They have embraced it. They live it. They believe it. All they need to do now is bottle that story and deliver it to every prospect the business has.
And letting them do that ....that's your job...that's right...the leaders in the business....you need to get out of their way...and remove the hurdles in the way of letting these people shine.
This is one for any one who leads or aspires to lead in a sales environment.....and yes financial planners and strategy solution coaches...that means you too....all sales people....trying to engage a client with an intangible....with a promise.
When we look at our teams we see people on different journeys who have come from different destinations and ended up in our team at our place of work. We induct them, some more in depth than others and we show them what it is that we do here. And some of them even get it. Others don't ...and it's really not their fault. Some do the same job for years and don't really understand at all how the company makes money and stays in business. They don't get how all the things that happen in the work place are interconnected.
They live in their silos ...the silo's mind you ...that leaders have created and maintain.
And then we ask them to share our vision, our goals, to work together to meet our objectives, our sales targets, to put the clients at the centre of their world, to practice stewardship and make customer focussed, commercially sensible decisions at the front line.
Yes, that'll work.
Well actually it won't but yet in our industry businesses operate like this every day and get by. They however are constantly on the look out for new opportunties for the next big idea, the clear water where they can get slightly ahead of the competition if only just for a quarter.
They spend money building new systems, new processes, new campaigns....new yes....innovations no....it's catch up in the donkey race.
Amabile and Kramer, The Progress Principle, HBR Press, 2011, write of their observations, study and findings discovering the essence of progress at work and its' connectedness to meaningful work. And there it is in all its' simplicity.
Progress can be achieved by connecting employees with meaningful work and celebrating the small daily progress that is achieved on the way to a goal.
What does this mean for an insurance providers sales team or for example a financial planning practice?
What it means is this:
1) do an audit of your staff - what in their own words does the business do?
2) what is their role in that objective?
3) what does it mean for the customer?
4) what are some of the daily hurdles that get in the way of their role?
5) what do they see as being daily wins that they feel proud of?
Now, you are not getting to get through to number 5 straight away. PCE thinks you might be talking about 1 for a while.
What's the pitch of what you do that all staff can embrace? And next and most importantly are they willing to walk that talk? Do they embody, practice and believe in the core promise of your business?
For insurance businesses it's pretty easy to work this one out. Do all your staff from front desk to admin, from claims staff to the sales team......do all of them have/or have discussed/planned for:
1) a comprehensive insurance package for themselves
2) a comprehensive insurance package for their significant other
3) insurance such as trauma cover for their children
4) for their siblings they know what cover is in place
5) for their parents they know there is adequate estate planning and powers of attorney
6) for their parents they know how aged care accomodation may be funded
7) for their friends they have encouraged and made sure they they speak to an adviser to get a plan in place for all the above
If the answer is yes to all of the above, then you have a leap ahead of your competition far more than any system upgrade will provide.
What you have at your disposal is a team that understands what it is that the business does and WHY the business does it. They have embraced it. They live it. They believe it. All they need to do now is bottle that story and deliver it to every prospect the business has.
And letting them do that ....that's your job...that's right...the leaders in the business....you need to get out of their way...and remove the hurdles in the way of letting these people shine.
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