Posted: December 3, 2019 | Categories: Leadership, Management, Team Building

You may have noticed a couple of pervasive buzz words going around in the business world today:  Synergy and/or collaboration.  It means teams getting out of their silos, putting all their heads together, and solving problems.  The first and most important step is defining the problem.  By defining a problem, it means that you have simply stated the situation in a factual, non-blameful way.

As simple as this sounds, I find that people struggle with this step.  Too often in problem-solving team members start out with blame or just a symptom of the problem.

Several years ago, I was teaching a management class, Ralph was one of the class participants, and he decided to apply this fundamental with his team.  He asked for a statement of the problem, and he heard comments like, “Sam didn’t do the quality check in time”, or “the belts were not changed in time and the machine broke down”.  Ralph stopped them right there by saying, “That’s not the problem”.  He stuck with it, and they finally came up with a simple statement they could all agree on:  “The problem is we had a late delivery to a key customer”.  Now we are cooking!  Instead of getting into blame and finger-pointing, we can work through the next three steps of the problem solving process.

2.  What are the causes of the problem?

3.  What are the possible solutions?

4.  What is the best possible solution?

The team agreed on the best solution, laid out their action steps, and were well on their way to making the changes to improve delivery time.  Ralph said that had he not insisted they define the problem, they would have gone round and round.  Remember, if you have a problem to solve, begin by defining it.  Consider the old maxim, “A problem defined is a problem half solved”

Posted: November 18, 2019 | Categories: Management, Sales

In sales training we are drilled on asking well-crafted questions that uncover what our prospect wants and why they want it.  There is one more thing:  How bad do they want it?

About 20 years ago I was talking to an owner and founder of a highly successful graphic arts business.  Mike, the owner, had just finished designing a book cover for a very famous athlete.  I was there as a  consultant to help him advance in his management and delegation skills.  His company was growing fast.

I had prepared well for our first meeting, and designed my questions to get to the heart of his primary interest and dominant buying motive.  (What he wanted and why he wanted it).  Mike said, “When me and my team are meeting with customers, I’ve heard people say afterwards, “Mike, whenever you leave the room, the value of your company cuts in half”.  From this conversation I surmised that Mike wanted to change this.  I assumed he wanted to build a team that was strong and would sustain that strength even when he wasn’t there.

We started with some training in management and delegation.  It wasn’t long before he lost interest.  When I interviewed him afterwards, he finally admitted that he liked being indispensable, and didn’t want anyone else to share the stage.  In other words, even though he wanted his company to grow, he wasn’t willing to subordinate his ego in favor of building others.  He couldn’t let go of what he loved.

Do you want your company to grow?  Are you willing to let go of what you love?
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Posted: November 12, 2019 | Categories: Leadership, Management, Team Building

A good leader cares about his team.  Who would want to work for someone who didn’t care?

I have a good friend who is a caring leader and a successful businessman.  I was talking with Jim a couple months ago, and he talked about a challenge he accepted a month before while attending a trade convention.  The challenge was this:

“Imagine that someone contacted you, and wanted to buy your business.  They made you an offer that was hard to refuse.  You quickly realized that you could retire early if you accepted this offer.  It was in cash, and you accepted.

After about a year, you received a call from the same person, and things weren’t going well.  They were desperate, and wanted you to know if you would be willing to buy the business back for 10 cents on the dollar.  You were twitching to get back to work, and you took the offer.  Here is the question:  Now that you own the business again, who would you hire back?  Is there anyone you would not hire back?  If so, why is this person still working for you?”

It was a day of reckoning for Jim.  He did have a manager that he would not hire back in that scenario.  He knew what he had to do.  He let him go.  The person who has since replaced the dismissed manager is doing very well, and the business is doing much better.  Jim, like many I know, said the same thing after he let a sub-performer go:  “I wished I had done it sooner”.  If he had, it would have saved him a lot of grief and money.

Here is the message:  If someone is consistently under-performing, and he or she has been given ample opportunity to improve, it is usually wise to part company.  It can actually turn out to be a “win-win” rather than a “lose-lose”

Posted: November 6, 2019 | Categories: Customer service, Sales

I once heard the term “comfort zone” described as the “mental home in which we live.”  When we manage our relationships well, we help create a comfortable “mental home” for our prized customer base.

This past week I visited the store where I purchased my cell phone a couple years ago.  I had a problem, and they solved it.  At the end of the conversation the service agent asked me if I would be interested in moving my cable, Internet, and land line service to them.  We compared the plan we had to their plan.  We determined that switching to them would save us $20 per month.

My wife and I had the luxury of time, so we we looked at the new proposed plan and reflected on the past two occasions when we needed to talk to the service department of our current vendor.  Considering these two conversations, we concluded that the service was outstanding.  We were not that confident that switching to the new company would mean better service.  Our current phone company has created a “comfort zone” we did not want to leave.  We decided to stay with them in spite of the $20 savings.

As I reflect on this situation, I am amazed that we would be open to changing vendors after a relationship of 20 years.  I realize it wasn’t the 20 years that created the comfort zone:  It was all the contacts or “moments of truth” along the way that were well managed.  The lesson is this:  With each customer we have moments of truth.  It is vital that we find a way to manage these moments.  If we don’t, we will weaken the comfort zone, and open up the door to our competition.

Posted: October 4, 2019 | Categories: Customer service, Sales, Self-Improvement

When I began my career, one of my first objectives was to build my skills in professional selling.  I enrolled in a 12-week course that broke the sales process into five steps that contained 23 fundamentals.  Soon after I began the training, I asked myself, “Why do they just teach the sales process to salespeople?  Why not everyone?”  What I discovered was that learning the fundamentals of the sales process not only helps our success in selling, it also positively affects our personal lives with friends, children, and partners.  Allow me to illustrate by giving a simple overview of the 5 steps of selling:

Step #1:  Generate rapport.  We begin in a friendly way that results in the prospect viewing us favorably.  This enables us to generate a willingness to have a conversation.

Step #2:  Show genuine interest.  That’s fine that we are a nice person.  Our next step is to understand the other person, their situation, and what they need.  We do this by asking good questions, listening to the answers, and affirming that we have heard correctly.

Step #3:  Present the solution. Now that we know what someone needs and why it is important to them, we can recommend a solution that appeals to their interest.

Step #4:  Secure commitment.  Once we have agreed on the solution, we ask for their commitment.

Step #5:  Act.  Now that we are committed, we take action!

OK.  Now imagine you needed to have a serious conversation with your teenager.  Wouldn’t this process apply?  My recommendation:  Learn the sales process (but don’t tell them you are not in selling)