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5. Standards & Expectations – Introduction

We’re sitting in Carrabba’s Italian Grill in Charlotte. We’ve been customers at this location for as long as it has been there. Seen several managers come and go, seen hundreds of servers come and go.

This particular visit was pivotal because it may have been our last. Their 10-year consistency has been compromised at least three ways: 1. New bread – lower quality. 2. New croutons – lower quality. 3. New espresso – lower quality. They used to serve the best espresso in the city (Illy). But it seems corporate decided to remove all the machines and substitute with a lesser (cheaper) brand.

Same price. Lower quality. More profit. Not good for anyone but them.

And they’re not bragging about their new low quality. I guess they figured no one would notice. I was disappointed. Not angry or anything, I just had an expectation when we entered the restaurant that wasn’t met when we were served.

The manager happened by. I asked him about the sudden reduction in quality. He smiled, hemmed, hawed, and looked embarrassed that we “caught” them. He, of course, blamed it on ‘corporate.’ I asked him for an email address to voice my concern. He promised he would return with it. Never did.

As the manager walked by our table a second time, we heard him say, “Another aggravated customer.” He was referring to some people waiting to be seated. Did nothing about it. Sad.

REALITY: When a customer is aggravated, complaining, or angry, there’s a REASON. If you’re smart enough, empathetic enough, and willing enough, you can discover the reason, help the customer, resolve the issue, and prevent the same thing from happening again.

STOP READING AND START THINKING: I’m not just writing about Carrabba’s. I’m writing about YOU. You have customers that complain, don’t you? How do you receive the concern or the complaint? How is a complaint handled? What do you do about it? How do you turn it into a WOW?

Here’s what it is – and what it isn’t:

• It’s an opportunity, NOT an aggravation.
• It’s an opportunity, NOT a problem.
• It’s an opportunity, NOT a complaint.
• It’s a chance for WOW, NOT an angry customer.
• It’s a chance for management to convert to leadership.
• It’s a chance to get a positive post on Facebook.
• It’s a chance for the customer to ‘tweet’ their pleasure.
• It’s a chance to create a loyal customer.
• It’s a chance to generate positive word-of-mouth advertising.
• It’s an opportunity to prevent this situation from reoccurring.

GRIPE REALITY: Defensive response is the normal first reaction…

• Blaming others.
• Blaming circumstances.
• Telling the customer how to talk. (“I’d appreciate if you’d calm down” rather than try to find the reason they’re angry.) Condescending comments by “customer service” people makes a mad customer more mad.
• Don’t defend it. No one cares about the reason or the excuse.

If you really want aggravation, complaints, and anger to diminish, here are the elements you must possess and execute:

• Attitude of acceptance.
• Attitude of reception.
• Attitude that’s willing to listen with the intent to understand.
• Attitude of taking responsibility.
• Resilience of manager or leader.
• Ability to respond in a friendly, pleasant manner.
• Challenge yourself not to make an excuse, blame someone, blame something, or make some snide remark.
• Challenge yourself to promote positive internal communication.
• Genuine gratefulness to help and serve.

LOYALTY REALITY: Every aggravation, complaint, concern, discussion, or question posed by a customer is a huge, FREE, opportunity to improve your business by a factor of WOW – and for little or no money.

And a bit more reality: when managers and employees turn over at a high rate, it’s not the ‘nature of the business,’ it’s the cheapness and policies of the home office. When you try to milk a nickel to save a penny,when you sacrifice quality just to increase profits, you lose employees, customers, goodwill and reputation.

Me? I’ll go away with a little bit of noise – others will just go away.
You? Document the issue, the resolve, the response, and the outcome.

These are the steps: Listen. Process. Think. Take responsibility. Question. Respond. Say something positive. Do something positive. WOW.

Train that.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at salesman@gitomer.com.

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3. Standards & Expectations – Introduction
4. Project Management Warning Flag 4 – Too Much Time, Too Few People
5. Standards and Expectations – Defining Performance Standards, part 1 of 8

Let’s look at the stats…

• 98% or more rejection rate
• 100% interruption of the prospect
• 100% they already know what you’re selling
• 100% they already have what you’re selling
• 100% manipulation to get through to the decision maker
• 100% lack of personal preparation about the customer
• Most sales managers could NOT do what they ask their salespeople to do
• Rejection is the biggest cause of sales personnel turnover
• Ask any salesperson if they’d rather have 100 cold calls or ONE referral
• Cold calls suck.

QUESTION: With these horrid stats, why do sales managers insist on, even measure, cold call activity and numbers?

ANSWER: I have no earthly idea.

Here are 12.5 real world connection strategies to eliminate cold calling. These are not “no brainers.” They’re “brainers!” They’re ideas and strategies that require smart, hard-working people to turn the strategies into money:

1. Build relationships and earn referrals. Visit existing customers. Offer ideas and help.
2. Use LinkedIn to make new connections. Use the ‘keyword’ search feature to uncover prospects you never knew existed. Then connect without using the standard LinkedIn wording. Be original.
3. Ask your informal network of connections to recommend customers. Building and maintaining local and industry specific relationships are critical to building your success. Pinpoint people who respect and admire your ability, the same way you respect and admire theirs.
4. Network face-to-face at the highest level possible. Not an ‘after hours’ cocktail party. Join high-level executive groups and get involved.
5. Join a business association – not a leads club. Someplace where owners gather.
6. Speak in public. All civic groups are eager to get a speaker for their weekly meeting. Be the speaker. If you give a value talk, a memorable talk, EVERY member of the audience will want to connect. You’ll have the potential to gain fifty ‘cold call’ connections each time you speak.
7. Speak at trade shows. Why not get praise for the great speech you gave at the conference every time someone walks by your booth, instead of trying to get them to putt a ball into a plastic cup.
8. Write an article. Nothing breeds attraction like the written word. I am a living example of what writing can do to change a career. Get in front of people who can say yes to you and become known as an expert.
9. Write an industry white paper. CEOs want to create great reputations, keep customers loyal, keep employees loyal, have no problems, maintain safety, and make a profit. Write about how your industry does that and EVERYONE will want to read it (and meet with you). White paper, or brochure? You tell me… Which one gets you invited in the door? Which one earns you respect? Which one builds your reputation? And the ouch question: Which one are you using?
10. Give referrals. Yes, GIVE referrals. What better way to gain respect, cosmic debt, word-of-mouth advertising, and reputation? WARNING: This requires hard work.
11. Send a once a week, value-based message to existing and prospective customers. For the past decade, my weekly email magazine, Sales Caffeine, has been a major source of value to my customers and revenue to me. Where’s yours?
12. Contact current customers who aren’t using 100% of your product line. You have gold in your own back yard. No cold call needed. Call existing customers and get more of their business.
12.5 Reconnect with lost customers. This little used strategy will net you more results than any cold call campaign on the planet. It takes courage to connect, but once you discover ‘why’ you lost them, you can create strategies to recover the account – often more than 50% of the time.

COLD CALL TIME CHALLENGE: What is your REAL use of time making futile cold calls? That’s a number you do not want to see. And how much of your use of time is a waste of time. You don’t wanna see this number either.

Gotta make cold calls? Boss making you cold call? Here’s the strategy for making a transition: ALLOCATE YOUR TIME. If you have to make 50 cold calls a week, allocate enough time to connect with 50 existing or lost customers in the same week. And ask your boss to do both WITH YOU. Let him or her see the futility of making cold calls. Ask them to make 50 cold calls. My bet is they can’t or won’t.

REALITY: Double your quota, double your sales numbers using the strategies above, and your boss won’t care ONE LICK if you ever make another cold call. In fact, they’ll be asking you HOW YOU DID IT.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at salesman@gitomer.com.

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In this Research Brief, Aberdeen discusses why talent acquisition is at the heart of talent management for many organizations.

From the days of medieval guild apprenticeships, to help-wanted classified ads, to the modern job boards and social networking practices, organizations have been working to improve the process of finding, hiring, and deploying new employees. The goal is not only to build a faster, easier, less expensive process, but one that also delivers better quality candidates.

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The passing of Dick Clark brought about widespread nostalgia and cultural interaction in our culture. Those of us who have known and worked with him will never forget his humor, his sense of fairness, his encouraging ways, the optimistic disposition, the gut instinct and the lasting impacts that he made on our later successes.

I started out my career by aspiring to be like Dick Clark. Thanks to great mentors, I learned to be my own best self, a visionary thinker and a repository of great case studies. I appeared on radio and TV with him, as well as on conference stages. It was he who encouraged your own leadership qualities, because your success ultimately honored him.

As a onetime radio disc jockey who evolved into a business guru, I offer this tribute to Dick Clark as a corporate and entrepreneurial study in excellence.

Dick Clark grew up working in a radio station in Utica, New York, perfecting the talk and the interest in music. He realized that music styles changed rapidly and that their cultural impact affected. When opportunity came calling, he was ready, willing and able. He replaced other DJ’s as host of a local bandstand show at WFIL-TV in Philadelphia, switching his musical emphasis from big bands and easy listening music to the emerging rock n’ roll. His bandstand show was a runaway hit and quickly was picked up by the ABC-TV network as a daily after-school show aimed at teens.

The success of ‘American Bandstand’ spawned a weekly TV music variety series from New York, ‘The Dick Clark Beechnut Show,’ which in turn inspired concert tours, ‘The Dick Clark Caravan of Stars.’ He appeared in movies, as a teacher in ‘Because They’re Young’ and a doctor in ‘The Young Doctors.’ He was clean-cut, respectful and mannerly, thus bringing legitimacy to rock n’ roll.

With the celebrity, he was hired to guest-star as an actor in TV shows such as ‘Stoney Burke,’ ‘Adam-12,’ ‘Honey West,’ ‘Branded,’ ‘Lassie,’ ‘Ben Casey,’ ‘Coronet Blue’ and ‘Burke’s Law.’ He played the last villain on the last episode of the ‘Perry Mason’ weekly TV series.

The 1963 move from Philadelphia to California launched Dick Clark Productions. Though ‘American Bandstand’ was owned by the network, he mounted what became a 50-year span of programs that he owned, produced and nurtured, including ‘The People’s Choice Awards,’ ‘Where the Action Is,’ ‘Live Wednesday,’ ‘American Dreams,’ ‘The Happening,’ ‘New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,’ ‘Academy of Country Music Awards,’ ‘Super Bloopers and Practical Jokes,’ ‘American Music Awards,’ specials, TV movies, game shows and more.

To go to his office and have meetings was like being in a museum. You sat at his desk in antique barber chairs, wrote on roll-top desks and enjoyed furnishings from nostalgic shops. Big band music played from a Wurlitzer juke box, and classic cars adorned the parking lot.

These are some of the principles that I developed myself but do credit being inspired by Dick Clark. I’ve taught them to others and shared with him as well:

• As times change, the nature of ‘nostalgia’ changes. Each entertainment niche may not be your ‘cup of tea,’ but relating to others will create common bonds and exhibits leadership.
• People are more products of the pop culture than they are of formal business training. They make strategic decisions based upon cultural memories. I would ask corporate executives to articulate core values, and they could only recite meaningful song lyrics, movie lines and quotes. That’s why I developed the Pop Culture Wisdom concept, to interpolate from the cultural icons into business jargon and workable policies.
• Companies and industries need to embrace change sooner, rather than becoming a victim of it later. The entertainment industry is the best at being flexible, spotting new trends, changing with the times, packaging creative concepts and leading cultural charges. Other industries could well learn from the entertainment business practices.
• Applying humility and humanity helps in bringing people together. Music is something that everyone relates to. Finding common ground about the zeal and joys inherent in running a company results in better buy-in and support of the goals.
• A lot of people in show business asked Dick Clark for advice. He had a lot of wise business sense, and the best came from gut instincts. My gut is usually right. If something feels wrong, then it is. If it is a good move to make, then I cite precedents as to what led to that recommendation. Trusting your gut comes from long experience, for which there are no shortcuts.
• Dick Clark was good about treating the teenagers as friends and with respect. He never came across as a scolding parent but rather as a friendly uncle. Long-term business success is a function of developing stakeholders and empowering them to do positive things with your company.
• Dick Clark Productions had a select list of projects. The take-back for business is to grow in consistent fashion, sustaining the down times with realistic activities.
• I recommend that organizations periodically revisit their earlier successes. Learn from case studies elsewhere in the marketplace. Review what you once did correctly and how your competitors failed. It is important to link nostalgia to the future. We can like and learn from the past without living in it.

Dick Clark liked to celebrate the successes of others. I’ve found that reciting precedents of successful strategy tends to inspire others to re-examine their own. Here are some other lessons that he taught us:

• Be a mentor and inspire others.
• Learn as you grow.
• Periodically celebrate the heritage.
• Be inclusive.
• Be ethical.
• Give the public more than you need to.

7 Levels of Mentoring and Lifelong Learning:

1. Conveying Information. Initial exposure to the coaching process. One-time meeting or conference between mentors and mentees. The mentor is a resource for business trends, societal issues, opportunities. The coach is active listener, mentors on values, actions.
2. Imparting Experiences. The mentor becomes a role model. Insight offered about own life-career. Reflection strengthens the mentor and shows mentee levels of thinking and perception which were not previously available to the mentee.
3. Encouraging Actions. The mentor is an advocate for progress, change. Empowers the mentee to hear, accept, believe and get results. Sharing of feelings, trust, ideas, philosophies.
4. Paving the Way. The mentor endorses the mentee…wants his-her success. Messages ways to approach issues, paths in life to take. Helps draw distinctions. Paints picture of success.
5. Wanting the Best. Continuing relationship between the mentor and mentee. Progress is visioned, contextualized, seeded, benchmarked. Accountability-communication by both sides.
6. Advocating, Facilitating. The mentor opens doors for the mentee. The mentor requests pro-active changes of mentee, evaluates realism of goals, offers truths about path to success and shortcomings of mentee’s approaches. Bonded collaboration toward each other’s success.
7. Sharing Profound Wisdom. The mentor stands for mentees throughout careers, celebrates successes. Energy coaching and love-respect for each other continues throughout the relationship. Mentor actively recruits fellow business colleagues to become mentors. Lifelong dedication toward mentorship…in all aspects of one’s life.

Truisms of Careers and Business Success:

• Whatever measure you give will be the measure that you get back.
• There are no free lunches in life.
• The joy is in the journey, not in the final destination.
• The best destinations are not pre-determined in the beginning, but they evolve out of circumstances.
• Most circumstances can be strategized, for maximum effectiveness.
• You gotta give in order to get something of value back.
• Getting and having are not the same thing.
• One cannot live entirely through work.
• One doesn’t just work to live.
• As an integrated process of life skills, a career has its important place.
• A body of work doesn’t just happen. It’s the culmination of a thoughtful, dedicated process…carefully strategized from some point forward.
• The objective is to begin that strategizing point sooner rather than later

I’ll close this tribute to Dick Clark with some of the songs from American Bandstand that have applicability to business strategy:

“Did you ever have to make up your mind? It’s not often easy and not often kind. Did you ever have to finally decide? Say yes to one and let the other one ride? There’s so many changes and tears you must hide.” John Sebastian and the Lovin’ Spoonful (1965)

“Do you know the way to San Jose? In a week or two, they’ll make you a star. And all the stars that ever were are parking cars and pumping gas.” Sung by Dionne Warwick. Written by Burt Bacharach & Hal David (1968)

“Don’t you want me baby? You know I can’t believe it when I hear that you won’t see me. It’s much too late to find you think you’ve changed your mind. You’d better change it back or we will both be sorry.” The Human League (1982)

“How will I know if he really loves me? Tell me, is it real love? How will I know if he’s thinking of me? If he loves me… if he loves me not…” Whitney Houston (1986)

“See the girl with the diamond ring? She knows how to shake that thing. See the girl with the red dress on? She can dance all night long.” Ray Charles (1959)

“What is love? Five feet of heaven in a pony tail… the cutest pony tail that sways with a wiggle when she walks.” The Playmates (1958)

“What’s your name? Is it Mary or Sue? Do I stand a chance with you? It’s so hard to find a personality with charms like yours for me. Ooh wee.” Don and Juan (1962)

“Each night I ask the stars up above, why must I be a teenager in love?” Dion and the Belmonts (1959)

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older? Wouldn’t it be nice to live in the kind of world where we belong? Happy times together, we’d be spending. Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray, it might come true.” The Beach Boys (1966)

“I’ve looked at life from both sides now. Those bright illusions I recall. I really don’t know life at all.” Judy Collins (1968)

“There ain’t no good guys. There ain’t no bad guys. There’s only you and me, and we just disagree.” Dave Mason

“Life goes on… after the thrill of living is gone.” John Mellencamp, “Jack and Diane” (1982)

“I’ve found the paradise that’s trouble-free. On the roof’s the only place I know, where you just have to wish to make it so.” Sung by The Drifters. Written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin (1962)

About the Author

Hank Moore has advised 5,000+ client organizations worldwide (including 100 of the Fortune 500, public sector agencies, small businesses and non-profit organizations). He has advised two U.S. Presidents and spoke at five Economic Summits. He guides companies through growth strategies, visioning, strategic planning, executive leadership development, Futurism and Big Picture issues which profoundly affect the business climate. He conducts company evaluations, creates the big ideas and anchors the enterprise to its next tier. The Business Tree™ is his trademarked approach to growing, strengthening and evolving business, while mastering change. To read Hank’s complete biography, click here.

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Strategic planning is a critical part of growing a successful business. A high performance work culture needs a system that makes sure that employee goals are aligned and everyone is focused on the right stuff.

The fact is that many small- to mid-sized companies do not have a structured process from which to conduct strategic planning. This is like many adults who do not exercise, despite knowing it’s good for them. Perfect health isn’t guaranteed by regular exercise, but the likelihood of attaining good health is dramatically increased. Strategic breakthrough business guessing/planning works for businesses in much the same way as exercise works for the individual.

The process should take place over two to three months and take three to four days. It is predicated on white papers and dialogue. Listening and understanding are critical. Better research ensures better debate and thinking. “What is a white paper?” you ask hysterically.

A white paper is a three- to five-page paper that addresses the critical issue. The paper should deal directly with the issues. It is, with research and analysis, the ‘answer’ submitted by the smaller group to the entire planning team.

Once you have created the plan, you need to make sure it is acted upon. Monthly meetings of one to three hours and spending time on objectives and action plans will ensure focus. Then, once a quarter, the planning team should meet offsite, preferably with a coaching resource like yours truly. (Bonus points if the coach is bald-headed. It makes the coach smarter and buffer—really.) At the session, the group will look at what happened in the quarter and then focus on what needs to happen in the next quarter. This will keep everyone aligned on what needs to take place to push the company forward.

So there you have it four steps towards building a high performance culture. Any movement up the slope to establishing these cornerstones will prove valuable. You will also learn by doing. So do not contemplate your next steps – get going. Let us know how you do and what you are learning and developing.

About the Authors

Since working for his family’s boating business to founding his company CMI (Crusading, Marauding Interveners), Bruce Hodes has dedicated himself to helping companies grow by developing executive leadership teams, business leaders and executives into powerful performers. Bruce’s adaptable Breakthrough Strategic Business Planning methodology has been specifically designed for small-to-mid-sized companies and is especially valuable for family company challenges. In February of 2012 Bruce published his first book Front Line Heroes: How to Battle the Business Tsunami by Developing Performance Oriented Cultures. With a background in psychotherapy, Hodes also has an MBA from Northwestern University and a Masters in Clinical Social Work. Contact Bruce via email at bhodes@cmiteamwork.com or phone at 800-883-7995. Visit his website at www.cmiteamwork.com.

Alona Banai, CMI’s office manager, wears many hats. She works behind the scenes managing the client process. Alona is the KeyneLink System Administrator for many of CMI’s clients and manages CMI’s Online Marketing including the Company Website, Newsletter, and Social Media.

Alona has been with CMI since February 2011. She has a MS in Plant Biology and Conservation from Northwestern University and a BS in Environmental Science and Hebrew from Washington University in St. Louis. She is also an avid and enthusiastic 5K to 1/2 Marathon participant.

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Sitting in the lobby of the Public Hotel in Chicago, there are about 50 people sitting and milling around, engaged in some form of interaction – primarily WITH THEMSELVES.

Oh, there are others with them, but these people are head down on their phones. I’m sure you have both seen them and been one of them.

Maybe you’re even reading this on your mobile device right now!

Guidelines of phone use have significantly changed because of technology availability. Five years ago (before the launch of the game-changing iPhone), all you could do on a phone was send and receive calls – and painfully text. Remember your early texts – a-b-c-(oh crap)-2. That was a technological EON ago.

Cellular phones are smart these days. Most of the time, they’re smarter than their user. They are as much ‘app’ driven, as they are talk and text. If you include email and the Internet in general, your calendar, Facebook and other social media apps, Google and other search engines, news and other of-the-moment information, Instagram and other photo apps, your camera, music, movies, Angry Birds (I’m currently playing RIO HD), Scrabble, and other games, Foursquare, Paypal, and of course the ubiquitous Amazon (where you can buy anything in a heartbeat, and read any book ever written), you at once realize your phone or tablet has become your dominant communication device – and it’s only an infant in its evolution.

Voice recognition is the next big breakthrough.

Most people are not masters of their own phone. They use programs they need, and rarely explore new ones, unless recommended by a friend. (Think about how you found many of the apps you use.)

If you’re seeking mastery of your device, here are the fundamental how-tos:

• How to use it mechanically. (Not just on and off.) Your phone holds technological mysteries and magic that can make your hours pay higher dividends once you master them.
• How to use it mannerly. The ‘when’ and ‘how loud’ are vital to your perceived image. See some more rules and guidelines below.
• How to use it to enhance communication. Texting is the new black. Data transmission now exceeds voice transmission – by a lot. Emailing a customer? How do they perceive you when they read it? Is it “C U L8r” or “See you later”? Is it “LMK” or “let me know”? You tell me. I don’t abbreviate. My mother would have never approved.
• How to use it to master social media. Tweet value messages on the go. Facebook is inevitable, and now that Instagram is linked, you’ll need an hour a day to post and keep current. RULE OF BUSINESS: Whatever time you allot to personal Facebook, invest the same amount of time to your business (like) page. Post and communicate to customers.
• How to use it to allocate your time. Use your stopwatch feature to measure the total amount of time you spend on your phone. You can easily hit start-stop-memory each time you use it. Your total at the end of the day will shock you – but not as much as multiplying the total by 365.

Here are the rules, guidelines, and options to understand the proper time and place for use:

• When you’re alone and no one is around. The world is your oyster. Be aware of time. If left to your own device, minutes become hours.
• When you’re by yourself, but others are within hearing distance. Speak at half-volume, and keep it brief.
• In an informal group. Ask permission first. Use your judgment as to what to ignore. Be respectful of the time and attention paid to the people you’re with.
• In a business meeting. Never. Just never.
• In a one-on-one sales meeting. Beyond never. Rude.

Flight attendants scream at you to ‘power down,’ whatever that means – not as loud as is you if you referred to them as a ‘stewardess,’ but close.

AIRPLANE HUMOR:
Plane lands and the entire plane is on their phone or staring at their phone, and walk off the plane like lemmings marching to the sea in a robotic stare.

REALITY: People are walking into walls, tripping, bumping into other people, and crashing their cars while looking at and using their phones.

A classic cartoon in The New Yorker magazine a few weeks ago showed a picture of a woman on her phone saying, “I’ve invited a bunch of my friends over to stare at their phones.”

The smart phone is here to stay – they’re cheap to use and application options are expanding every day. Your challenge is to harness it, master it, and bank it.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at salesman@gitomer.com.

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Aberdeen Group surveyed nearly 450 organizations in order to determine Best-in-Class practices in human capital management (HCM). Data analysis from that study showed that organizations that integrate workforce and business performance data into their analytics tools are nearly three times as likely to achieve Best-in-Class results as those that don’t.

This research paper will examine the use of workforce analytics tools and the capabilities exhibited by Best-in-Class organizations to align workforce strategies with business objectives.

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Landing in the Executive Chair: How to Excel in the Hot Seat by Linda Henman   In today’s fast-paced, unprecedented, and unpredictable economy, many executives simply don’t know what to do. Conventional methods-which many never entirely understood in the first place-often don’t work during economic upheaval. Executives, especially CEOs, need something better. They need a guide that identifies the roadblocks and points out the landmines. In her more than 30 years of working with hundreds of executives, Dr. Linda Henman has observed the critical elements of success, both for the new leader and the one who aspires to the next level of success. In Landing in the Executive Chair, you’ll learn how to: Avoid the pitfalls and identify a clear plan for personal and organizational stress. Leverage the first months in a new executive position- that time of transition that promises opportunity and challenge, but also brings a period of great vulnerability. Create a competitive advantage, set the right tone, make effective decisions, keep talent inside your doors, and establish credibility-all while navigating unfamiliar and turbulent waters. As organizations expand and grow, the skills that led to success often won’t sustain further development in a more complex, high-stakes environment. Present and future executives need more. They need Landing in the Executive Chair.

The continuing economic challenges – both domestic and international – require practical approaches for maintaining a high level of employee commitment and performance. But these challenges demand something else – a new approach to leadership – the kind of leadership that puts the shoulder of good judgment up against the door of immediate rewards and keeps pushing until it shoves it wide open for the possibilities of long-range, future gains. During difficult, changing times, conventional wisdom proves neither conventional nor wise. We need something new, something that will equip us to face future challenges. The F² Leadership Model does just that.

The F² Leadership Model explains the behaviors – not skills, talents, attitudes, or preferences – executives need to display to be effective. F² leaders have a balanced concern for task accomplishment and people issues. They are firm but fair leaders whom others trust, leaders who commit themselves to both relationship behavior and task accomplishment.

The model sets tension between opposing forces – firmness and fairness – to provide understanding and direction. In other words, it challenges us to ask ourselves how to have both a clear task orientation and an appreciation for the people who achieve the results.

This model is truly more follower-driven than leader-driven. It keeps the leader’s focus on those who count – the people in the organization who will define success. It helps leaders figure out whether they are losing balance, tending to act like Genghis Khan or Mr. Rogers.

The four-quadrant model is both prescriptive and descriptive. It allows leaders to understand their own behavior relative to their direct reports, but by its nature, it implies a preferred way of behaving. In other words, the model explains what leaders should do to be effective instead of merely describing what they tend to do or prefer to do. It explores two key dimensions of leadership: relationship behaviors, like fairness, and task behaviors, like firmness.

When leaders lose the balance between fairness and firmness, they lose their effectiveness and compromise that of their direct reports. The model helps them analyze what they’re doing and then make choices to move toward F² behavior. Keep in mind, the model addresses behavior and represents an ideal, so no person fits into one quadrant all the time. Leaders who want to be more effective strive for F² behavior, but they occasionally drift into one of the other quadrants. When this happens, problems occur, but awareness offers the first step toward remedy.

When I ask people what they think it takes to be a great leader, their first response is usually, ‘vision’. Without question, effective leadership requires a strategic focus, but remember, people in mental institutions have visions, too. Seeing into the future is not enough; successful leadership in the new economy requires more. These leaders understand they must lead better than their competitors, and they need to inspire loyalty through firm but fair leadership. Even though their personalities and management styles may differ, executives who make it to the top and stay there, share some common traits: they have a sense of proportion in their leadership styles and lives; they possess a high degree of self-awareness and self-regulation; and they maintain a long-term focus for themselves and those who depend on them.

About the Author

Dr. Linda Henman, the catalyst for virtuoso organizations, is the author of Landing in the Executive Chair, among other works. She is an expert on setting strategy, planning succession, and developing talent. For more than 30 years she has helped executives and boards in Fortune 500 Companies and privately-held organizations dramatically grow their businesses. She was one of eight succession planning experts who worked directly with John Tyson after his company’s acquisition of International Beef Products. Some of her other clients include Emerson Electric, Avon, Kraft Foods, Edward Jones, and Boeing. She can be reached in St. Louis at www.henmanperformancegroup.com.

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The foundational material — mission and values — of a company can be critical to the overall success of the organization – but they’re often forgotten. The corporate mission and values are created by the senior leadership team, captured on posters, and strategically tacked up around the building. Meanwhile, how does a corporate citizen react to this phenomenon? They see it as ‘Horse manure!’ Whatever is in the mission or values statement is not seen as relevant to the organization’s day-to-day operations. In other words, the organization’s behavior is not congruent with its declaration of ideals.

However, at their best, a mission (or ‘reason for being’) and values give an organization a future to live into. This potential future galvanizes and focuses the organization. Whether or not goals are met entirely, movement toward them develops teamwork and is valuable to the company. So how do organizations get to this point?

Some of the following thinking and exercises were inspired by an article called Building Your Company’s Vision, by Collins and Porras, the authors of Built to Last. In the article, the authors describe how to write a reason for being and values.

When thinking about your company’s mission, think about purpose. Ask participants in your session to consider the following: What is the purpose of your organization? What would be lost if the organization ceased to exist? What kind of organization would you work for regardless if you got a salary or not, etc.

Now onto values. In this process, when I say ‘values,’ I mean the right behaviors that will support the business in its interactions with customers and vendors. They are the conduct and beliefs that will support positive and productive interaction between employees. This conduct will support the organization in delivering its reason for being. When working with your leadership team to create values, know that you only need to create between four and six. Too many and you end up with something like you do when you mix all colors: a sort of a purplish, brownish goop.

Start out by asking the group what values they come to work with. Then ask, “If you did not have to work, would you still demonstrate those values and behaviors just because they are the right ones to have?” Here’s the kicker: “What values, because they are the right ones, would you want your children to adopt for work?”

Typically, I ask for more than a one-word answer. If the value is ‘integrity,’ I ask the group to give me a sentence that describes what integrity means. Everyone then writes their four to six values on flipcharts and posts them on the walls.

Afterward, participants present their values and the group can ask questions. Typically, the group discovers that their values are in the same ballpark, and they find comfort and reassurance in that fact. This is good news.

The next step begins when you split the larger group into smaller groups of five to seven people to develop the organization’s values. Ask the groups: “Given our reason for being, what are the four to six behaviors and values that will truly support the business, employees, and customers? What are the ‘right’ values to have, even if they are not advantageous in some business situations?”

These do not have to incorporate or include any of the team’s individual values. They do, however, need to align with them. What this means is that organizational values and individual values cannot go head to head and oppose each other. If a company values diversity and I’m a skinhead who values white supremacy above all else, that could be a problem. However, if one of my personal values is teamwork and the company value is collaboration, clearly there is synergy and alignment.

About the Authors

Since working for his family’s boating business to founding his company CMI (Crusading, Marauding Interveners), Bruce Hodes has dedicated himself to helping companies grow by developing executive leadership teams, business leaders and executives into powerful performers. Bruce’s adaptable Breakthrough Strategic Business Planning methodology has been specifically designed for small-to-mid-sized companies and is especially valuable for family company challenges. In February of 2012 Bruce published his first book Front Line Heroes: How to Battle the Business Tsunami by Developing Performance Oriented Cultures. With a background in psychotherapy, Hodes also has an MBA from Northwestern University and a Masters in Clinical Social Work. Contact Bruce via email at bhodes@cmiteamwork.com or phone at 800-883-7995. Visit his website at www.cmiteamwork.com.

Alona Banai, CMI’s office manager, wears many hats. She works behind the scenes managing the client process. Alona is the KeyneLink System Administrator for many of CMI’s clients and manages CMI’s Online Marketing including the Company Website, Newsletter, and Social Media.

Alona has been with CMI since February 2011. She has a MS in Plant Biology and Conservation from Northwestern University and a BS in Environmental Science and Hebrew from Washington University in St. Louis. She is also an avid and enthusiastic 5K to 1/2 Marathon participant.

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Do you really know the organizational contribution value of each individual working for you?

Unfortunately, most executives and managers would have to respond negatively to that question. How is it that we affix a value to our physical assets, assign returns on investment to proposed initiatives and yet cannot readily articulate the quantitative benefit an individual employee – our greatest asset – represents for our company?

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Every one of you have given a speech, or written a paragraph or essay about what you did on your summer vacation while you were in grade school.

You wrote about the lake, the mountains, or the week at the beach. Or you gave a speech and your opening line was, “What I did on my summer vacation.” And you held your own hands and nervously performed in front of your peers.

You were worried about what they would think and you were nervous about performing in front of your classmates, but somehow you muddled through it.

Your essay was returned with all kinds of red marks for punctuation, grammar, and misspellings.

For those of you who are pack rats, or have parents who are pack rats, you may still have the document.

PERSONAL NOTE: I have many of my daughters’ early writings. All gems.

I’m giving you this reminder, this bit of nostalgic instant memory, so I can issue you the following challenges: How have you progressed since then?

How much better are your writing skills? How much better are your presentation skills? And how important are those skills to your sales success, your business success, your social media success, and your career success?

I’ve been a professional writer and professional speaker for 20 years. But like you, I’ve been an amateur since the third grade when I talked about what I did on my summer vacation, and in the fourth grade when I wrote about Hurricane Hazel which rocked Atlantic City where my family was living at the time. (If you Google it, you can figure out how old I am!)

What most people don’t understand is their initial training forms the foundation of their present skills. Your grammar, your ability to spell, your self-confidence to be able to speak, and your overall character are formulated by your ability to communicate both orally and in writing.

Every one of you reading this is now thinking, maybe I should have paid more attention when my high school English teacher was drilling the difference of there, their, and they’re or the difference of your and you’re.

Think about the emails you receive with the subject line that says: “You’re in Luck!”

The person who wrote it is immediately perceived as an idiot and the email is discarded as both disingenuous and poorly prepared.

Maybe I’m prejudice, but I don’t want to do business with someone who can’t correct his or her own work in the simplest subject line of an email.

The reason I’m harping on speaking and writing is because they are the foundation of the two most important elements of your success: image and reputation.

Everyone wants to have a great image.
Everyone wants to have a great reputation.

GOOD NEWS IS: You can influence both your image and your reputation with your CONSISTENT PERFORMANCE.

I’ll ask my audiences, “How many of you would be nervous speaking in front of a group of 300 people?” Almost everyone raises his or her hand. The real answer is, they are not nervous, they are not uncomfortable – those are symptoms. The real issue is they are UNPREPARED. They lack the experience, the subject matter expertise, or suffer from limited self-image or low self-esteem – or perhaps all four.

This is further complicated by the fact that most of you reading this know what show is on television on Wednesday night at 9 o’clock, and you’re glued to the set to see witness the next episode of “other people’s drama.” You make a conscience choice to watch something rather than to learn something or do something.

Perhaps if you took a Dale Carnegie course on public speaking, or joined a Toastmasters group, you would be able to become a confident presenter.

Perhaps if you started your own blog, and at the age of 30 or 40, you write about what you did on your summer vacation, you might be able to attract people with similar likes and values as they search the internet, same as you.

Please do not confuse this column as a call to action.
Rather it is a call to reality.

REALITY: Your writing skills and your speaking skills need to be at a higher level of competence if you are looking to elevate your income to a higher level.

REALITY: Your reputation is the sum total of your words and deeds – a large portion of which can come from writing and speaking.

REALITY: Your customer is more likely to buy your message if they buy into your passion.

REALITY: You can gain an amazing business social media presence if you combine your ability to write and your ability to convey a value message to your customers.

Here’s my recommendation to you…

1. Write a 500-word blog post once a week. Write about something you love. Write about something that may impact your customers. Write about something you have an expertise in.

2. Speak in public once a week. A civil organization will be happy to have you as their breakfast or lunch presenter. Speak on something you love, speak on something others will value, speak on something in which you are an expert.

2.5 You will not reap immediate rewards. But slowly over time your image and reputation will emerge. That’s a reward that has nothing to do with commissions or earnings, but it has everything to do with the feeling of fulfillment. That’s a feeling I hope you get to experience.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at salesman@gitomer.com.

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Know the pitfalls that companies can fall into when doing strategic workforce planning.

With aging workforces and a shortage of critical talent being among the biggest challenges facing today’s businesses, strategic workforce planning–the discipline of forecasting future gaps between demand and supply of critical talent–has become one of HR’s most important responsibilities. In this white paper, SuccessFactors discusses the common pitfalls that companies fall into–and how to avoid them, including:

• The danger of expecting HR to ‘own’ workforce planning
• Failing to see the bigger picture
• Trying to implement too many changes before you’re ready to succeed

Learn about these pitfalls and others that can dramatically alter your chances for success. Download your copy now, compliments of SuccessFactors.

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About the Reference

Knowing Your Value: by Mika Brzezinski is a self confession and personal growth story about how a now prominent MSNBC morning show host discovered, demanded, and won compensation more inline with that of her peers. The story is complimented by the personal value stories and insights of over a dozen other leaders.

Why You Should Not Buy This Book

StrategyDriven Contributors dislike Knowing Your Value for several reasons. First, the book lacks sufficient method for actually determining your personal worth to an organization. Its premise is that an individual’s value contribution should be based on the compensation of others in similar positions. The shortfall with this argument is that each unique individual contributes differently to the organization and so offers his/her own value proposition. Additionally, there is an underlying assumption that the comparison employees have accurately identified and won their value – a premise that is often not true. Second, the book maintains a foundational assumption that the author was treated differently because she is a woman. While this may or may not be true, the comparison employees identified were noted as contributing significantly greater intellectual and creative works to their organization; suggesting that they were rightfully compensated more. Brzezinski discounts the fact that men, minorities, and other classes of people may also be undervalued, for the reasons she presents, and that everyone should methodically seek to identify and demand their value from employers.

For its shortfalls in revealing how to calculate one’s personal value contribution and its faulted underlying logic and assumptions, StrategyDriven Contributors recommend that our readers not purchase or invest time reading Knowing Your Value.

Alternative Recommendation

StrategyDriven Contributors believe it is highly important for an individual to know his/her value and to aggressively seek it. Identifying one’s worth is not a matter of simple comparison with others or a fight against perceived discrimination but rather a deliberate methodological evaluation of the value contribution of the individual to the organization followed by the positive assertion of that value to those who can correct any imbalance. Such a methodology is presented by Larry Myler, Chief Executive Officer of By Monday, in his book, Indispensable By Monday: Learn the Profit-Producing Behaviors that will Help Your Company and Yourself.

Click here to read a review of Indispensable By Monday and listen to our StrategyDriven Podcast interview with Larry Myler on determining your organizational value.

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† Available only to those living within the United States after the first monthly membership payment is received. Name and address information required. Books typically valued from $14.95 – $29.95 USD. Book value is not guaranteed.

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Teams are powerful constructs, and high-performance ones do not spring up by magic. By the same token, business teams are not the answer for every performance issue.

In corporations, while the talk is about teams and working together, there is actually a focus on individual performance. For the most part, there is no formal practice designed to enhance or improve group performance.

High-performance teams are ‘a small number of people with complementary skills who are equally committed to a common purpose, goals, and a working approach in which they hold themselves mutually accountable.’ This definition of real teams comes from the article The Wisdom of Teams, by Katzenbach and Smith. Real teams are basic units of performance, and members of the team are mutually accountable for the results. This is quite different from how most of the work world is organized.

When a group takes on mutual accountability for customers’ experiences, it can generate real customer-focused actions. From this, tangible and positive business results will occur. At my favorite restaurant, for example, the waiter greets me with my preferred glass of wine, letting me know that Chuck, the chef, has a special dish waiting for my beloved wife, Leslie. Then the bus boy appears and pours Leslie’s water without ice because that is the way she likes it. Everyone is clearly into giving us a personalized, pleasant experience, and we have not even ordered yet.

I have found that having a team design its structure allows the team to develop and perform more quickly. This is because in doing so, the team has to confront the performance issues it will encounter. The process allows for those issues to come to the fore sooner than later, which speeds up the overall process. Once this process is complete, it is important that the team honors and walks the talk that it designed.

About the Authors

Since working for his family’s boating business to founding his company CMI (Crusading, Marauding Interveners), Bruce Hodes has dedicated himself to helping companies grow by developing executive leadership teams, business leaders and executives into powerful performers. Bruce’s adaptable Breakthrough Strategic Business Planning methodology has been specifically designed for small-to-mid-sized companies and is especially valuable for family company challenges. In February of 2012 Bruce published his first book Front Line Heroes: How to Battle the Business Tsunami by Developing Performance Oriented Cultures. With a background in psychotherapy, Hodes also has an MBA from Northwestern University and a Masters in Clinical Social Work. Contact Bruce via email at bhodes@cmiteamwork.com or phone at 800-883-7995. Visit his website at www.cmiteamwork.com.

Alona Banai, CMI’s office manager, wears many hats. She works behind the scenes managing the client process. Alona is the KeyneLink System Administrator for many of CMI’s clients and manages CMI’s Online Marketing including the Company Website, Newsletter, and Social Media.

Alona has been with CMI since February 2011. She has a MS in Plant Biology and Conservation from Northwestern University and a BS in Environmental Science and Hebrew from Washington University in St. Louis. She is also an avid and enthusiastic 5K to 1/2 Marathon participant.

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Sound familiar?

Why do salespeople blame other people and/or other things for their own ineptitude? Why didn’t this salesperson say, “I gotta work on my voicemails and emails. They’re not getting any traction, and they’re costing me major money. I’m going on an all-out effort to improve my writing skills, my voicemail skills, and my creativity to generate better response!”

I’ll tell you why: It’s easier to blame others for your shortcomings than it is to take responsibility for them. It’s easier to blame than admit you’re not that good. It’s easier to blame than it is to improve. It’s easier to blame than face your own reality.

And I’m certain this message applies to you.

You blame the customer when something goes wrong, something didn’t happen as planned, someone didn’t respond, or you lost a sale to a competitor – especially at a lower price. Wrong. Very wrong.

I have been helping salespeople sell more and sell better since 1976, and during the time no one has ever come to me and said, “Jeffrey, I didn’t make the sale, and it was all my fault!” Interesting statistic.

Rather than blame, I have some answers that will help you. Actually, I have some questions. Questions you MUST ask yourself BEFORE you blame. These questions will give you a brand new perspective, and they automatically shift blame to responsibility. They will bring you a new sense of reality. And they will make you a better salesperson.

Ask yourself “WHY” to get to the truth.

• Why was my call not returned?
• Why did they cancel my appointment?
• Why did they delete my email?
• Why did they not respond to my email?
• Why did they say, “Not interested”?
• Why did they say, “We’re happy with our present supplier”?
• Why can’t I set an appointment?
• Why can’t I get through to the decision maker?
• Why are they meeting with other vendors or suppliers?
• Why did they take the lowest bid?
• Why did they buy from the competition?
• Why did they tell me that my price is too high?

Why are you blaming others (especially customers) for your inability to attract, engage, connect, and create value that leads to a sale?

One of the weakest and least exposed shortcomings of salespeople is how they use time. If you’re allocating too much time to watching TV, or other nonsense activities, you’re wasting valuable career-building opportunities.

Whatever you’re doing with your non-business, non-family time, ask yourself these reality questions:

• Will this help me double my sales?
• Will this help me build better relationships?
• Will this help me become better known?
• Will this make me be perceived as a person of value?
• Will this help me build my reputation?
• Will this help me build my sales and personal development skills?

Work on these elements of your sales and business life:

• Message leaving. Are your messages in any way impacting your standing and status with the customer? Is there an ounce of value or creativity, or are you just begging for some news about the proposal you sent (and calling that a follow-up)?
• Be available. Your prospect will call you when they are free. This may be before or after business hours.
• Be easy to do business with. Customers want everything NOW!
• Leave value messages. Something short and sweet that they can use.
• Study creativity. Your competitive advantage is to be perceived as different. Read a book on creativity as a starting point.
• Be more friendly than professional. Sales is a profession, but salespeople (you) must be perceived as friendly.
• Build your business social media presence. Are you tweeting value messages? Interacting with customers one-on-one on your business Facebook page? Looking to make new connections on LinkedIn? Creating a YouTube channel with customer testimonial videos? Or are you watching the 6 o’clock news
• Use meals to build relationships. You’ll be amazed how much more available customers become once you get to know them personally. Breakfast or lunch prospects and customers at least three times a week.

SIMPLE SELF-EVIDENT FACT: If you want customer response, you have to EARN it.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at salesman@gitomer.com.

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1. Elements from the past twenty years you can use for the next twenty!

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1. Staffing your organization with the best employees
2. Teams that are high performance teams
3. Corporate mission and values that everyone is aligned with
4. A complete and implemented Strategic Business Plan

Only a pyramid with all four of these cornerstones will create a foundation stable enough for an ongoing high performance culture. What follows is an explanation of how to create these four cornerstones.

1. Staffing with the best – mediocrity can work with your competition. This is the mantra of a high performance culture.

As businesspeople, we do not directly control terrorist plots, the economy, our competition, taxes, healthcare plans, or national events. But even with unions, executives and managers do ultimately control who works in the company. We should make the most of this opportunity and leverage the ‘people piece’ to enhance our companies’ performance advantage.

Here are some suggestions for raising performance and driving out mediocrity from CMI’s ABC process.

i. Educate managers: Help them understand the definitions of A, B, and C players.

ii. Jointly gauge employee performance: at specific meetings, managers should jointly assess employee performance.

Only those who interact directly with the employee should state their opinions. This allows the employee’s manager to get candid feedback. In assessing performance, avoid grey areas – no pluses and minuses – managers must make a choice whether the employee is an A, B, C player.

iii. Take action

Ditch the D&F’s. D & F employees will drag your company down. If you have more than a few D and F employees, sell the firm and do something to save yourself.

Decide what to do with your C players. ‘C Players’ are mediocre employees; these employees are marginal in their performance and unremarkable in any positive attribute they bring to the workplace. They exist, take up space, and just get their jobs done, sort of. A test for ‘C-ness’ is putting yourself in this scenario: if one of these employees came up to you and said they were quitting, would you be relieved? Would your relief be because you’re certain you could do better by recruiting a new employee from the open marketplace? If so, you have a classic C-Player on your hands. What do you do with them? Give them a new role, develop them in their current role, or ditch them.

Distinguish between A vs. B: The difference between A and B players are their ability to be promoted. B players are great and loyal employees. They are valuable and skilled at what they do. A employees have the drive and the focus to take all the great aspects that B employees have and they are promotable way beyond where they are now. They are the rising stars in the organization and destined for leadership.

iv. Follow up: check on the status of the manager’s decision and actions

About the Authors

Since working for his family’s boating business to founding his company CMI (Crusading, Marauding Interveners), Bruce Hodes has dedicated himself to helping companies grow by developing executive leadership teams, business leaders and executives into powerful performers. Bruce’s adaptable Breakthrough Strategic Business Planning methodology has been specifically designed for small-to-mid-sized companies and is especially valuable for family company challenges. In February of 2012 Bruce published his first book Front Line Heroes: How to Battle the Business Tsunami by Developing Performance Oriented Cultures. With a background in psychotherapy, Hodes also has an MBA from Northwestern University and a Masters in Clinical Social Work. Contact Bruce via email at bhodes@cmiteamwork.com or phone at 800-883-7995. Visit his website at www.cmiteamwork.com.

Alona Banai, CMI’s office manager, wears many hats. She works behind the scenes managing the client process. Alona is the KeyneLink System Administrator for many of CMI’s clients and manages CMI’s Online Marketing including the Company Website, Newsletter, and Social Media.

Alona has been with CMI since February 2011. She has a MS in Plant Biology and Conservation from Northwestern University and a BS in Environmental Science and Hebrew from Washington University in St. Louis. She is also an avid and enthusiastic 5K to 1/2 Marathon participant.

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TOTAL JOKE. And a bad one at that.

Social media, business social media, is running wild – with or without you. Your customers and prospective customers are posting on Facebook whether you have the balls to have presence there or not.

And I am not just talking to companies – I am talking to YOU – the individual.

CONSIDER THIS: Of all the grassroots revolutions that have occurred on social media, none of them were started by companies or a governments. They were all started by people – people who were excited, people who were afraid, people who were pissed, and people who wanted change and spoke up. They spoke over CEOs, media, newspapers, government, lobbyists, and politicians.

HERE’S WHAT THEY SHOULD MEASURE: LRI otherwise known as Lost Revenue (and goodwill and customer loyalty) of Idiots.

While Macy’s and most other department stores are/were measuring ROI, Zappos is cleaning their clock, delivering value, connectingwith and responding to customers one on one, and building a billion dollar empire in less time than it took Macy’s to expand to a second store 100 years ago.

Webinars on the subject of ROI of social media are likely run by the same people who thought Amazon.com wouldn’t make it. If Bezos measured the ROI at Amazon in the first five years, he would have quit. He accomplished domination while Barnes & Noble was measuring ROI, and Borders was going broke.

Amazon now has total market dominance based on leadership, vision, and technological excellence. Same with Apple. Microsoft used to laugh at them, now their employees all have iPads and iPods at home.

Measure? No, INVEST RESOURCES IN SOCIAL MEDIA WITHOUT MEASURING. NOW!

It’s way too soon to measure.

MAJOR POINT OF UNDERSTANDING: If they had measured the ROI of TV, or the computer, or the automobile, or the telephone, or the Internet after 5 years, NOBODY would have gotten involved, and we’d be in a technological bog – sinking.

Wake up and smell the opportunity!

People guarding nickels have no idea of the power or the value of business social media, much less social media. They have no idea of the lost opportunity, or the lost revenue. They have no idea of the perception and participation of customers.

My bet is people who measure the ROI of social media HAVE NEVER TWEETED. Wanna take that bet?

I define these people as the ones who still have a small rubber circle in the middle of their keyboard – completely out of touch with what’s new, and trying to prevent the unstoppable force of progress, and customers.

Wanna know who else ‘measured’ financial return?

• Blockbuster measured online movie services.
• Blackberry measured smartphones.
• Microsoft measured music players.

Billion-dollar MIS-MEASUREMENT: Bank of America DIDN’T measure or understand the power of Facebook. They were greedily measuring increased revenue from debit card customers. Their billion dollar loss paled in comparison to their complete loss of goodwill. I doubt they will recover in a decade.

All of those companies are/were foolish.

There’s one company you want to take their time, measure nickels, rely on lawyers, and stick their big toe in the water before getting involved – that one company is your biggest competitor.

Here’s an easy plan to get rolling in a week or two:

1. Gather the email addresses of EVERYONE in your world.
2. Create a first-class, well tagged with key words, business page on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
3. Start a YouTube channel by inviting your customers to film WHY they bought from you.
4. Map out a strategy, and goals for engagement, for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.
5. Assign someone to monitor, post, and RESPOND to all who engage.
6. Create six value-based messages, two each for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
7. Shoot 2-3 value-based (something your customers could use) videos and post them on YouTube.
8. Invite all of your customers to join you by sending examples of your value messages. I recommend one campaign per media for four weeks – but have links to all in each email.
9. Post something every day on Facebook. Tweet something every day. Link with 2-5 people every day. Post one video a week.
10. If you really want to create some buzz, convert your contacts to Ace of Sales (www.aceofsales.com) – and send emails that differentiate yourself from the competition.
10.5 Only listen to your lawyer if they tell you what you CAN do.

Start there.
Start now.
Start.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at salesman@gitomer.com.

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About the Reference

Advocacy by John Daly provides actionable methods to effectively market ideas such that they are acted upon by the organization. Too often, worthwhile initiatives are pushed aside because they do not receive the critical level of support needed to move forward – merit and positive cost-benefit alone are not typically enough to ‘sell’ an idea. Rather, reputation, relationships, timing, and persuasive messaging is needed to garner the attention and buy-in necessary to gain action on one’s proposals.

In Advocacy, John reveals a step-by-step framework of activities to build the critical mass intangibles needed to drive organizational action. These immediately implementable actions are supported by highly illustrative examples and tools/templates – everything needed to create and execute a plan to get action on one’s next proposal.

Benefits of Using this Reference

StrategyDriven Contributors like Advocacy because of its immediately implementable methods for effectively dealing with the organizational politics common to all businesses. While meritorious competition between initiatives tends to best serve the organization, reality dictates that politics, power struggles, and positioning often hinder the progression of top ideas in favor of less deserving ones. Thus, Advocacy provides the crucial real-world tools every leader should practice when putting forward proposals; thereby ensuring more equitable treatment of the body of ideas being considered.

If we had one criticism of Advocacy it would be that John’s examples are a bit too numerous and a bit too long. While we believe the illustrations could be more concise, it is usually better to have too much than too little detail and the extra here is not a significant distraction.

Effectively dealing with office politics, power struggles, and positioning is a matter of life in today’s business world. Advocacy‘s positive promotional methods provide a comprehensive, actionable way of dealing with these influencers with the goal of benefiting the organization; making it a StrategyDriven recommended read.

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I wince at the word training, because I have always associated it with lions and elephants. The word education seems more appropriate.

Training teaches you, ‘how.’
Education teaches you, ‘why.’

The person who knows HOW will always have a job. The person who knows WHY will always be his boss. (Although many people claim to be the author of this quote, it was originally written by Ralph Waldo Emerson around 1870. Emerson used ‘man’ rather than the PC version ‘person.’)

REALITY: Most companies provide salespeople initial (minimal) training of essential product knowledge and basic sales skills. Big deal. Then the real world kicks in and the salesperson is expected to produce without the real skills he or she needs to ‘make plan’ or ‘achieve quota’ before they ‘get fired.’

Pile on the facts that customers have situations, barriers, problems, and objections not covered in training, while the boss is demanding ‘cold calls’ and all kinds of accountability. If you combine those elements with zero attitude training, low belief sysyem, and constant rejection, it’s no wonder early turnover in some companies (maybe yours) EXCEEDS 25%.

What to do?

Here is list of the major categories that need to be included in the training/education of your sales force in order to retain good people and achieve your sales objectives:

CAUTION: This list will require your company to make a serious investment in the education of people and salespeople – but take heart, whatever the money involved, it pales in comparison to the cost of employee turnover.

• Personal development skills. Attitude comes before sales success. Positive attitude, followed by the five parts of belief, and classes on achievement and listening. Educate employees to make them better people BEFORE you throw them into the market.
• Communication skills. How to speak and how to write are at the fulcrum of sales success. Poor communication skills OR poor writing skills will lead to failure faster than anything other than poor attitude.
• Buying motives. Why people buy is almost never taught, yet it’s THE most powerful concept a salesperson can possess. Teach it at your best customer’s place of business.
• Product knowledge. It’s not an option to make your salespeople experts before they hit the road or the phone. Teach it at your best customer’s place of business.
• Personal presentation skills. Getting your compelling message transferred and “bought” is an essential aspect of salesmanship.
• Laptop and tablet (iPad) presentation skills. If you have the tool, and you’re not the master of it, you will miss the marginal sale. If you don’t have the tool, you’ll miss a ton of sales.
• Selling skills. Asking engaging questions and establishing relationships – the basic science of selling. BUT the elements above need to be understood BEFORE selling skills can be learned, let alone applied.
• Smart phone skills. This is the communication device of the present and the near future. It must be mastered.
• Voicemail skills. How are you at creating one, and leaving one? Two of the biggest enigmas of the modern sales era.
• Value messaging skills. Weekly emails, blog posts, and tweets to existing customers and prospects to stay “top-of-mind.”
• Pipeline building. How to build the number of qualified and expected sales. At the end of the month, a full pipelne ensures you’ll exceed plan.
• Customer service skills. How to be memorable enough to create word-of-mouth advertising and unsolicited referrals.
• Loyalty actions. Going the extra mile. Being WOW! By your actions, creating positive word of mouth advertising.
• Customer uses of product and services skills. How the customer uses what you sell in order to produce and profit.
• Customer perspective skills. How the customer views things and how the customer wants to be treated.
• Business social media. No longer an option. No longer possible to ignore its power. Not just for the company, also for the individual.
• Networking and relationship building. Getting face-to-face with customers and prospects on a regular basis. Network for sales AND relationship building.
• Earning referrals and testimonials. THERE IS NO BETTER WAY TO MAKE A SALE THAN A REFERRAL AND A TESTIMONIAL.
• Personal promotional skills. How to market yourself so that others will call you first. This is a combination of corporate support and personal (online) branding.
• Past history of company and product (even if it’s a service). Knowing the history of your company and product or service will help put much of the prospet’s fear and unspoken risk to rest.
• Continuing education. Once you start, you must make a commitment to continue as long as you exist.

This list is the MINIMUM requirement for salespeople to be prepared to succeed. But my best guess is that you are not educating or being educated in most of these critical elements. WHY?

There are no good reasons other than cost of training. And cost is a weak argument at best as the competition heats up their recruiting and training efforts.

And of course you’re going to want to measure the returns on your investment. Luckily in sales, ROI is the easiest part. Here’s an ROI reality: subtract last month’s sales from this month’s sales, and this month last year from this month’s sales and compare the results. You might also want to measure employee retention.

In sales all you have to do is measure reality. How’s yours?

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at salesman@gitomer.com.

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Sales say a lot about a company and profoundly impact its culture, reputation, and goals achievement. And while every business must sell a critical mass of products and services to survive and flourish, to whom, what, and how it sells greatly affects long-term success.

Indirect Financial Impacts of a Sale

Below are just a few of the follow-on impacts sales can have on an organization that ultimately affect the bottom line:

Organizational Values – Selling to entities whose values significantly contradict those of the business sends a powerfully negative message to entire workforce. Employees cannot help but believe the dollar means more to management than their commitment to the principles to which they espouse. Consequently, the embattled corporate value becomes an irrelevant tagline that everyone comes to ignore, employees become disenfranchised, productivity falls and some of the company’s best talent leaves.

Societal Expectations – Similar to but often on a much larger and more visible scale than sales impacting organizational values, a company’s commitment to its country of origin is judged based on its engagement with other states with which the home country is in dispute. Sales supporting the seated government of these states may be viewed as providing aid to an adversary. Consequently, sales to the business’s home country customer base may decline.

Company Alignment – Businesses exist for a reason, typically codified by the organization’s mission statement. Sales not directly supporting achievement of those stated goals diminish the organization’s overall effectiveness by diverting resources to low value-adding activities. Time and again, companies fail, in part, because of the financial burden and managerial distraction of serving customers outside of the organization’s core competencies.

High Value Resource Leverage – Specialized product and service generation typically requires highly unique, organizationally valuable resources. These resources provide the company a highly differentiated position from which to secure large contracts. Expending these resources on smaller deals consumes these resources without the commensurate revenue generation that should be realized.

Knowing When Not to Sell

In the heat of the moment, all sales appear to be good sales. Knowing this is not true, the following steps can help business leaders and sales professionals recognize when a particular sale should be avoided:

Establish Selling Standards and Expectations – Company values and goals translated to the decision and activity expectations of all organization members establish behavioral norms and optimize performance. Documented standards, including sale review checklists, provide a framework for senior-to-subordinate, peer-to-peer, and subordinate-to-senior accountability; without which detractive sales may become routine. Selling standards apply to large and small deals alike.

Conduct Large Deal Reviews – Organizationally significant sales tend to have a much more profound impact because of their visibility and breadth of personnel involved. Consequently, the ramifications of indirect financial impacts can be exponentially greater. For this reason, a senior executive team should review large deals (if not already being done) including an evaluation for indirect financial impacts. Documenting decision rational further enhances evaluation effectiveness by making this information available for future reference.

Deliberately Select When to Make Low Margin and Loss Deals – There is a time and place for low margin and loss leader deals. And while some businesses are built on these types of sales, no company can survive by continuously selling at a loss. Policies should be in place that provide specific guidance for when low margin and loss leader deals can be entered into including the necessary profit making follow-on potential these sales must drive. Deal cost estimation should include indirect financial impacts as well as direct costs. Such sales decisions typically require higher-level management approval.

Perform Business Leader and Sales Professional Performance Assessments – Accountability to performance expectations cannot exist without both positive and corrective reinforcement. Subsequently, all those influencing company sales should have personal performance goals aligned with the organization’s sales objectives and values that are routinely measured and consequentially rewarded. Doing so positively reinforces the organization’s values and ultimately strengthens its focus on achieving desired business outcomes.

Senior executives and managers set the tone for the company’s culture and its performance. Saying “No” to sales not aligned with the organization’s values and objectives establishes leader creditability and earns the respect of employees, customers, and society at large.

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My core of information transformed into a body of work that includes 11 books – all bestsellers. I did it while you were watching TV. I chose to write instead of watch.

Last week was the second part of the celebration talking about the evolution of the selling process and how it will affect you and your sales for the next twenty. This is the third and final part. If you missed the first two, you can get all three parts at Gitomer.com, by entering the word ‘twenty’ in the GitBit box.

Here’s the conclusion of what’s now and what’s next:

19. UNDERSTAND CREATIVITY. Most people say they’re creative, but they have never read a book on the science of it. That might be a good intention for the remainder of 2012. Start with anything by Michael Michalko.

20. CONVERT LEADS TO SALES. This is as challenging as any sales activity in the cycle. Sales have been dangling in the wind for years. Decisions are finally picking up speed. Now is the time to stay in consistent, ‘value-based’ follow-up mode. Stay on track and sales will follow.

21. YOUR ATTITUDE. You have COMPLETE control and choice as to the way you dedicate yourself to the way you think. As you emerge from the economic depression of the past four years, it is IMPERATIVE that your attitude (both at home and at work) is set on YES! This one element will enhance everyone’s communication, morale, service, and sales.

22. EARN TRUST. You don’t ask for trust. You can’t force trust. You EARN trust. How are you earning it?

23. EARN SALES. You don’t ask for sales. You can’t force sales. You EARN sales. Still asking? Still trying to “close?”

24. EARN LOYALTY. You don’t ask for loyalty. You can’t force loyalty. You EARN loyalty. Loyalty comes from service and value received. Where’s your value?

25. EARN REFERRALS. You don’t ask for referrals. You can’t force referrals. You EARN referrals. Referrals are not just leads, they’re report cards.

26. EARN TESTIMONIALS. You don’t ask for testimonials. You don’t force testimonials. You EARN testimonials. Testimonials are your ONLY valid proof.

27. DIFFERENTIATE IN THE MIND OF THE CUSTOMER. Differentiating is the key to winning on value over price. Your branded emails can differentiate you from the others. Go to www.aceofsales.com, subscribe, and you will immediately begin to genuinely differentiate.

28. TAKE ACTION. Put away the remote. I know you take action during the workday – it’s before and after the workday that I’m talking about. Allocate 30 minutes in the morning and one hour in the evening to improving one of these imperatives each day.

29. CONSISTENCY OF ACTIONS. Get up earlier every day, and do something for YOU. Exercise. Read. Think. Write. Every day. That’s been one of my ‘obvious’ 20-year secrets.

30. NEXT-LEVEL ACHIEVEMENT. Study your business, your market, your competition, your customers, and yourself. When you do, what’s next for you will become obvious.

31. FAMILY SUPPORT. Nothing and no one is more important. You need their support. They need yours. Best advice: Give genuine support, and yours will follow.

32. WRITE EVERY DAY. Writing leads to wealth. Not money, wealth. Every penny I have earned since March 23, 1992, I can trace back to something I wrote. But MUCH MORE than money, I have gained reputation, recognition, and rewards that have enhanced my success all the way to fulfillment. And I promise that writing every day will do the same for you.

32.5 CELEBRATE. OFTEN. Please do not wait to celebrate. Life’s short. Celebrate every thing, every sale, every victory, every day. And don’t be cheap about it.

TAKE ACTION NOW, NOT TOMORROW: Go back over the entire list of 32.5 imperatives and rate yourself 1-10 on how well you stack up against each element that I have presented. That will give you the most realistic picture of where you are vs. where you need to be. And it will give you a clearer vision or where you’re going. All you need to do is make a plan of ‘how.’

Dedicate an hour a day to you. In 20 years, you’ll be an instant success. I’m proof.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at salesman@gitomer.com.

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