MAY 2022 • Vol.21 • No.05 (ISSN 2564-2057)
WHY HIRING GREAT SELLERS IS SO HARD - Bryan Gray,
CEO, Revenue Path Group
12
The Power Of Service Recovery - John Tschohl,
Service Quality Institute
16
Straight Talk with HR.com
Diversity Is An Important Hiring Metric, And Is Here To Stay: Namisha Bahl, CMO, Mogul
21
The Influential Salesperson - Tim Roberts, Indiana
25
Everyone Deserves A Compliment - Shep Hyken
Customer Service Expert
INDEX
HCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence MAY 2022
Vol.21
No.05
( ISSN 2564-2057)
07
Why Hiring Great Sellers Is So Hard Selling has undergone a dramatic change in the past 20 years
On the Cover Articles 10 How To Make Customers Think You Are A Clairvoyant? Anticipating customer needs and creating the best experience
- Chip R. Bell, Renowned Keynote Speaker
14 Four Ways Technology Is Enhancing Customer Service The future is now - Natasha Bougourd, Senior Copywriter, Mediaworks
19 The Power Of Knowing Your Organization’s Change Readiness 4 best practices to consider
- Anne Przeklas,
Senior Consultant, Nitor Partners
- Bryan Gray,
CEO, Revenue Path Group
23 Uncertainty Is An Unlikely Friend How to successfully navigate the unknown
- Alan Amling,
CEO, Thrive and Advance LLC
27 Tips To Lead Your Remote Team Better In 2022 Challenges, tools engagement strategies
- Ian Fraser,
Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, The Go Game / Weve
Top Picks
12
INDEX
The Power Of Service Recovery How to save a customer? - John Tschohl, Founder and President, Service Quality Institute
16
Straight Talk with HR.com Diversity Is An Important Hiring Metric, And Is Here To Stay: Namisha Bahl, CMO, Mogul
21
The Influential Salesperson Making each team member the hero of their own story - Tim Roberts, Principal, Sandler® Training Center
25
Everyone Deserves A Compliment Saying something nice only takes a moment, but the impact is much bigger than the few words shared - Shep Hyken, Customer Service Expert and Keynote Speaker
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HCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence (ISSN 2564-2057)
Selling to the New World
T
he world, economic cycles, people, positions, etc., have changed a lot over the past two years change. So has selling. A recent study indicates 74% of buyers prefer virtual meetings. Thus, today, more than ever, influence training as a part of sales training is critical to your team’s success. Talking about this in detail is Tim Roberts from Sandler® Training, who in his article The Influential Salesperson will guide us how to find opportunities lying within the changes around you. Over the past two decades selling has experienced as much, or more, change than any other position in the organization. However, unlike those other positions, the seller has largely been left to adapt on their own. This has resulted in many outdated models being used by organizations and individuals alike. There are too many sellers – millions, even – doing the job as if it’s still the 1990s. Today, buyers have changed the way they buy. Thus hiring a good salesperson for the current world is not easy.
Jacksons Point, Ontario L0E 1L0
Moving on, in The Power Of Service Recovery, John Tschohl from Service Quality Institute touches upon how companies can prevent customers from leaving them. Also, check out the excluisve interview where Namisha Bahl, CMO, Mogul, where she talks about what needs to be done to bring in more women C-suite executives into the world of work, what are the current challenges to diversity hiring, new trends coming into the marketing and HR spaces, and more. That is not all! We also bring you several other articles, In this edition of HCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence, and these help you achieve excellence in your sales and marketing efforts. Happy Reading!
Write to the Editor at ePubEditors@hr.com
In Why Hiring Great Sellers Is So Hard, Bryan Gray from Revenue Path Group touches upon what companies must do hire great sellers.
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COVER ARTICLE
Why Hiring Great Sellers Is So Hard Selling has undergone a dramatic change in the past 20 years By Bryan Gray, Revenue Path Group
A
familiar cycle plays out in many B2B sales organizations of all different sizes. It starts innocently enough. Maybe someone left for another opportunity. Perhaps there was a realization that top-line revenue isn’t where it should be. So, the organization enters the job marketplace looking for that great seller. They hope she can open doors and close deals.
After an exhausting search, they interview and select the candidate. Big base salaries and huge on-target earnings are negotiated. The new seller settles in and after 6 months starts to make some sales, using existing contacts. Fast forward another 6 months and we find the new seller hitting 90% of her goal, competing near
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the top of the revenue earners. Not quite what the organization had hoped for, but good enough to retain and appreciate. A few months later, someone leaves the organization for another opportunity. The cycle repeats. Why does this feel so familiar?
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Why Hiring Great Sellers Is So Hard
Suddenly, those big six-figure salaries don’t seem worth it, do they?
The Functions of the Modern Seller
This is why we can’t hire based on past revenue performance alone. How they sell is more important than what they’ve sold.
Selling has undergone a dramatic change in the past 20 years. It has experienced as much, or more, change than any other position in the organization. However, unlike those other positions, the seller has largely been left to adapt on their own. This has resulted in many outdated models being used by organizations and individuals alike. There are too many sellers – millions, even – doing the job as if it’s still the 1990s. To hire the right sellers, you have to first understand the role.
The Way it Was
For decades, sellers have worked with prospects to uncover needs, define an appropriate solution, and close the deal. This was all that was needed of a seller at the time. The prospect reached out right at the beginning of their journey. They needed information and the seller had it.
Entire, successful careers were made simply waiting for the phone to ring, then being responsive.
The Way it Is
Today, this is not the case. Sellers have to do so much more and waiting for the phone to ring puts them in a race to the bottom, where the lowest price wins. Why? Buyers have changed the way they buy. Today, big committees make every decision. Sellers are being brought in at the very end. Prospects travel as much as 80 to 90 percent of their journey before making contact with three or four sellers, all competitors. This old-school approach means that the seller is given less than 20% of the time in the sale, today. And they have to split it with their competition. In this model, they’re impacting just 5% of the purchase journey. They’re relegated to a responsive and reactive role.
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Today’s seller must hunt for prospects. This is the only way to reclaim the time they used to have in the sale. Meeting prospects early, becoming trusted consultants and aligning their solution with a priority is a must. They must understand how to facilitate a budget. They must be able to find and unite the committee making the purchase. The alternative – the old way – isn’t sustainable. Waiting for a lead, making a quote and then waiting to see what happens isn’t providing value to the organization. It won’t be long before artificial intelligence performs that role.
How to Hire Better Sellers
We must understand more about the sellers we hire. The skills required are more than a friendly personality and a track record. Ask them how they typically meet their prospects. Are they sending valuable insights to their prospect targets and generating their own appointments? Or are they just waiting for marketing to hand them leads?
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Why Hiring Great Sellers Is So Hard
Ask them how they position their solution. Are they finding a prospect’s true priority and helping them solve it? Or are they filling out quotes and RFPs? Ask who they have sold to. Are they selling to VPs and other decision-makers, the ones who set priorities? Or are they selling to procurement? Get to know how they view the role of sales. What should a seller be responsible for? Their answers may be quite enlightening. And for the hiring manager’s part, it is time to improve the way we write our ads and descriptions. Because, after all, you’re making a sale yourself. The best sellers? They’re not in the market for a new opportunity. They can work wherever they want. We know that the only two questions a sales prospect has are the same ones your own prospective hire has. Why should I work with you? Why should I work with you now? Once you can understand what you’re offering that benefits them, you’re on the right path. They can get a big salary and benefits anywhere. How are you preparing and equipping them to be successful in today’s challenging environment?
How to Train Better Sellers There are many sales training programs available. Most were invented before the internet. This is problematic because the buyer has completely changed how they buy. A sale isn’t a distinct process
with tidy steps that happen the same way every time. Instead, it’s a fluid process that needs to be managed like a project. It has milestones. It moves faster and slower than expected. It follows a rough chronological order but doesn’t always unfold as expected. This is why so many sales methods don’t live up to their promise. Trying to tell a seller that their internet-emboldened prospect needs to go back with them, to start the sale from the beginning, doesn’t make sense. To the seller, it may even be laughable. Modern sales training must accomplish two things. It must prepare the seller and their management team with individualized upskilling plans and a modern framework that agrees with their worldview. It must equip sellers with the tools and messages they need to find the priorities of their prospects and align them to their solutions. Failure on either point will not produce the results you hope for.
The Big Picture
B2B sales organizations are desperate to find and retain top sellers. They must do better in their hiring and in the training they deliver to the existing team. Big gains are realistic, but they require a healthy revenue culture. This often requires a massive shift for many organizations.
about human resources. Companies spend large sums chasing new top-line revenue but tend to view HR as a cost. This cannot be the case. The people who hire are directly contributing to the success or failure of top-line revenue. They, too, are revenue producers. The best sellers are out there. They’re working really hard for their companies and are probably not actively seeking a new opportunity. Be a seller yourself. Find insights to get their attention, just like a prospect. Answer their fundamental questions, just like a prospect. And, just like a seller, take responsibility for your contribution to top-line revenue in your organization.
Bryan Gray is the CEO of Revenue Path Group and co-author of The Priority Sale: How to Connect Your Real Impact To Your Prospects’ Top Priorities.
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It will also require the sales organization to think differently
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How To Make Customers Think You Are A Clairvoyant? Anticipating customer needs and creating the best experience By Chip R. Bell, ChipBell.com
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friend of mine has been in the market for a new house. With the seller’s market in full swing, he sold his house faster than he thought and was forced to put his stuff in storage and move into temporary quarters.
He raved about a house he saw that practiced clairvoyance! When he walked into the home, the music he liked was playing in the background. He faintly recalled the realtor asking that question when he was arranging to see the house. It was winter. The window looking over the backyard was filled with photos of what the backyard looked like in the Spring. He would have never guessed there were so many flowers. One photo had a large swimming pool marked “future plans!” On the bar in the kitchen was a clipboard, paper, and yardstick for his use, along with a plate of cookies. Each room had a sheet with a list of FAQs (frequently asked questions) lying on a flat surface for easy access.
Clairvoyance is all about anticipating customer needs and creating an experience that causes customers to notice the special superpower. My favorite is the Hampton coffee cups in guest rooms. If you travel with a partner or colleague and you happen to enjoy your coffee fixed the same way, you likely will end up with the “Is this your cup or mine?” dilemma. But Hampton has identified that quagmire and whimsically provided paper coffee cups that look different—one with a pencil-thin mustache and bow tie, the other with lips as if the cup had been kissed. Clairvoyance means you know your customers well. It also means that you understand the customer’s experience journey so well you can spot the breakpoints where customers are likely to end up disappointed. Smart organizations find fun and inventive way to make turn a would-be hiccup into a smile, leaving your customer with the feeling they have been served by a magician.
Chip R. Bell is a renowned keynote speaker and the author of several award-winning, best-selling books. Global Gurus in 2022 ranked for the eighth year in a row among the top ten keynote speakers in the world on customer service. His newest book is Inside Your Customer’s Imagination.
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Submit Your Articles
CALLING ALL HR MARKETING GURUS - SHARE YOUR EXPERTISE WITH OTHERS! Are you an expert in Marketing in the Human Capital space? If yes, you’re invited to submit articles for inclusion in our publication, HCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence! This publication helps Sales and Marketing professionals in the Human Capital space learn emerging trends to help them in their business and now you can share your marketing expertise with them!
Check out our magazine here Our readers are interested in a number of topics including: ● Marketing hacks for HR Solution Providers ● Building relationships with current and potential clients ● Tradeshow expo halls - best practices for ROI
● How to nurture stronger partnerships between marketing and sales ● Tips for working with influencers and analysts ● Market planning process
● Branding and your online presence
● How to build a brand
● Aligning Marketing roles with your business growth strategy
● How to use Social to drive brand recognition and sales
● Marketing Tactics to increase ROI ● Martech Enablement ● Marketing Analytics ● How to define a “real lead” and how to count its sale value
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● How to win with PR
● Your approach to producing and disseminating meaningful thought leadership ● How marketing needs to evolve for success
Article submission deadline: 1st of each month
Kindly let us know if you’d be interested to feature your article in our magazine by emailing the editor at ddamodaran@hr.com. You can also review our submission guidelines by clicking here. Also, if you are in marketing in the human capital space, we invite you to host a webcast for our HR Marketing Institute. For more details, please email Shelley Marsland-Beard at smarsland@hr.com
TOP PICK
The Power Of Service Recovery How to save a customer? By John Tschohl, Service Quality Institute
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veryone screws up. The problem is what you do to keep the customer from defecting. Often “I am sorry” will work. If you have a monopoly “I am sorry” is fine. Most of us have competition and the cost of losing a customer is huge. Very few people know the cost of a defection, so if you have a bank, retail store, gym, hair salon, or thousands of other businesses what is the actual cost of losing a customer? Firms like Federal Express do not know how to spell the words service recovery. They are in essence a monopoly. I get a 60% discount on their international rates so I am stuck with them. This week I have been to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. My wife Pat and I got married here 45 years ago, so we came back. In many places customer service is great. In several places it is awful and we would never go back. I just went to Trip Advisor and made my comments. These comments and my rating will be there for years. The problem is the employee doesn’t care and management believes that there
are millions of new potential customers. It appears there are over 50 different outlets you can advertise within just Hilton Head Island. Most employees and owners figure a customer will never come back. They are wrong. Superior customer service creates word of advertising. It is free and 100 times less expensive than paid advertising and capital renovation. We went back to Holly Tequila twice. Great food. Good service. If we spend $35 on a meal how do you figure out the cost of defections? We don’t buy appetizers, drinks, or desserts at Outback Steak. We have been there 35 times according to their software. Over the last few years, this is $1,225 If I keep going there for another 10 years and have an average meal price of $40 that is $4,000. Outback Steak is very good at service recovery. Their customer service is excellent. The lifetime value of my wife is over $5,225. If I am unhappy with the meal or service it’s not $40 walking
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out the door forever, it is $5,225. That is why service recovery is so important. My monthly membership fee at Lifetime Fitness is about $960 a year. I have no love for them because their customer service is weak. They are the only place close to my home that has indoor tennis courts and my best friend likes to play there. They have a monopoly. They have never practiced service recovery. If he stopped playing tennis there I would immediately drop my membership. I just played tennis today there and the nets have huge holes in them and the water fountain for over 5 years has warm water. They never fixed it. When you make a mistake or screw up you have to solve the problem in 60 seconds, if you want to keep the customer. Keep in mind most employees don’t care and know the owner is rich. Most owners have no service recovery system in place. Almost all employees fall back on rules, policies, and procedures. The HELL with the customer.
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The Power Of Service Recovery
How do you save a customer? More importantly, how do you flip an upset customer so in 60 seconds they believe they are dealing with the greatest company on earth. To make this work every employee must be empowered and master this skill. 1. Act Quickly. All this has to happen in 60 seconds or less. NO time to move this up the chain of command. What the employee does is magic. 2. Take Responsibility. It’s OK to say we screed up, it’s my fault or we messed up. The chances of customers hearing these words will be close to a miracle but they work magic. Don’t lie or pass the problem off to someone else or try to move it up the chain of command. All this has to happen in 60 seconds or less for the magic to work. 3. Be Empowered. Make a decision in favor of the customer on the spot. When I ask an employee if they can make an empowered decision they often say “what do you mean?” or “would I be fired?” 4. Compensate. Every organization has products and services of high value and low cost. Give the customer something of value where they
say Wow. Cool. Great. Thanks. Being too cheap does not work. The greatest fear of management is an employee will give away too much. Think what would happen if thousands of your customers were over happy. You only wish. If the restaurant can’t seat you at 7 PM for your party of 4 for another 30-40 minutes. Invite them into the bar area to have drinks on the house until they can be seated. Your real cost for 2 drinks per person is $8. What do you think they are saying and doing every time they order a drink. Another 100-1,000 people will hear about this because of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. All for $8. My wife, Pat said she has never had a hair salon practice service recovery. In the Twin Cities, there are probably 500 places that cut women’s hair. She spends $86 once a month. She had been going to Rocco for 20 years. That is $1,032 a year or $20,640. They cut her hair too short this last time. She never told anyone. She’s not going back. I am in an airport lounge writing this newsletter and was shocked to hear what she told me. I said would they ever give you a free haircut. She said, never. They just lost $20,640. The more generous the service recovery the more of an impact. The cheaper you are the smaller the impact. Your goal should be several;
If the service was so bad many will just never return regardless of the offer. You are hoping this bad customer experience was a one-off occurrence and rarely happens. You are buying yourself a second chance to impress the customer. In the US, less than 2 percent of companies practice service recovery. At least 80% of employees lie when there is a problem hoping you will just disappear. I suggest each organization come up with a list of at least 10 products and services your employees can give away free and on the spot when they or someone else makes a mistake. This article first appeared here.
John Tschohl is the Founder and President of Service Quality Institute. He is considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on all aspects of customer service and has developed 17 customer service training programs, including Handling Irate Customers.
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1. Get the customer to come back 2. Feel like you really care. 3. Tell their friends.
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Four Ways Technology Is Enhancing Customer Service The future is now By Natasha Bougourd, Mediaworks
revolutionized how we deliver, measure, and improve customer service. Here are four ways technology can help you enhance your customer experience.
1. Omni-channel Customer Support
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xcellent customer service is essential to any business. Delivering outstanding experiences increases customer loyalty, while poor service will rob you of valuable business. There are many factors to consider when it comes to delivering a high-quality, memorable service to customers, from people to customer service channels. But what about technology? Gone are the days of manual switchboards and call centre workers crammed into a squashed space, equipped with headsets and little else. Technology has
Customers have more options than ever when it comes to getting in touch with businesses. We’re seeing digital channels rise in popularity, with social media and website live chat taking a larger share. While the usage of these digital channels is increasing, they shouldn’t come at the expense of more “traditional” contact methods. In fact, according to UKCSI research, the share of customers using the phone to contact businesses increased between January 2020 and July 2021, along with digital methods including website, email, and webchat.
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Allowing your customers to contact you in the way that works best for them is essential. Self-service and chatbot options on your website are great for basic queries, but customers need the option of talking to a human advisor. Whether they prefer to email, use live chat, or talk over the phone, offering them multiple options is critical to their satisfaction.
2. Next-level Customer Service Analytics
Once upon a time, the deliverables and the impact of your customer service were difficult to measure. As technology has evolved, we’ve been able to track key performance metrics, such as first-time responses, call waiting times, and average time to resolution. These metrics can be used to measure how well your business is doing against its KPIs and help you identify areas of improvement.
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Four Ways Technology is Enhancing Customer Service
Customer feedback has also long been critical to measuring the success of your customer service efforts. Operatives can elicit feedback on calls and live chat, and you can send customers automated follow-up email surveys once they have had contact with your business or after their query has been resolved. The next step in customer service analytics is using AI to analyze qualitative feedback, such as customer comments. While quantitative metrics, such as scores out of ten, can be measured easily, quantitative data has historically been much harder to work with. Instead of manually trawling through thousands of answers to open questions, new AI tools are analyzing this feedback to identify trends and themes, allowing you to quickly turn this insight into action.
3. Customer Profiling Improves Communication
Communicating sales messages and business updates to customers once came with a scattergun approach. Now, as we have easy access to critical customer information in CRM systems, we can be more targeted in our approach. We can update customers on anything from changes in their specific locations to the versions of products they are using and much more. Customer profiling is getting more powerful than ever, and we have access to data at a granular level. We can see customers’ history on our company website or app, which gives us an indication
of their areas of interest and any difficulties they may be experiencing. By bringing this real-time data together with the existing information we hold on our customers, we can offer highly personalized services and communications. Personalization has long been key for sales and marketing, but research has shown that it’s important to customer satisfaction too. As well as a 10–15% sales increase, a McKinsey survey found that personalization also increases customer satisfaction by 20%.
4. Improving Human Interactions
When we talk about technology improving customer service, there’s a misconception that it will come at the expense of human advisors. But that isn’t – and shouldn’t – be the case. As we can see, technology greatly enhances the ability of human operators to deliver excellent customer service. We can deliver more personalized support or sales service via the channel that our customer is most comfortable using. According to Awaken Intelligence, not being able to reach a human is the biggest frustration customers experience, so ensuring they can easily speak to a live advisor is essential. AI and chatbots are seen as a potential replacement for human operatives, but this could spell disaster for your customer satisfaction.
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Instead of replacing people with technology, you should be using it to enhance the service they can deliver. Many businesses have implemented chatbots as a way of filling in the gaps in their customer service team, but there are better ways to go about this. Outsourcing is a great way to expand your vital frontline customer service team, and it can plug any gaps that you might be experiencing – especially if this is impacting customer waiting times. Customer service has evolved massively in a few short years. We’re able to offer more channels to our customers, analyze our performance more deeply, and deliver a highly personalized service. These innovations can vastly improve your customer service and ensure your clients stay loyal to your brand.
Natasha Bougourd is a Senior Copywriter at Mediaworks with over 8 years’ experience in online writing and a background in marketing. Natasha has written about a number of topics and her interests include beauty, health and fitness, social media, football, and technology.
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TOP PICK
Diversity Is An Important Hiring Metric, And Is Here To Stay Exclusive interview with
Namisha Bahl, CMO, Mogul
Excerpts from the interview:
Namisha Bahl is the Chief Marketing Officer and a founding member of Mogul, a diversity recruiting firm.
has your journey been Q. What like and what influenced you
the most to have a positive impact on your career?
Previously, Namisha has worked across agency and boutique consulting roles with brands like Cover FX, Lane Bryant, Isabel Toledo, Eli Lily, AstraZeneca, and Godiva on brand strategy, digital media, new product development, product launches, and new business development.
Namisha: I didn’t have the most conven-
tional entry into marketing, as I was a computer science engineer, and I didn’t intend to start a business or build brands; I was simply solving problems that I cared about, so passion played a significant role in my career trajectory.
Namisha founded the Discover business unit in an Innovation Incubator at Make a Difference, an organization that mobilizes young leaders towards ensuring equitable outcomes for children in need. As part of the leadership team at Make a Difference, Namisha successfully led Discover from a test to pilot to launch in 21 cities across India. Namisha has an undergraduate degree in Computer Science Engineering and a Graduate Degree in Marketing from NYU.
Early in my career, I was working with Make a Difference in India, an organization with a mission to transform outcomes for children. I founded their Discover business because I cared deeply about everyone having access to opportunities. Today, my work with Mogul connects talent to job opportunities, community, and learning resources.
In an exclusive interview with HR.com, Namisha talks about what needs to be done to bring in more women C-suite executives into the world of work, what are the current challenges to diversity hiring, new trends coming into the marketing and HR spaces, and more.
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Straight Talk with HR.com Name: Designation: Company: When did you join: Hobbies: What book are you reading now:
Namisha Bahl Chief Marketing Officer Mogul 2014 Cooking and reading Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman
were your challenges during Q. What the early days of your career? What
company to the next level. Having said that, at all levels of growth, your hires need to add to your culture, not just fit into it. A good cultural add will bring fresh perspectives, ideas, and skill sets to the culture.
are those today? Namisha: As a woman in STEM, I saw the gender
disparity in the field, and I want to eliminate it. I enjoy my work at Mogul because our work supports individuals in achieving their potential. This is something that I care about deeply. The challenges as CMO of a growing organization are to always stay on top of technology and product trends and what’s next. How can we stay ahead and give our customers something truly unique and necessary before anyone else? How can we improve ROI? What new insights can we learn about the customers we serve?
you share the top three Q. Can learnings/insights from the
challenges you faced? Namisha:
●● Get to know your customers well, especially their pain points. The issues that keep them awake at night should keep you also awake at night, because those are the problems you can solve for them. When your products or services eliminate their issues or help them achieve their goals faster or more efficiently than before, you are doing your job well.
●● We’ve learned a lot about hiring, and hiring the right people at the right time. Initially, startups need to hire people who can wear multiple hats, but when businesses grow, there has to be a shift in hiring experts who can take your
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●● Learning to live in the present while keeping the future in perspective is always a good idea. I find that it gives me perspective on whatever is going on.
do you draw inspiration from? Q. Where What do you have to say to those who
are still struggling to break the glass ceiling? Namisha: I have been fortunate to have connected
with leaders who were mentors, and still are. I derive so much inspiration from the work we do at Mogul, and how it impacts so many individuals. For example, we often place “firsts” at our partners through our Diversified Search Services - a first woman or first person of color in the c-suite or a role. Such experiences drive me to grow Mogul even further because I know we’re impacting not only the person placed, but thousands of diverse individuals at that company and industry who can now be inspired by a role model, and know that they also have the possibility to rise to the top. Each placement that we make sets a course. That is my fuel. To those who are struggling to break the glass ceiling, know that every positive change will bring about more change, and eventually we will get there.
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Straight Talk with HR.com
fundamental changes are Q. What required to bring in more women
C-suite executives into the world of work? What are the current challenges? Namisha: Ninety percent of C-Suite roles are filled by networking, and 85% of the current leaders aren’t diverse. We can’t expect a different outcome if we keep the same search process. Companies need to expand their networks to find a more diverse talent pool for c-suite and board roles.
Employers also need to make sure their pipelines are filled with diverse candidates for every role at all levels: gender, age, ethnicity, disability status, and lifestyle. Hiring diversity now and nurturing that talent will give employers a better chance at having a more diverse pipeline for those higher level roles when the time comes.
fundamental change(s) would Q. What you like to bring into your company? Namisha: Mogul is constantly evolving, and we are
working on some very exciting projects right now that will be announced soon. We will be introducing new filters for our talent platform and we will introduce an amazing new feature for our online community in the next few months. You’ll have to stay tuned!
NFTs, and blockchain technologies to see how they might impact the HR and recruiting industries. HR has evolved dramatically in the last 2-3 years and it’s an exciting time for HR tech. With 4.5 million more jobs than there are workers, there’s a huge need to offer a lot more than competitive compensation to attract and retain talent. Top employers are delivering better benefits, flexible schedules, hybrid or remote environments, and focusing on delivering a great culture. The standards have changed, and employers know they need to step it up and offer what employees want. They also know that candidates are looking for diversity, and it is not a buzzword or a trend. It is a very important metric, and it is here to stay. Companies of all sizes are coming to us and saying they need diverse employees in management ranks and at executive and board level. They’re using our diversity sourcing tool, or retaining us for fully diversified search services, and because our impact model is so unique, we’re able to help them find better, more diverse candidates.
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are some of the major trends Q. What you see coming into the marketing
space over the next few years? Namisha: There are so many interesting trends
right now. We are keeping an eye on the metaverse,
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The Power Of Knowing Your Organization’s Change Readiness 4 best practices to consider By Anne Przeklas, Nitor Partners
I
magine your organization is a few weeks away from launching a major change and being asked, “Are we ready?” If the answer isn’t a confident “Yes,” this three-word
question can send a project team into panic, distracting the team from important final tasks and causing Go-Live to be at risk. One way to avoid this scenario is by
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incorporating change readiness assessments into your change management strategy.
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The Power of Knowing your Organization’s Change Readiness
A change readiness assessment is a method for measuring how prepared your organization is for a change. When done properly, this powerful tool can significantly increase your project’s success by uncovering potential gaps in preparedness and providing insights that enable proactive change planning and action. With proper planning and focus, maximizing the benefits and value of conducting a change readiness assessment is easier than it may seem. Here are four best practices to consider:
1. Be Intentional and Forward-thinking to Achieve Meaningful Outputs
Defining the assessment goals, scope, and factors to be evaluated is a critical first step toward building a successful foundation for measuring readiness. This enables a highly intentional and focused approach for designing and executing the assessment in a way that ensures the desired outputs will be achieved. It also drives more efficient planning, provides clarity in direction, and helps deliver a meaningful result.
2. Keep the Assessment Method Simple and Focused
An effective way to measure change readiness is through a survey. When designed with the right structure and a focus on obtaining valuable and actionable outputs, a survey streamlines
the time and effort needed for collecting responses, analyzing the results, and building an action plan. More importantly, it provides quantifiable data and metrics for comparison to properly assess and report on readiness at a point in time.
With proper planning and focus, maximizing the benefits and value of conducting a change readiness assessment is easier than it may seem
the more time you’ll have to address them properly. Assessing as early as the planning stage can build a strong foundation for managing the change by establishing a baseline of readiness and helping to facilitate strategic thinking and alignment with project planning. The most effective assessments are structured to allow for a repeatable measurement that can be tracked over time to compare progress. This cadence should be aligned with the overall timeline and milestones leading up to the change. By addressing barriers to adoption and ensuring holistic preparedness across people, processes, and technology aspects in advance of the change, projects can achieve a smoother transition and increased adoption.
3. Prepare to Maximize the Value and Usability of the Results
The same rigor and attention in planning how to collect the data should be applied to planning how to analyze and act on it. This step is often overlooked, which can lead to potentially wasted time, over-analysis, and lack of accountability after the data collection is complete. By clearly defining expectations upfront, the analysis effort becomes more streamlined and intentional to drive the most value out of the results.
Anne Przeklas is a Senior Consultant, Change Management & Organizational Design at Nitor Partners.
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4. Assess Early, then Repeat to Monitor Progress/Changes
The sooner gaps are uncovered,
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TOP PICK
The Influential Salesperson Making each team member the hero of their own story By Tim Roberts, Sandler® Training Center
D
aily, proactive salespeople hear the obvious first objection: “We’re happy with our current provider.”
The ritual of candy spilling then begins, followed by donut deliveries, the lunch-courting process, price discounting, and other attempts at handholding. Enter the pandemic and virtual selling. A recent study indicates 74% of buyers prefer virtual meetings. The day of the company car is over.
More than ever, influence training as a part of sales training is critical to your team’s success. Our friends at Merriam-Webster state a two-fold definition of influence: The power to change or affect someone or something and the power to cause changes without directly forcing them to happen. Let’s rest our eyes on the second part. “Without directly forcing them to happen.” Music to my ears. Great sales coaches, the single most missing ingredient in many organizations, guide the teaching of influence by being influential themselves. They help salespeople self-discover answers and allow the lesson learned to become their own. Influential sales coaches seek to make each team member the hero of their own story. Guiding your prospects to self-discover truth – that there may be a better way – is a requirement in the constricting world of virtual selling. Fingerprinting every conversation by critically examining each value, thought, and word that comes from a prospect builds subconscious influence. First, let’s give buyers a break. They’re allowed to take the path of least resistance and not make a change. They may genuinely and honorably be pleased with everything their current provider does. Why pressure that? Good for them, they made a good decision. That’s precisely what they’re paid to do.
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The Influential Salesperson
Yet influential salespeople make others think. They make them reflect and question their current approach. In a beautiful book, The Contrarian Salesperson, author Jody Williamson says, “When they zig, you zag.” What Williamson suggests is to do the opposite of what they expect, and buyers believe that salespeople are, by and large, the same and all have been to the same sales training program – Features and Benefits R Us. Influential salespeople are in the business of getting buyers to reimagine possibility. “What if?” is one of their favorite places to land. I understand you’re happy, and I’ve rarely met a buyer who wasn’t, but what if you knew that 85% of my customers chose me (social proof) because of original thinking. What if you knew that we were most often chosen because we stretched our thinking five years out? What if you knew the last seven companies that chose us, well, chose me because of my expertise (authority). I understand the burden of proof is on me, but would it make sense if we picked each other’s brains for a while and actively wondered what if? A currently “happy” buyer also comes with an awareness that companies can experience 90-day heart attacks. The world changes, economic cycles change, people and positions change. And within those changes may lie opportunity. Influential salespeople understand credibility and curiosity. Influencers are tethered to these two words. Value won’t arrive until curiosity builds credibility. Influencers seek insight from a wide range of resources so that they can bring the value sauce required in forward-thinking organizations. In The Trusted Advisor, authors Maister, Green, and Galford, eloquently state, “Curiosity is the attitude that drives the opportunity to contribute.”
calmness of mind. They think before they speak. They often begin business conversations with these words, “Permission not to solve today. May I take this time to listen and ask?” Influential salespeople are co-creators. They know the power of telling the prospect, “While I can prescribe a solution from our perspective, it makes more sense if we co-create the proposal. Your solution always outperforms mine. I’ll be your standby advisor.” Influential salespeople seek what the other side holds as sacred. They are exceptional investigators. Influencers ask, “Why is that true? Why now? What if you do nothing? How will a change or no change affect you?” Influencers seek truth, and they’re not afraid of a “No.” Influential salespeople often know it’s a “No” before the buyer and state that. Influential salespeople believe that price is never the real issue. N-E-V-E-R. Influential salespeople teach the buyers to be influential within their organization. Influencers know there are multiple stakeholders and that some decision-makers will not be onboard. Influential salespeople are in demand but still seek “conquest targets.” They like to win, which means outwit, outplay, and outthink the current provider. Opportunity is the daily dream of most salespeople. When it arrives, you best be wearing influence.
Tim Roberts is Principal of a Sandler® Training Center in Indianapolis, Indiana. His experience spans over 20 years of collaborating with business owners, sales leaders, salespeople, and high-stakes negotiators to build their success stories.
Influential salespeople are learners, continuous learners. Learning is a sacred must for them. To be a resource, influential salespeople read more, listen more, and seek more trends, technology, and differentiators than their competition. Influential salespeople are steady, stable, calm, and consistent. Their “nature of reaction” exudes
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Uncertainty Is An Unlikely Friend How to successfully navigate the unknown By Alan Amling, Thrive and Advance LLC human behavior, which also helps organizations predict human behavior. Uncertainty makes this impossible. This is where leaders of incumbent organizations falter: action must be taken before outcomes are known. However, today’s managers appear weak if they cannot confidently predict the future. This leads to a kind of uncertainty-driven dishonesty, especially when it’s combined with the allure of improving efficiency and profitability.
T
here’s a chasm of difference between risk and uncertainty. Risk can be mitigated with analysis. With risk comes a known range of outcomes that can be quantified using probabilities. There is no data to mitigate uncertainty fully; the threat has yet to materialize. Apple was not even on Nokia’s list of competitors one year before the iPhone launched and began to erode Nokia’s position in the market.
Uncertainty may be the most accurate word to describe both the mood and context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. If the most crucial information for an incumbent company’s future is the data that has not yet been created, senior management must grasp the significant difference between risk and uncertainty. An organization adapts and moves its way to the future in response to observed
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If I, as a manager, am not introducing anything new, then I’m taking out of the equation the most significant source of uncertainty. If I’m not innovating and piloting new initiatives, I’m only sharpening the blade; every decision is about marginal cost. If everything is a marginal cost, then short-term profitability will improve. When metrics are tied to capital efficiency measures, the safest play is to improve what I have.
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Uncertainty Is An Unlikely Friend
powerhouse over his 25 years. Over the next 14 years, the incremental strategies of Steve Ballmer cut the company’s value in half. Enter Satya Nadella, a longtime insider who reinvigorated Microsoft with a completely different mindset. He recaptured Microsoft’s growth company status and supercharged the company’s value over 430 percent to $1.3T by the 6th anniversary of his appointment as CEO. Executives need to be comfortable being uncomfortable. The conversation has shifted from managing ambiguities to developing a strategy at the edge of being wrong. Iconic brands often rely on their historical success and are slow to respond to the shifting tastes of the consumer. A good example is the dairy industry, where brands like Borden’s and Dean’s never responded effectively to trends of soymilk and other alternatives, resulting in bankruptcy. Kraft relied on zero-based budgeting for years, starving its brands of innovation while boosting profits through cost-cutting. Without reinvesting in innovation (and self-disruption is seen as an enormous risk), profits do not ensure survival.
Measures Matter
If that’s how managers are evaluated, they can’t take all the blame. They simply mirror the systemic worldview of the leaders at the top of the house, including the board of directors. In general, established firms tend to favor capital allocation metrics like
return on invested capital (ROIC) and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization The issue is not about running down an alley with bad math. The problem is the deep-rutted thinking that there is only one kind of math tied to short-term profitability. Another recent conversation with an executive captures the essence of the mindset problem: “This is where I struggle,” he said, “because many of the companies that people say are successful, how do we measure those companies? There is not one kind of business math that fits all. Newer firms tend to favor metrics that are aligned with growth, not profitability. That doesn’t mean that established enterprises can’t become growth companies (and capital markets love growth companies!). Bill Gates grew Microsoft into a $600B
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Alan Amling is a TED speaker and thought leader on harnessing digital disruption for success. Alan helped drive innovation over a 27-year career with UPS and is currently a Distinguished Fellow at The University of Tennessee and CEO of advisory firm, Thrive and Advance LLC. He is the author of Organizational Velocity: Turbocharge Your Business to Stay Ahead of the Curve
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TOP PICK
Everyone Deserves A Compliment Saying something nice only takes a moment, but the impact is much bigger than the few words shared By Shep Hyken, Customer Service Expert
I
was on a flight to a city I can’t remember, but what I do remember was the wonderful flight attendant, Bailee from American Airlines, who enthusiastically greeted me with a smile and said, “I like that hat!” I was wearing a baseball cap with the St. Louis Blues
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Stanley Cup Championship logo. Of course, I thanked her and I found my seat, just a few rows from the front of the plane. I point that out because I was able to observe the way she greeted every passenger.
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Everyone Deserves A Compliment
1. They are free. It doesn’t cost a thing to say something nice to someone. 2. While compliments are free, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t take a little effort to give one. To share compliments like Bailee, you have to be engaged and present for each and every customer. 3. Compliments must be genuine. No faking it. For Bailee, every compliment was different. That made them even more authentic. She looked for something different to say to each passenger.
As each passenger boarded the plane, Bailee welcomed them with the same enthusiasm and had something nice to say to everyone. Let me emphasize that she said something nice to every passenger. If it was a child with a cute sweatshirt, she commented on that. If it was a gentleman in a coat and tie, she commented on his tie. She commented on shoes, shirts, coats, and more. The point is that each and every passenger received a greeting and a compliment from Bailee.
I asked Bailee where she learned to engage with her customers at that level. She said nobody taught her. She just knew it was the right thing to do. I knew better. Her parents had taught her. That’s where so much of customer service comes from – what our parents teach us. She had great role models in her parents. And she was now a great role model for others, not just her fellow employees, but the passengers who experienced her compliments. Saying something nice only takes a moment, but the impact is much bigger than the few words shared. Take a lesson from Bailee and say something nice at the beginning of every conversation with a customer, colleague, friend, or family member.
I thought to myself, “That is an amazing person. Look at how she’s making almost every passenger smile.” When the timing was right, I reciprocated by thanking her for her friendly, yet professional attitude. She was the perfect frontliner for American Airlines – or for that matter, any type of business.
Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker, researcher, and New York Times bestselling business author.
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We laughed, and she said, “Not everyone smiles back.” I told her not to worry about those people. They were just having a bad day or were just not nice people. How could anyone not smile at Bailee when she exuded such a friendly and confident attitude? Here’s the thing about compliments:
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Tips To Lead Your Remote Team Better In 2022 The challenges, tools & engagement strategies By Ian Fraser, The Go Game / Weve
engaging and managing remote teams to create a strong company culture and an even stronger team.
What Are the Challenges of Managing Remote Teams?
Before you strategize solutions, it is important to understand the challenges you are facing or may face in the future. (And some you might not even realize you are already facing.) As a manager, your focus is often divided. With remote teams, your focus becomes even more divided as your staff is dispersed across the world. Small things like spontaneous meetings in the hallway or catching up at the water cooler become more difficult, and it might become harder to maintain personal relationships with your employees.
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eing a manager is already tough. Navigating the switch to fully remote teams in the last few years has probably made your job even tougher. Leading remote teams is not intuitive and requires different skills than in-person management. However, with practice and the right tools, you can manage a remote team effectively. In my experience as the co-founder and CEO of The Go Game & Weve (the leader in team-building and culture-driving games), I have discovered a number of tried-and-true ways to better lead and manage a remote team. Use these tips and tools below for
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Tracking tasks, deadlines, and productivity can also become more difficult without a centralized office and meeting space. There is an inherent barrier in communication when teams are no longer in the same space. Without seeing the faces and body language of your employees daily, it may be hard to gauge and maintain team morale. If it is your first time leading a remote team, you'll have to consider things like what are the best ways to manage remote workers? And of course, more questions will arise depending on your specific team. On top of all of this, it is your job to promote a culture of strong teamwork, so you will have to navigate how to facilitate team building remotely.
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Tips To Lead Your Remote Team Better In 2022
Though these challenges can seem daunting, there are a lot of great benefits of remote teams (like having meetings in sweatpants). Seriously, though, it seems like remote work is here to stay, and with some planning, there are many ways to lead remote teams successfully.
How Do You Lead a Team Meeting Remotely?
If you have a team that is dispersed across the globe, the potentially simple act of scheduling a meeting becomes more difficult when you take time zones into account. (You don’t want anyone to have to wake up in the middle of the night to talk strategy!) Once you figure out scheduling, it’s important to be strategic about meetings. No one likes to walk away from a meeting feeling like they wasted their time. Overscheduling meetings might lead to the feeling of wasting time. Having too many meetings might also get in the way of your employees actually getting work done. On the other hand, too few meetings might lead to a lapse in productivity and communication and people might feel out of the loop. Every team will have different needs, and don’t be afraid to ask your team what a good meeting rhythm might be. Once you have sorted that out, it is important to make your meetings matter and have the right tools to engage your team. In addition to the regular meeting agenda, take some time for some small talk at the start or end of the meeting. Start off with an ice breaker or an opportunity for everyone to share how they’re doing or feeling. Of course, with a meeting of dozens of people, this might not be feasible, so you can use a poll, text chat, or another way that may work better to check in with everyone. For regular meetings, you are going to need a stable and dependable video meeting platform. Make sure your meeting platform has the ability to create the kind of meetings your employees are going to want to join and that keep them engaged. Since gathering remote teams is an investment in time and resources, it’s important to get down to business in a timely manner, and wrap up by the scheduled time. In addition to honoring productivity,
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your employees will know that you are respectful of their time, which is part of being a good leader when leading remote teams.
Tools to Help You Manage Your Team Remotely
Any job is made easier with the right tools. Set your team up for success by filling your virtual toolbox with tools for messaging, project management, storage, and more. Messaging tools: In addition to email, you are going to need ways for your employees to touch base for quick asks. Messaging systems like Slack lets everyone message instantly. In addition to one-on-one direct messages and group messages, you can also create channels for different conversation topics to keep things organized. Project management tools: To keep everyone on the same page, it is important to implement project management tools like Trello or Asana. These tools make sure that everyone is aware of due dates. You can also assign smaller tasks within the project to different people so everyone knows what they are responsible for. Storage and sharing tools: It’s important that crucial documents and information are stored where employees can easily access them. Tools like Google Drive and Dropbox let everyone add, edit, and download assets so they stay current. Communication tools: In an office, it is easy to show someone how to do something. That becomes much more challenging for remote teams. Loom allows you to record quick videos of your screen so you can make explainer videos that your team can easily access, save, and replay. Meeting tools: While platforms like Zoom and Google Meets can do the basics, Weve was intentionally designed as an all-in-one virtual events and meeting platform to make meetings more memorable, engaging, and impactful.
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Tips To Lead Your Remote Team Better In 2022
Fun tools: Okay, these ones are not totally necessary, but they are totally fun. PizzaTime and CoffeeTime make it easy for your whole team to have coffee or pizza delivered around the same time so you can organize a pizza party or coffee break together. Keep morale high by planning a surprise hangout where food and drinks show up at your team’s door.
How to Engage Remote Employees
Engaging a team that does not get to connect regularly outside of work is one of the challenges of managing remote employees. There is a possibility that your remote employees don't know each other and even that you may have never met your employees in person. So how do you help them bond? There are many virtual team-building activities, but our favorite way to help teams bond is through games. Playing together is a great way to engage team members, help them get to know each other outside of their regular workday tasks, and change up workplace power dynamics as they interact in a new way.
To Wrap It All Up
If you’re wondering how to better lead your remote team in 2022, these tips will help. Follow our advice on how to better lead a team meeting remotely, and try out the helpful tools for managing a team remotely. Also, scheduling recurring team-building experiences is the key to creating and maintaining a strong and engaging company culture while managing remote teams. Now, go out there and have fun managing your remote workforce!
Ian Fraser is the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Go Game / Weve, the leader in team-building and culture-driving games. Ian and chief technology officer, Finn Kelly, co-founded The Go Game in 2000 to bring fun to work through interactive games, events, and experiences that make employees feel connected and engaged. In 2020, The Go Game launched Weve, which creates dynamic digital environments that enable real engagement that goes beyond the market standard video conferencing tool.
From Pictionary to Lip Sync Battles, make play a priority — employees who bond and create strong connections with their team are more likely to feel committed to and remain at their workplaces.
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