1713 21 26 Bad Customer Service Isn’t the Problem - ShepHyken.comHyken, Do You Have Too Many Customers? - Chip R. Bell, The Chip Bell Group How Sales Leaders Can Succeed Amidst Tough Market Conditions - Steven Rosen, STAR Results AreComplaintsOpportunities - John Tschohl, Service Quality Institute SEPTEMBER 2022 • Vol.21 • No.09 WHAT TO DO If YOu’re MArke TInG TO A BuYInG TeAM THAT WOn’T fIT In A MInIvAn - Jim Everhart, Marketing Communications Strategist and Author (ISSN 2564-2057)
Articles 10 Recruitment And Applying Is A Sales Job How to influence the right job offer or applicant - Elinor Stutz, CEO, Smooth Sale 15 How To Pivot Your Business After Industry Obsolescence 3 questions leaders should ask to make sure they’re prepared for anything - Ross Youngs, CEO, Univenture 19 Stay In Control As a Leader - The Easy Way Two useful lists to follow - Pete Devenyi, Senior Vice President, Global Products and Solutions at Dematic 23 From Start-Up To Established Business, These Leadership Strategies Will Drive Success Organizational leadership begins with the determination and adoption of key corporate competencies - Christopher H. Volk, Author, THE VALUE EQUATION 28 Facing Your Fears As A Leader Leaders share their fears and how they have dealt with them - Brett Farmiloe, Founder and CEO – and currently CHRO - , Terkel.io What To Do If You’re Marketing To A Buying Team That Won’t fit In A Minivan 5 rules to follow if your targeted buying team has more characters than ‘Game of Thrones’ - Jim Everhart, MarketingStrategistCommunicationsandAuthor 07 On the Cover XeDnI HCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence SEPTEMBER 2022 Vol.21 No.09 ( ISSN 2564-2057)
A bad culture is the problem
Are you finding it challenging to get buy-in to the change you need to succeed?
Complaints Are Opportunities
When customers complain, they are giving you an opportunity to do better
- John Tschohl, Founder and President, the Service Quality Institute
INDEX
- Steven Rosen, President, STAR Results
Do You Have Too Many Customers?
How Sales Leaders Can Succeed Amidst Tough Market Conditions
- Chip R. Bell, Senior Partner, The Chip Bell Group
Top Picks 21131726
Bad Customer Service Isn’t the Problem
Don’t let your customers start looking for the exit door
- Shep Hyken, Customer Service Expert, Hyken.com
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If You’re Marketing To A Buying Team That Won’t Fit In A Minivan, lists down four rules marketers
Also read, renowned customer service expert Chip R. Bell’s Do You Have Too Many Customers? to understand why customers start looking for the exit door.
Oncekinds.upon
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Buying teams are growing. And for good reason. Companies that do not engage the right people for major purchases are asking for trouble. Trouble of all
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The
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eDITOr’S nOT e
It is hardly fair to mention the past and present in a single paragraph. So what is a marketer to Marketingdo? communications strategist and author Jim Everhart, in his article What To Do
Marketing to a Big Buying Team
Debbie Mcgrath Publisher, HR.com
are
must follow to overcome future challenges.
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Customer service expert and author Shep Hyken, in his article, tells us why Bad Customer Service Isn’t the Problem, a bad culture is.
Check out How Sales Leaders Can Succeed Amidst Tough Market Conditions by Steven Rosen and Complaints Are Opportunities by John Tschohl, among others We hope this edition of HCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance , will help you achieve excellence in your sales and marketing efforts.
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a time, you could place an ad in a few key trade journals and cover your audience effectively. Now there are dozens of options in both style and substance. Plain vanilla print ads have been replaced in most marketing programs with interactive, animation- or video-driven messages zeroing in on targeted buyers sitting in their rec rooms watching ESPN.
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Dave ulrich
Yes, there are a lot of players. Yes, their needs are diverse. But despite what some might have us believe, the members of this Mormon Tabernacle Choir won’t need individual song sheets. In other words, they won’t need their own content program, completed in the medium they prefer. Just because our prototypical IT directors, for example, like podcasts, that does not mean you
COver ArTICLe
What To Do If You’re Marketing To A Buying Team That Won’t fit In A Minivan
5 rules to follow if your targeted buying team has more characters than ‘Game of Thrones’
● Making sure your human resources (HR) department knows about any new skills or training your purchase will require of the staff
print ads have been replaced in most marketing programs with interactive, animation- or video-driven messages zeroing in on targeted buyers sitting in their rec rooms watching ESPN. It is hardly fair to mention the past and present in a single paragraph.
Submit Your ArticlesHCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence presented by HR.com September 2022 7
● Assessing any potential safety hazards that might pose a threat to the operator or nearby workers
rule no 1: Don’t Panic
In addition, the ways we reach this cast of thousands have changed. Once upon a time, you could place an ad in a few key trade journals and cover your audience effectively. Now there are dozens of options in both style and substance. Plain vanilla
● Checking with IT to make sure it can communicate with the enterprisecompany’sresource planning (ERP) system
One of the worst-kept secrets in business marketing today is the growth of the buying team. Over the years, I have described buying teams as having more characters than a Russian novel. Or talked about meeting the team in a minor league baseball stadium.
All jokes aside, buying teams are growing. And for good reason. Companies that do not engage the right people for major purchases are asking for trouble. Trouble of all kinds. I would hate to add a major new piece of equipment to a plant floor without:
By Jim Everhart, Marketing Communications Strategist and Author
So what is a marketer to do?
● Determining the environmental impact of your new equipment: whether it will generate air pollution or other hazardous waste
● Employee Safety: List the safety features you have added
Approvers The decision-maker may not have the ability to authorize the sale. In that case, their supervisor may have the final
It may be unruly at times, but the important thing is that the members of the team are not all created equal.
● Information Technology: Call out any IT requirements or detail all communicationsthe protocols your products accommodate
reduce or eliminate sources of pollution
Influencers. In the typical scenario, there are some members of the buying team who simply need to be aware of what is happening. They may not actually need to take any action. And unless they are some kind of ‘Energizer Bunny’, they are probably too busy to do anything more than scan the documents and make sure everything looks okay. A good example might be the IT person, mentioned earlier, who needs to be assured your new equipment will communicate with
Recommenders In some situations, a decision made in one area of a plant will impact functions further down the line. For example, a bottling company’s change in container size or composition will have a big impact on the parts of the line that put the bottles into cartons for shipping. In some cases, they may have veto power. So their concerns will need to be addressed. But that simply may mean a sentence or two in your main marketing narrative. Some examples include:
rule no. 2: It’s not a Mob
have to give them one. Trust me, you will go broke trying.
What To Do If You’re Marketing To A Buying Team That Won’t Fit In A Minivan
● Environmental Health and Safety: Document the steps you have taken to
the existing IT infrastructure. You won’t need a special marketing initiative aimed at this category.
In fact, most companies have a fairly well-established process that involves what the experts call “decision rights.” Here is how it breaks down.
Submit Your ArticlesHCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence presented by HR.com September 2022 8
Decisionmaker(s). In most cases, the person who makes the decision will be the one who is driving the project, which makes them fairly easy to identify. However, sometimes, a more junior-level staffer is the front person for the team, leaving the key decisionmaker in doubt. In the best-case scenario, the decisionmaker is the person who has the most to gain (or lose) if the project moves forward. Decision-making may also be shared among a small group. The smaller, the better. We will discuss the marketing needs of decisionmakers in Rule No. 3.
Fit In A
Remember, you are all on the same team. You, your sales reps.
The one wild card is purchasing. In the past, the purchasing or procurement function simply handled the details of the transaction, once it was approved. In many companies now, however, the process is divided into technical and commercial segments, with the former being the process described above and the latter being the negotiation of terms – not just price, but delivery, support, and long-term service agreements. Adding this extra layer of decision-making involves extra cost and makes a long process even longer. And it can get ugly.
The buying process always seems to take longer than it should. It certainly takes longer than it used to when the buying team could fit into a booth at a fast-food restaurant. And, most likely, it will only get longer. And in five years, these will be the good old days.
And maybe even your customers and their buying teams.
What Do If You’re Marketing To A Buying Team That Won’t Minivan
In effect, you want to get the key decision-makers in your court. And as the buying process unfolds, they will become your advocates to the rest of the team. So you want to arm them with the information mentioned above to help them overcome objections from team members who remain skeptical.
rule no 4: You’re in a Marathon, not a Sprint
And, as account-based marketing and other, more targeted sales efforts evolve, marketing will have to supply additional information and materials to support the sales team in making the sale.
Imagine how powerful your marketing would be if your marketing team, your sales team, and your customer’s buying team were all on the same page. All striving for the same thing: continuous improvement, whatever will enhance or improve the customer’s process, product, or service.
That’s a big idea. One that will bring down the house at Yankee Stadium, the Metropolitan Opera House, or wherever your buying team decides to meet.
For the most part, sales and customer service people have to address the needs of purchasing team members on a case-by-case basis.
rule no. 3: focus on the key Players
From a marketing standpoint, you want to make sure you focus on the people you have identified as the decisionmaker and any approvers. They will be the ones who get the full package of materials designed to make the sale. They will need all the important information like competitive comparisons,
To
In the same way, marketers need to think of the evolution of the process from beginning to end. In many companies, marketers develop generic materials that quality sales reps can mine to extract the salient points for individual stakeholders.
Would you like to comment?
sign-off. That may create a whole new level of review, or simply be a formality in cases where the supervisor has confidence in their subordinate. But their communication needs, once again, can be covered by the decision-makers.
specifications, pricing, support, and delivery.
Submit Your ArticlesHCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence presented by HR.com September 2022 9
rule no. 5: Make Your Selling Team as Powerful as Their Buying Team
Jim Everhart, author of “Brand Vision”, is a freelance strategist and writer, working with corporations and agencies to develop marketing communications tactics and campaigns.
The recruiters who hire the better applicants also do their research ahead of time. They know first-hand what their company seeks in a candidate and what the job entails. Their research is to find recruits who can
‘Question, Listen, and Clarify.’
By Elinor Stutz, Smooth Sale
One extra step is to research the company’s top three competitors to compare and contrast offerings and how each company serves its clientele. Often, competitive research raises excellent questions and awareness of your dedication to learning and the desire to do your best.
The job applicants, who research ahead of the appointment, will gain additional insights to consider and include during the upcoming conversational interview. It may prompt further questions to ask the person you will be meeting. Above all else, the research demonstrates your willingness upfront to put the time in to learn about the company and associated people.
recruitment And Applying Is A Sales Job
2. Branding: Others identify us upon witnessing our actions across the board and through the years. Our communications in all forms underly all that we do; consistency is essential for developing
Submit Your ArticlesHCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence presented by HR.com September 2022 10
trust. How we communicate and perform is our unique branding program.
Communicating well to attract interest in what we can offer another is a sales job and one that few want to acknowledge. Taking the stereotypical notion of a salesperson out of the picture and replacing it with communication and influence strategies serves to help all parties.
3. Selling: Anything we desire requires sales communication skills. We begin with the other person’s or audience’s viewpoint to gain attraction. Once curiosity in learning more about us is evident, we can then present our perspective and describe how we deliver in our unique style.
1. Personal Brand: Priorities, values, and consistency establish our authentic identity. Achieving our goals requires that we be true to our personal brand.
research
How to influence the right job offer or applicant
When people realize the extra effort we make to understand their points; the appreciation encourages further dialogue and greater interest. One additional step is to combine complementary disciplines in our communications naturally.
One’s persona comes first via professionalism on many levels. Communications begin with a welcoming smile to learn more, attentiveness to the other, and listening carefully to the details. But listening also includes asking questions on topics that need clarification. Doing so allows the other party to realize that you are striving to understand their position better.
Elinor Stutz, CEO of Smooth Sale, delivers inspirational keynotes at conferences and authored two books: The International Best-Selling book, “Nice Girls DO Get the Sale: Relationship Building That Gets Results”, and community service led to the writing of her second best-selling book, “HIRED! How to Use Sales Techniques to Sell Yourself On Interviews”. CEO World Magazine named Stutz as one of “The brightest sales minds to follow on Twitter” while Open View Labs designated her as a Top Sales Influencer. Would you like to comment?
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Essential to receiving an offer of employment or hearing a candidate agree to become employed at your firm is the integrity underlying the stories that
Job applicants do well to learn to embrace the unusual questions asked by recruiters. The better way to prepare is to review your career history. Know that almost everyone has unpleasant experiences behind them and that you most likely are not any different. The art of conveying the worst experience, and the lesson(s) you learned to move forward via a short story, will often put you at the top of the list of candidates to consider.
become evident. The story-sharing will encourage a more insightful and often lively conversation between all parties. One crucial underlying technique is to connect the dots between the experiences of each other. The commonality can develop interest upfront and confidence that the right candidate and offer are present.
match not only the requirements but also those who will bring something extra to the table. Researching the candidates ahead of time allows for comparison and contrast, plus an indication of questions to ask that may reveal what the recruiter needs to know.
It is to the recruiter’s benefit to encourage a deeper conversation than usual as more insight into the candidate’s thinking will become evident. For example, inquiring about a previous poor employment experience and how the candidate handled it can be insightful. The recruiter may learn whether the applicant is willing to learn from the worst, will persevere, and is determined to succeed.
Recruitment And Applying Is A Sales Job
Story-Sharing
● Building relationships with current and potential clients
● Branding and your online presence
● Tips for working with influencers and analysts
● How to win with PR
● How to use Social to drive brand recognition and sales
● Your approach to producing and disseminating meaningful thought leadership
● How to build a brand
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
Article submission deadline: 1st of each month1
● How to nurture stronger partnerships between marketing and sales
● Marketing Analytics
● Market planning process
● How to define a “real lead” and how to count its sale value
● Marketing hacks for HR Solution Providers
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
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
CALLING ALL
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● How marketing needs to evolve for success
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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!
ore and more people are complaining about bad customer service. The demand for better service continues to grow, as evidenced in our customer experience research (2022 Achieving Customer Amazement study sponsored by Amazon Web Services). However, customer service trends seem to be heading in the wrong direction. Even several years before the pandemic began, The American Customer Satisfaction Index found the overall ratings slipping, even with brands most recognized for high levels of customer service.
It’s not like companies purposely provide poor customer service. But even though they want to, they can’t seem to execute at a level that makes customers happy. So, let’s consider what could be behind this.
A bad culture is the problem
2. The company wants to deliver a better service experience but can’t seem to make it happen. This is a big problem, and there are many reasons this could occur. Perhaps the company doesn’t have the funds to invest in a better
M
By Shep Hyken, Hyken.com
1. The company has chosen to purposely deliver lousy customer service. Believe it or not, some companies choose to ignore creating a good experience. Despite customers complaining and leaving, they elect not to invest in the people and tools it takes to meet the needs and expectations of their customers.
Submit Your ArticlesHCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence presented by HR.com September 2022 13
Bad Customer Service Isn’t the Problem
Top Pick
4. A bad culture is the problem. The culture of any organization is defined by leadership. It sets the tone and direction for others to follow. Success doesn’t happen by accident. Leaders must work on the culture they want employees and customers to experience. Their vision and plan must provide clarity, keep employees focused and defend the culture if anyone or any group of people go out of alignment with the vision. Unfortunately, some leaders don’t realize this and can’t connect the dots.
Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker, researcher, and New York Times bestselling business author. Would you like to comment?
3. The company can’t keep up. Today’s customers are more demanding and have higher expectations of everyone they do business with. They have become educated about what good customer service looks like. They have learned from the best brands in the business, such as Amazon, Lexus, Nordstrom and other brands that raise the bar. The customer now compares you to these rockstar brands, not to your competition. Not realizing this puts any organization at a disadvantage.
The first three reasons could all go under number four. It all comes down to the person at the top of the organization deciding to create a culture that drives a positive service experience. On the surface, it may look like a bad service experience comes from bad processes, lack of training and more. Still, it’s typically the decision of the leadership to invest the time, energy and dollars into the culture that creates the experience that makes customers say, “I’ll be back.” In short, the customer experience starts and ends with the organization’s culture.
experience. And even if they do have the funds, they may not know where to begin. Maybe they haven’t hired the right people – or enough people. Even with the right people, they haven’t properly trained them. They simply don’t know what to do.
Submit Your ArticlesHCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence presented by HR.com September 2022 14 Bad Customer Service Isn’t the Problem
2019. We were facing every leaders’ worst nightmarewhat do you do when your entire market evaporates?
Today, Univenture has a healthy, diversified business that was able to navigate the unexpected challenges of the early 2020s.
Any business’s life cycle will certainly be filled with its share of wanted and unwanted changes that will challenge leaders. Sometimes change comes from technological advancements or opportunistic dynamics. Other times recessions, inflation, or even a (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime pandemic may rear their heads and create unanticipated change.
Despite the long odds, our team did not waver in the face of such a challenge. Together, the management team devised and executed a plan to right the ship, and develop a new path forward despite the uncertain waters ahead. As the CD industry declined, our team pushed the creative envelope to the limit, developing new patents and expanding into new industries.
By Ross Youngs, Univenture
How To Pivot Your Business After Industry Obsolescence
To help future entrepreneurs, I’ve pulled together three essential questions that every leader needs to ask as they create an organization that can weather any change:
3 questions leaders should ask to make sure they’re prepared for anything
Submit Your ArticlesHCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence presented by HR.com September 2022 15
In my 30 years as a founder and CEO, I’ve had the opportunity to face everything from unprecedented hypergrowth to the complete extinction of a major market. Navigating each one of these changes has made us a stronger company, and the reason we were able to survive is because of the culture of innovation created by a team that was prepared for anything.
In 1988, we patented the most successful alternative packaging for compact discs. The initial demand was enormous - so much so that we became one of the fastest-growing private companies in the US during the 1990s. The product line expanded to 600 SKUs in consumer and industrial products, and you could hardly open a book, the mailbox, or an office drawer without seeing our packaging. However, some unexpected changes hit us nearly as fast as demand rose. By 2009, the collapse of disc sales shattered our long-term growth and profit run and initiated a ten-year, 95% decline in sales that bottomed out by
We needed to make a pivot and it couldn’t happen fast enough. The disc packaging product line sales dropped by more than 20% yearly, while new product sales only grew at about 10%. Manufacturing operators shifted from operating legacy equipment to using new technologies, which resulted in team member attrition and skill mismatching. Regardless, the effort was to evolve for the team’s sake and not have mass terminations driven by revolution.
Submit Your ArticlesHCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence presented by HR.com September 2022 16 How To Pivot Your Business After Industry Obsolescence
The simple answer is, yes. In time, change is inevitable, and the leadership team of any organization must embrace and regularly engage in the opportunities ahead. To future-proof an organization, leaders need to empower their teams to think creatively and allow for a culture that pulls all sides of the business into the research and development process.
Black swans that force industry-wide scrambles to pivot, such as the covid pandemic, are rare. However, other business interruptions due to markets typically allow for preparation. Preparation and foreseeing the
As entrepreneurs and leaders, we constantly analyze and worry about the future of our businesses. Noted 20th-century pugilator and philosopher Mike Tyson has said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” There is so much truth to this. We can pour all of our anxieties into creating backup plan after backup plan, but at the end of the day, no contingency plan is perfect.
So how do you know it is time to pivot?
However, training and preparation equip a leader to not only anticipate oncoming storms but also be equipped to respond without panic when faced with an unforeseen crisis. By creating a culture that stays atop of technological innovations and empowers teams to proactively search and develop advancements, a leader is already better prepared to weather the storm than any contingency plan could have prepared them for.
Ross Youngs is an environmental scientist and CEO of Univenture, a full-service designer, manufacturer, and distributor of packaging products used in dozens of industries globally. In 2012, Young’s founded Biosortia, a biotech company that works on new drugs from deep access to the chemistry of the microbiome for immuno-oncology and immunological therapeutics. Young’s recent major innovations include an R&D 100 Award for collaboration on biopolymer technologies. In 2009, Biosortia was awarded a $6 million ARPA-E (U.S. Dept. of Energy R&D) grant for its algal harvesting technology, which helped lead to the development of Biosortia’s drug discovery platform. Would you like to comment?
Are all products and all markets destined to die or evolve?
future requires research for deep understanding and flexibility of the team to adapt to the future rapidly. Innovation is again an excellent opportunity to lay out your future.
How do you know your team is ready for the challenge of change?
Preparation is not chance; it is practice. Initially, start small, find opportunities to create positive change, and teach the organization to embrace the chance of improvement. Those that embrace and lead the change are the team members you want upfront. Those that cower or repulse at change will be destructive forces going forward. Questioning any approach to change should always be embraced. It is vital to ascertain if the questioning or appearance of concern is part of the process leading to a mission supported by the team member.
For many years, the yard maintenance person I had knew my yard better than his son. He loved the yard and personally knew every shrub and flower. He could
Top Pick
Do You Have Too Many Customers?
Don’t let your customers start looking for the exit door
Here is the backstory behind the title question.
By Chip R. Bell, The Chip Bell Group
Submit Your ArticlesHCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence presented by HR.com September 2022 17
Ihave had a lawn maintenance company taking care of my yard for a few months. I have concluded they have too many customers. I may have to help them out by taking my business to one of their competitors that needs customers.
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. Would you like to comment?
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The replacement yard maintenance company is large, with many employees. They are always on time but focused only on “blow and go.” If a weed springs up in the middle of the flower bed, they apparently cannot see it. If a limb falls a few inches over the property line, they assume the other owner wants it, and we enjoy seeing it. And, if we need a shrub replaced, we go on a waiting list for weeks. When we make a special request—something they can do—it takes too many phone reminders and always a wait. We get weary of the excuses from their telephone dispatcher. We are not customers; we are consumers, and low priority ones.
This article first appeared here You Have Too Many Customers?
Do
even give you their Latin names and biological origin. His care was timely, he was very reasonably priced, and always meticulous. When a big limb fell after a windy evening, it was an emergency call for him. He became a plumbing genius when our sprinkler system was hit with a gremlin. But he got very sick and had to give up our yard.
sorry” is sincere only if followed by fire-alarm action and tangible results. We all measure the quality of our relationships by their priority for both parties in the union. We determine value by what we are willing to sacrifice for it. Don’t let your customers start looking for the exit door because they feel you are too busy with more important things.
Your answer to the title question is likely a resounding “No.” Your answer is irrelevant. How would your customers answer the title question? Do you make them wait, ignore their unique requests, and treat them with fake interest but non-performance? “I am
t’s not OK to lose sight of a promise made. As a leader, I would rarely accept “I’m sorry, it slipped my mind” as a valid excuse. It only demonstrated a person’s lack of organizational ability. After all, it isn’t that difficult to create a simple tracking system to manage and track the various tasks and follow-ups on your plate at any given time. No matter how busy I was, or how many priorities I was juggling with, I learned to manage my life at work by actively managing two lists, and abiding by two principles.
Learning to use to-do lists effectively is simple and satisfying, and it offers a sense of accomplishment every time you scratch an item off your list. After a while, it becomes instinctive to record every item that comes your way, together with a due date.
I
I would review my list regularly, reprioritizing it as necessary whenever I recorded a new entry. I was surprised by the number of people who ran their personal lives this way but didn’t think to do the same at work. While it didn’t necessarily reduce the workload, it did help organize it. It also helped me maintain perspective and to feel more in control of my day. I knew when I was falling behind and needed to put in extra hours at night to catch up. When I had too many items on my list, I would scrutinize each new piece of work that much more thoroughly. I was more likely to push back on incoming requests, but would do my best to find others to assume the tasks.
Two useful lists to follow
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List 1: To-Do List
Responding No is often the best answer when facing certain requests. They may make someone else’s life easier but make little sense in the context of your own priorities. I tried to assess all requests carefully and was much more likely to accept one when I knew I was the best person for the job. If not, I would suggest an alternative candidate. When I was leading teams, I would often delegate the work to one of my direct reports. It was a good opportunity to offer stretch tasks to key individuals who were seeking to differentiate themselves from their peers. I would include the completion of ad-hoc tasks in the annual goal planning process when I sat down with employees at the start of each year. The best way not to fall behind as a leader is to surround yourself with a great team that is willing and able to assume much of the load.
By Pete Devenyi, Author and Independent Consultant
Stay In Control As a Leader - The easy Way
List 2: follow-up List
In addition to a to-do list, I always maintained a follow-up list. When someone made a commitment that I needed to track, I would add an entry with a due date. When I attended a meeting and a commitment was made, I would add an entry. When I wrote up the minutes of a meeting that I facilitated, I transcribed the various action items into my follow-up list. Employees tended to give me more credit than I deserved, believing I had an unusually good memory. Nothing was further from the truth. I just managed my day-to-day activities using my two lists, continuously reviewing and updating them. I reached out to people a day or two before a commitment was due to ask how it was coming along. Trust, but verify, as the saying goes.
Stay In Control As a Leader - The Easy Way
It takes the courage and confidence of a strong leader to recognize reality and withstand the pressure. Most executives will help you find an acceptable compromise as long as the data you are presenting is understandable and comprehensive.
The root cause is almost always the lack of courage to tell the truth, for fear of the consequences. As challenging and unpleasant as these situations are, the right answer is always to be transparent and truthful, and to do the hard work of building the best recovery plan possible. Above all else, you should always uphold your integrity. Kicking the pebble down the road may buy you a day or a week, but in the long run, it will inevitably hurt your reputation and your career.
For over thirty years, Pete Devenyi led a storied career in technology, both globally and in Canada. He led enterprise software at RIM/BlackBerry for 9 years and was Senior Vice President of Global Products and Solutions at Dematic, one of the largest warehouse robotic automation providers in the world. He’s the author of the recently released book, Decoding Your STEM Career, published by Business Expert Press. Would you like to comment?
From time to time, despite our best intentions, we all find ourselves in situations where we fall behind schedule, sometimes woefully behind. This can be stressful, particularly when contractual commitments were made and large sums of money are at stake. I have seen managers attempt to reassure executives or customers that a project is under control despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Sometimes they adopt a let’s survive another day mentality, even when inevitable disaster is looming around the corner.
Principle 2: When All else fails, uphold Your Integrity
Principle 1: Don’t Commit to a Date You Don’t Think You Can Meet
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When commitments were delivered as promised, I would do my best to recognize them. It may have only been a simple thank you, but I felt the same sense of responsibility to acknowledge follow-through as I did to express disappointment when commitments were missed. I encouraged my management team to do the same. Over time, I found that it was not that difficult to build a culture of delivery, as employees learned that there were repercussions when they failed to deliver on a promise made.
Given the associated uncertainties, committing to deliver a project on a pre-determined timeline can be problematic, as unanticipated issues are likely to surface. It is important to include a buffer in any schedule and to fight the inevitable pressure to remove it. Leaders must learn to stand their ground with data. They must challenge their teams to build aggressive, yet realistic, plans. They also must dive into the details to understand the various nuances. In the end, dates should not be unilaterally imposed on a team without some level of flexibility to modify the functionality. While there may be no easy answer, a schedule based on hope and an environment based on fear, rarely yield the desired results.
TOP PICk
Are you finding it challenging to get buy-in to the change you need to succeed?
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AsNice.aleader, you are expected to lead change.
Sales leaders are dealing with extreme change. I do not care what industry you are in or your market position. We are all facing traumatic change.
Secondly, your people are overwhelmed and resistant to more change.
The status quo is not bringing in the results you need. So, what are you to do?
How Sales Leaders Can Succeed Amidst Tough Market Conditions
The choice is yours.
You can put your head in the sand and hope for the best, or you can step up and be a BOLD leader.
Firstly, senior management is risk-averse and not supportive of change initiatives.
The market, your customers, your boss, and your people are all experiencing the same.
The problem is how to get your ideas moving forward with internal people?
By Steven Rosen, STAR Results
How to Sell Senior Management on Change
● Come prepared with a well-thought-out plan. (Click here to download a sales plan template).
What Do BOLD Leaders Do?
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● Share how it will impact them.
As the business landscape continues to change with inflation, recession, supply chain issues, viruses, and who knows what else, we need sales leaders that are BOLD and can lead change in their organizations.
● Have internal influencers champion the change.
● WIFM. What is in it for them to execute the new initiative or change.
● Be ready to address objections.
I believe if you are to succeed as a sales leader, the first attribute you need is to be BOLD.
This article first appeared here
● Demonstrate the downside risk of doing nothing
● Don’t accept no; go for a small YES. Pilot, Pilot, Pilot
This means that BOLD leaders understand how to obtain buy-in from senior management and gain buy-in from the sales team to execute the change.
● Bring your people into the plan. Let them own it.
Steven A. Rosen, MBA, is the President of STAR Results. Steven brings over 20 years of experience in sales while coaching and mentoring senior sales executives and front-line sales managers to lead their businesses to new heights. Top Sales World named Steven one of the Top 50 Sales & Marketing Influencers 2013 - 2016.
BOLD leaders not only develop new strategies and tactics, but they also act on making them happen without hesitation.
● Demonstrate the upsides
● Always have at least one advocate in the room
How to Lead Change
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By Christopher H. Volk, THE VALUE EQUATION
perspective about leadership. For me, there is a sequential order to starting a business that has largely centered around devising a business model and then
Organizational leadership begins with the determination and adoption of key corporate competencies from Start-up To established Business, These Leadership Strategies Will Drive Success
arranging a capitalization strategy to open the company’s doors. Once those doors open, things can get very busy very quickly and leaders must be prepared.
Having led three companies –two of which I founded – that would later go on to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, I have gained a great deal of
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Much attention is paid to corporate value statements, which set important tones. But I find that corporate value statements tend to have high levels of similarity. Notions of integrity, respect for individuals, customer attentiveness, custodianship,stakeholderandmoreare universal, and I find myself drawn to most every corporate values statement I have read.
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● A full grasp of the disciplines needed to execute the model, and
● The development of a business model to profitably solve it,
I believe that organizational leadership begins with the determination and adoption of key corporate competencies. Core competencies tend to be far less universal than corporate value statements. And they are not always simple to determine. Considering what all should be your corporate competencies can take a great deal of collective leadership team thought.
● An understanding of the problem to be solved,
Building a company around these four key objectives requires the development of core corporate competencies. These are the activities integral to business model execution along with solution and customer benefit delivery. For a company to focus on anything else, especially in its early life, is a distraction that can detract from success.
Core Competencies
● A feel for the deliverable customer benefits.
All businesses exist to solve problems. A problem can be as simple as a restaurant serving meals or as complex as launching satellites into space. Ultimate success comes from conceiving solutions to customers’ problems, combined with a deep understanding of the associated customer benefits. When it comes to getting revenues to pour in, an understanding of the latter is important. As Theodore Levitt, former marketing scholar and Harvard Business School professor astutely observed, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.”
The Four Key Objectives
All successful companies, even in their start-up phases, have competitive advantages. Successful corporate leadership begins with:
reach once grasped an entire organization, you can find your touch to begin to have limits. This is where organizational leadership becomes so valuable.
Refinements made to organizational leadership make all the difference in establishing that a company has a commonality of purpose. New leaders get the opportunity to think like a founder, contributing to business model improvements and core competency refinements. Collective core competency ownership is foundational to both a company’s mission and the tasks undertaken by leadership.
The companies that I led were engaged in the ownership and long-term rental of real estate to businesses that required such property to conduct their operations. When starting the second and third of these companies, the leadership team and I made various business model refinements designed to reduce our staffing requirements, elevating the simplicity and efficiency of our business model.
Having worked with and coalesced a group of leaders who have bought into a business model and the core competencies needed to execute that model becomes foundational in determining your corporate identity and culture. In the middle of all the many changes and innovations that organically happen as companies grow, organizational leadership remains a constant.
Christopher Volk, the author of THE VALUE EQUATION, has been instrumental in leading and publicly listing three successful companies, two of which he co-founded. The most recent of these is STORE Capital (NYSE: “STOR”) where he served as founding chief executive officer, and then as executive chairman. Volk began writing about corporate finance early in his career, devising the Value Equation concept, which garnered an award upon its 1999 introduction. He eventually created an award-winning video series on the topic while at STORE Capital. A 2019 regional winner of EYs’ Entrepreneur of the Year award, Volk is a frequent university lecturer and serves on multiple non-profit boards.
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Setting and resetting core competencies is essential for growing leadership teams to think like founders.
Companies are like life forms. Once entrepreneurs unleash a successful business, the leaders they assemble for this effort begin hiring future leaders and staff. Before long, you can find your team growing meaningfully as you run increasingly into new faces in the office. Where your
As we would grow our companies over the years, we found it to be important to take the time to have an annual employee or leadership retreats. The general purpose? To refine our business model and to reset our organizational leadership with the help of our growing leadership team.
From Start-Up To Established Business, These Leadership Strategies Will Drive Success
By limiting our span of direct process controls, we were able to narrow and refine the corporate competencies that would prove essential to our market leadership, competitive advantages, and business model success. We did not focus on anything else.
Think Like a founder
Organizational Leadership Leadership is multi-faceted. There is daily and project leadership where Andrew Carnegie observed that leaders encourage teamwork enabling “common people to attain uncommon results.” Then there is fundamental organizational leadership, where leaders work collectively to refine their business models and then buy in to a narrow group of core competencies. As a serial starter of businesses, I found myself often playing in this foundational leadership arena.
Organic growth within a company is healthiest if it plays out within the guardrails established by organizational leadership. It is how companies adhere to the missions set out for them by their original and successive founders. It is how companies avoid unneeded distractions from their corporate competencies. And it is here that leaders can enable team members to work together to achieve uncommon results.
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If you receive few complaints, that does not necessarily mean you provide flawless service; it might mean customers who have experienced
When customers complain, they are giving you an opportunity to do better—to be better—by pointing out deficiencies in your operations. In the process, they are providing you with data you can use to identify areas with issues that need to be addressed.
“I hate complaining customers. They’re annoying whiners who are looking to get something free. I wish they would just go away.”
By John Tschohl, Service Quality Institute
AreComplaintsOpportunities
That is how many business owners, executives, managers, and employees view customers who have complaints about the products or services they purchase. But there is an upside to customers who complain.
When customers complain, they are giving you an opportunity to do better
Top Pick
Many companies solicit complaints through surveys— which is costly—but then do nothing with the results. Instead of using that feedback to develop strategies and establish a plan of action to prevent similar complaints in the future, they often let it lie dormant in a computer file. Surveys are a waste of time and money.
Complaint prevention is the foundation of quality service for any business. When management does not recognize complaints as opportunities, neither do
John Tschohl is the Founder and President of the 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, that are used by companies throughout the world. Would you like to comment?
that complaining customers are overwhelmingly loyal and sincere. They want to continue doing business with you if you set things right. The first step you must take is to make complaining easy.
problems with your products or service choose to do business elsewhere. Research studies show that, because of poor customer experiences, 50 percent of customers switch companies they buy from. Studies also show that 95 percent of customers who have had a bad experience do not complain.
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Researchcustomers.shows
employees who would rather run and hide than deal with a difficult situation or irate customer. You must train employees in the techniques of dealing with complaints, whether it is in person, on the phone, or by email. When they do so quickly and to the customer’s satisfaction, it is magic.
When customers complain, they are giving you a second chance to keep them—and their money— coming back to you. Getting new customers is expensive; keeping them should be one of your top priorities. When customers complain, thank them, resolve their issues, and use the information they provide to improve what you do and how you do it.
Defecting customers have a major impact on your bottom line. A 5 percent reduction rate can increase your profits by 5 to 95 percent. That is due in large part to the fact that it can cost five times more to attract new customers than it does to retain current
Here are 13 types of fears these leaders have been able to overcome:
Johannes Larsson, Founder and JohannesLarsson.comCEO,
● Losing Key Employees
To learn about the common fears leaders face and ways to overcome them, we approached CEOs and other business leaders to share their experiences/ thoughts. From “Not Being Able to Sustain the Business Financially” to “Losing Control Through Team Growth”, there are several fears that leaders have faced and solutions used to overcome them.
● Fear of Public Speaking
E
Leaders share their fears and how they have dealt with them
● Not Being Able to Provide for My Employees
● A Number of Rejections
● Losing Control to Others as the Team Grows
● Being Inflexible and Intimidating
● Being Unable to Handle Difficult Situations
● The Fear of Not Being Good Enough
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● The Fear of Being Held Responsible
● Making the Wrong Decision
By Brett Farmiloe, Terkel.io
One of my fears as a leader is being unable to handle difficult situations. However, I have learned how to overcome this fear by practicing mindfulness and meditation. By focusing on my breath and observing the present moment, I can stay in control even when things get tough. Keeping a positive attitude has also helped me cope with difficult situations.
verybody has fears and leaders are no different. Especially in today’s changing world of work, leaders are struggling with all sorts of difficult emotions. This can also affect relationships with their teams.
Being unable to Handle Difficult Situations
● Making Mistakes While Trying to Lead
● Lack of Cash Flow
● Not Being Able to Sustain the Business Financially
facing Your fears As A Leader
John Li, Co-Founder & CTO, Fig Loans
As my business grew, I feared giving up control of the work I used to do myself. Since it’s impossible to grow while performing every task myself, I reframed how I felt about losing control and started to see it as a positive, not negative. Bringing in new teammates may mean losing some control, but by training employees and hiring reliable people, we quickly built trust with each other. Even better, team expansion also meant better diversity of thought - a broader perspective we pull from to come up with even better solutions to our biggest challenges.
Losing key employees
My number one fear as a business owner is that I would fail to provide for my employees. My family, my staff, and their families all rely on this business succeeding, and it’s mind-numbing to think of how many months are fed because of this business. If for some reason this were to go away, there are so many people who would be put in a very difficult situation. That’s my biggest fear, and I do my best to overcome it by taking steps to secure our future as a company.
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Rick Owner,Berres,Honey-Doers
not Being Able to Provide for My employees
My greatest fear above all others as a leader is losing key employees. Some team members can be replaced, but we have a number of employees that are major stakeholders with key responsibilities that would be incredibly hard, if not impossible, to replace. To prevent this from happening and mitigate any potential fallout, we’ve done a number of things. For one, I pay these individuals incredibly well in terms of direct pay, benefits, and fun perks. Secondly, I now require that they cross-train their subordinates to ensure there would be some kind of handoff if they left.
Losing Control to Others as the Team Grows
John Ross, Chief Executive Officer, Test Prep Insight
Facing Your Fears As A Leader
One of my biggest fears is not being able to sustain the business financially and so letting people go, who started with me and are a core part. During periods of recession and global pandemics, it is difficult to make ends meet and at some point, it looked like we had to either resort to cutting costs and letting people go, or bootstrapping and risking my own finances to keep the company going. I chose the latter and thankfully, it worked out well. For the future, we’re looking into getting funding to help us stay afloat during difficult times.
This probably extends to more than being a leader, but one of my fears is not being good enough. Not having enough time for people, not taking enough responsibility, not being kind and empathetic enough, and more. I’ve read and learned as much as possible, and more importantly, I learned from past mistakes. Practice makes perfect. Being kinder to myself also helps too.
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Ravi Davda, CEO, Rockstar Marketing
Being Inflexible and Intimidating
not Being Able to Sustain the Business financially
One of my fears as a leader is to lose all flexibility and wind up managing through intimidation instead of inspiration. I have overcome this by always looking for new learning opportunities, in both my personal and professional life. Getting out of my comfort zone has helped me feel more empowered, confident, and in control. I keep myself open to new ideas and ways of thinking by reading, attending workshops and listening to podcasts. I find that when I am surrounded by like-minded people, it inspires me to be the best version of myself.
Farhan Co-Founder,Advani,BHPH
Facing Your Fears As A Leader
Nicole Founder,Thelin,LowIncome Relief
The fear of not Being Good enough
The fear of Being Held responsible
fear of Public Speaking
This is my greatest fear as a leader. The old adage goes that with great power comes great responsibility. The first step in accepting accountability is realizing that your leadership is both the problem and the answer to what really matters. Change becomes possible the minute you stop being afraid and start taking responsibility for your actions.
As a CEO of a startup that is in the process of scaling, my biggest fear is cash flow. As we’re working with clients, we depend on them paying us, and us paying our employees. But I think that is a problem of every startup - coming to a point where we become less dependable on every client, and have some space to breathe at the end of the month. Our current mission is finding funding and discussing investments. And of course, being thrifty to reduce risk.
Keynote Speaker | Transformational Coaching | Executive Consulting, Ryan Zofay / We Level Up
Facing Your Fears As A Leader
My biggest fear would be public speaking. I worked through this by consistent training. I had to really put the work into how I wanted to represent myself. This started with defining how I wanted to show up as a leader. If I could not look up to who I wanted to be, who else would? Now I get to share the story on how I overcame my fears, public speaking being one while I am publicly speaking!
Billy ManagingParker,Director, Gift Delivery Maja Krištafor, CEO, RyanPRojektZofay,
Lack of Cash flow
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GeorgiThriveMyWayTodorov,Founder,
A Number of Rejections
Ilija Sekulov, Marketing & SEO Consultant, Mailbutler
Brett Farmiloe is the Founder and CEO – and currently CHRO - of Terkel.io
Submit Your ArticlesHCM Sales, Marketing & Alliance Excellence presented by HR.com September 2022 32
One of my greatest fears as a leader is that I will make a mistake while trying to lead. I am always working to improve my skills, but I know that sometimes there are things that cannot be helped. Sometimes it’s hard to see the bigger picture. I have overcome this fear by trusting in my team and surrounding myself with people who believe in me and want me to succeed. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, but we should focus on what we do best rather than dwelling on those things we aren’t good at.
Getting a no from a sales prospect. An excellent candidate taking another job. Learning that a large customer has churned. These are all rejections that a startup founder or any leader might face every single day. It’s taken me years to not take them personally. My mantra is to stay calm and understand that the ride might be like a rollercoaster, but as long as the trend is heading up, rejections are not the end of the world!
James Sear, Co-founder, Avion
Making Mistakes While Trying to Lead
Making the Wrong Decision Leaders face decisions on a constant basis, and being faced with so many can sometimes make me postpone or even delegate making important decisions for fear I will make a mistake. I have overcome this fear by understanding that even the best leaders make bad decisions sometimes and that when I do, I will use this as a learning opportunity. Instead of fear and regret, I look upon my mistakes as an opportunity for growth.
Facing Your Fears As A Leader
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