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November 25, 2010
 Who Moved My Seven Effective Good to Great Cheese Habits?
By Mark Faust
Every week a new book hits the shelves touting the “new” idea in management and “new” wisdom for business. Regarding the processes of business, human nature and true wisdom, nothing is new under the sun, just as that phrase dates back to Solomon.
 Instead of looking to faddish books start looking to your sales teams. Stop looking to faddish books and start looking to your sales teams.
True innovation revolves around where your focus lies, how unique your solutions to customers are, and how you define, promote and deliver the value you have to offer.
One of the best places to begin your accelerated growth fueled by innovation efforts is by listing and prioritizing your top constraints. You can begin by asking questions like:
1. Where are our greatest untapped sales growth potentials, either existing or specific new customers or both?
2. What do we need to improve to make more sales?
3. What are the top risk factors existing in our business in need of improvement?
…that said one of the simplest ways to ask your team about innovation opportunities is to just ask this one simple question:
• What are this company’s biggest problems that hinder our growth or salesforce?
Great question, but be ready for the answers. Oftentimes the top constraints to growing a business lie in its culture, talent management and talent engagement.
Talent engagement represents the extent to which the workforce identifies with the company, is committed to it and provides discretionary effort so that it can be successful. Engagement is a key leading indicator for high performance workplaces, improved employee productivity and subsequent turnover.
Often while top management is looking out the window into the marketplace to find the levers of growth, the linchpin to growth may be inside the heart of the organization, your people.
Innovation efforts should be holistic and involve improvements in how you serve your internal customer as much as how you might improve your products and services to your external customer.
If you are committed to growing the company through accelerating your efforts in innovation you must focus on the people within your company and work on ways to get and keep more internal customers. And no one has more impact on the talent and employee engagement of a company than the top echelon leader. As long as he or she is humble, innovation can begin. “Humility is the sire of all virtue” especially creativity.
An often ignored area frequently in need of improvement is the sales teams culture. Often a company culture is set by the attitudes and character of the top leader. The strength of a leader’s character can sometimes be the flip side of their weaknesses. One who is patient and a great listener may be slow to make a decision and hard charging visionaries can often be poor listeners and not focused on the people. These weaknesses tend to trickle down into the behaviors of the teams and ultimately build into the culture weaknesses that can become abrasive to both customer and employees.
When the answers to the “biggest problems” question are things like “no one around here appreciates…” or “the company tends to tolerate (fill in a negative term)” then you know you have to work on improving culture.
Two steps to improving culture are:
1. Ask your sales teams for ideas around, “What would make this company a better work place?” or “What would make your job more fun, or you more excited about coming to work?”
2. Put in place a character recognition program where you recognize people for good character qualities.
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November 18, 2010
By Mark Faust
Many companies have an old set of value statements, written by a founder or previous management teams. These values might hang on the wall or be passed into collateral. Whether these speak of the priorities of customers and service, or of treating others with respect, there are several steps any management team can take to make this essential element of your strategy fuel to accelerating growth.
Do you have conflict within your salesforce and/or is growth not as fast as it could be? What is the cost of conflict on productivity and effectiveness?
Most conflict within teams or a salesforce can be traced back to a lack of understanding or enforcement around company values. To have values work as a tool for improving teamwork and reducing conflict, having your team answer two questions each year in an all hands on deck exercise can help to reinforce the desired attitudes and actions.
These two questions are: 1. How do you and customers want to be treated in the workplace? And 2. How will we deal with it when someone doesn’t live up to these values?
Since people tend to support that which they help to create, everyone should have input into these answers.
To supercharge the values in an organization and transform them into strategic growth oriented values, also ask sales teams:
“How would we need to:
• conduct our work,
• work with each other and customers
and what kind of environment do we need to foster
• in our company,
• in our work
• and in our relationships
in order to absolutely maximize joy in the workplace as well as the growth rate, profitability and stability of this company?”
 Use these team oriented strategies to accelerate growth Have every sales associate openly discuss the top traits, qualities, ways, habits, environments, attitudes…i.e., values, that we need to live and work by, and list this out in a long list that will usually have several dozen potential values.
Then ask each individual to privately list out the top six values that they feel are the highest priority values that will most accelerate growth and improve satisfaction, happiness and profitability in the workplace. Then have sales associates team up in twos and agree on a top six together, then repeat the same process in teams of four, then eight etc. until the entire team has come up with what they have prioritized and agreed to what can then be a list of the top six to ten values that will create the optimum environment.
Conduct a similar facilitation around the question, “How will we deal with it when one of us doesn’t live up to our value statements?” the much tougher, but more important question, and yet key to ensuring that the values become reality.
The team or committee could work on also building out working definitions of each value, and perhaps examples. The final word-smithed document can be printed on a poster and ceremoniously signed by the entire team.
Leadership should regularly and publically recognize employees being good examples of walking out the values.
Most teambuilding exercises like ropes courses and falling backwards into your co-workers arms are a waste of time compared to having the team create growth oriented values and strategic growth objectives that will work to accelerate growth as these exercises help to Create Emotional Ownership, the C.E.O. of your growth oriented culture. I’ve seen this process double the size of companies while making it a much happier workplace. Are you ready to grow?
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November 11, 2010
By Mark Faust
One of the best shows on TV is Undercover Boss. Undercover Boss is a metaphor for life, business and God.
Getting choked up watching this show is as predictable as its format which guarantees laughs, tears and cheers all in a prescribed order.
The Process - In ways, every episode is the same, and yet each show is unique. The boss commits to going undercover to work in various jobs throughout the company for a week. Presenting the reason for the video camera shadowing him, as being part of some documentary. The employees have no idea who they are dealing with.
 Improve your Salesforce by Becoming an Undercover Boss Imperfect Gods – Management is like God, a God that can humble himself to walk in his salesforce’s shoes and in the end can deliver sales teams from pain and woes or remain insulated from the sales teams’ realities and become like a demonic guardian of pain and fear.
Trust – At the onset, the boss confides to his inner circle about the mission he is about to embark on. He assumes their trust and asks for final input before donning the armor of disguise. Like kings who led charges in medieval wars these bosses head straight to the front lines of the battle.
Humility – Management is part God, part hero, only to the extent of their humility. In every show, leaders walk in the same dirt and danger as their front line best, and are shocked at the sacrifice, commitment and love their employees have for their jobs, customers and teams. On most shows, we see grown men break down in tears at night as they retreat to their Motel 8 room as they realize how their insensitivity has allowed their best people to experience unnecessary pain and strife.
America’s Best Heroes Are CEOs – While it has become cachet to put the American businessman and especially management as the most iniquitous enemy of the people, the fact is many CEOs are actually the greatest heroes of our time…or at least have the potential to be.
The Final Reunion– Like going to heaven, the employees who endure training the Undercover Boss on the rigors of their job, and other team members are brought together to see video clips of themselves saying things like “he just doesn’t have it in him for this kind of job” or “this guy will never make it here.” But in the utmost of humility and compassion the boss brings innovative solutions and opportunity to each of the participants.
What You Can Do – Despite setting your Tivo for Sunday night on CBS, the very same principles that entertain us the most in this show are the solutions to growing your business. Using a third party to conduct in-depth interviews with customers and employees as well as being involved in such listening efforts is just the beginning to implementing an ongoing effort of improved communication and continuous innovation.
If you’re willing to listen to the salesforce you serve, there will be an abundance of ideas that will deliver your company to a whole new level. So when it comes to your company’s growth and its people will you be a paladin or a pain?
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August 22, 2010
By Mark Faust
My son worked for one of the world’s top dog handlers who taught him one of the keys to her business success. When she was asked for what was a top strategy for continually growing her business, in a heartbeat she quipped; “Get rid of the idiots!”
Who are “the idiots?”
Anyone who robs your intended customer from any part of the value your business is meant to deliver is in this woman’s mind “the idiot.” This could be your worst customers, poorest performing salesforce employee, and even the poorest performing products or methodologies of your business.
We’ve all heard it many times, someone complaining about their “worst customer.” Frankly most businesses would have no problem listing out their top 20 worst customers. These customers don’t only cost your business profits by being high maintenance, they cost you business and profit in a myriad of ways. They are probably bad mouthing you and thus costing you potential referral business or lowering your salesforce’s closing ratio in their geography.
 Improving Sales The “worst/idiot” customers probably negotiate the lowest margins and worst yet, they probably rob your sales and service teams a load of valuable selling and service time that other more valuable/profitable customers are warranting. Ultimately the idiots cost you valuable sales time and an exponential amount of growth potential.
There are also idiot products and services. These are the hardest to deliver, lowest profit margin dogs that are legacy products that should have been abandoned long ago. Yet because of the lack of a strategic abandonment process in your company or because of a nostalgic yearning for yesterday’s product and people, these profit drainers are still around.
Most companies also have “idiot” sales performers, teams, or employees who deliver abysmal performance or walk out horrid character traits, and thus your company is suffering a tremendous drag. Jack Welch grew GE for many years with significant results from firing the bottom 10% for a period of many years.
Here is a three step strategy that can help you “get rid of the idiots.”
1. Have every sales rep list their “worst customers” based on profitability, pain or overall “drain.”
2. Conduct topgrading throughout your salesforce team and employee base; A performers, B performers and those who ideally you’d like to replace…for whatever reason, but especially for poor character and poor selling performance.
3. Make a list of all products, processes and protocol in your company that if you were beginning anew, would not make the cut in today’s environment
Now create teams for each of the above lists. Strategically “fire” your idiot customers who cost you growth and who rob your intended ideal customer market. If you are afraid to make the step, just do it with a fraction of the idiot customers, choosing only the worst of the idiots and watch closely what happens in those territories.
Next, closely consider who you could replace with better talent. This current economy presents one of the greatest employer markets for finding and hiring top talent. It is almost impossible for companies with a salesforce of more than 20 people to replace the bottom 2 and not make a marked improvement in production.
Finally consider all of the worst products, services and procedures of your company and have teams systematically eliminate and replace as many as you confidently can. This is a heart of continuous improvement, innovation and profit improvement.
Great opportunity abounds for the companies who aren’t afraid to fire the idiots and focus on their ideal customer. With your ideal employees and your best products and services this is the market in which the “idiotless” will thrive.
August 5, 2010
As COO of a S&P 500 company, Sandy Costa led a growth initiative from $90 million to $1.6 billion in six years. While there were many acquisitions in those five years, over 60% of that growth was organic. This was just one of many teams he led through high sales growth improvements using management strategies any company can implement to accelerate growth.
Here are the top strategies Sandy prioritizes as keys to fostering sales growth.
Leverage Relationships – Most people have relationships with hundreds of individuals. One of the most underutilized assets in any sized company is the leveraging of the relationship potential that exists throughout the organization. Share a list of your targets throughout the company and discuss any possible connections that may accelerate meeting, engaging and building trust with your top prospects.
Create a “Must-Win” list and review regularly. Sandy facilitated worldwide calls regularly that reviewed the progress on key targets, new opportunities, challenges, missteps and questions. This enhanced focus of idea sharing accelerated sales cycles in a positive upbeat form of accountability.
Incent and compensate all of your people for profitability, not simply revenue. Too often, companies build quotas and compensation only around revenue and customers. Allow the entire team to contribute ideas that improve profitability and have a clear connection between compensation and the amount of profit cultivated by sales reps and others.
Find and share best practices regularly. Sandy would have the salesforce meet annually to review why they won business and what specific and scalable practices were key to winning business. Start a best practices “bible.” Add to it and review regularly.
Top leadership must be close to the salesforce. Despite being a COO of a 20,000 person team, Sandy would go on sales calls. He dedicated approximately 25% of his time to interactions with key clients. We’ve seen team sales calls involving owners and other top leaders increase closing ratios, accelerate sales cycles and foster sales improvements and innovations. Make team calls on your largest customers and most competitive situations and watch success multiply.
Put people first. Most important to Sandy was keeping “Humanity At Work” which is the title of his new book. By this he means making sure people know how important they are to the organization. This is the bedrock to fostering growth and can be accomplished by considering the following:
Treat employees like volunteers. Too often management looks at staff with an attitude of “hey they are well paid and lucky to have such good jobs” but when a spirit of gratitude is consistently emanating from leaders, the esprit de corps is higher and people sell and serve the extra mile.
Bring objectivity and patience to your most emotionally charged challenges. “Fear evaporates when facts come on the scene” says Sandy, “most people don’t bring all of the facts to the conversation.” Its leadership’s job to ask as many questions as it takes to have all of the facts and restore objectivity and fairness to challenging situations. Rarely is conflict as charged if all of the facts are shared.
Humility is the most important leadership character quality in Sandy’s opinion as it is the “sire of all virtues.”
Forgiveness is another key character strategy to maximizing a team’s aggressiveness and courage. “I would tell the team that I expected to make mistakes today and that mistakes are part of business” says Sandy. “People who beat people up for mistakes just send them into a shell… I normally did not have a problem when people made mistakes, only if they didn’t learn from it.”
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April 19, 2010
By Mark Faust – Echelon Management
 One challenge in today’s competitive landscape is how does one create an image of difference in the mind of the customer to compete and win? One angle is to sell profit, not simply product. One should sell to customer’s objectives and the value that the customers stand to gain with your solutions. But how do you help your team become better questioners and thus consultants? How do you help them find new profits for customers by using better questions?
Getting to the point of empowering a sales team to be true consultants, takes the effort of customizing a vocabulary of questions that is not just a list of relevant info you need to know in order to qualify a customer, but that is also a list of questions that clarify the profits being lost for inaction and profits to be gained with the implementation of your solution.
There are 5 types of questions that can be asked in the selling process. We call this the FOCUS Questioning Method™
- Fact questions elicit data that is of a neutral importance to the customer. While certain fact questions may be critical to qualifying or appropriately presenting the right solutions to your customer, poor sales performers get caught up in asking too many fact questions many of which may be of little importance and/or could be found through basic preparation before or after the initial call. Examples: How many acres to you have? What have been your top hybrids?
- Opportunity questions elicit the objectives, problems, pains, or direction toward which a customer needs to move. Most often the answers find a pain; it could be the pain of an unsolved problem and/or the pain of not moving as fast as possible toward a valid objective or result. Examples: What are your top problems? Which hybrids are performing poorly?
- Consequence questions (can also be called Cost questions) elicit the cost of not solving that problem or reaching that objective faster. Cost questions can quantify the negative dollarization of the problem. Sometimes the Consequences are merely emotional, but in most business situations an excellent questioner/consultant/sales professional can help a customer discover the dollarized costs of the “Opportunities” discovered. Examples: What did that problem cost you? Is that really that important of a problem to solve?
- Upside questions help to understand the value that stands to be gained if a change is made, the problem is solved or the objective is reached sooner with an intervention that has yet to be decided upon. Examples: If you can solve this, what would happen? What is the value of reaching that objective?
- Solution Step questions clarify the next steps that help to advance the sale/relationship and often give the customer a choice of options rather than a yes/no “doyawanna…” forceful buying close. Most complex sales aren’t closed as much as they are advanced to the next step if all proper qualification has taken place at each step. Examples: What are the next steps we need to take to get a solution approved and implemented? We have the solutions to your problems, what do you need from us to make a decision?
Bottom line creating a list of these five types of questions listed above creates an empowering tool that is a key to more thorough preparation and selling effectiveness. Create a sheet of questions for you and your team and add to it the best questions as they come to mind. Review regularly; evaluate each others sales calls and questioning effectiveness and you will have created a process for creating consultants that sell profit vs. peddlers that just present product.
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March 9, 2010
What is the Goal of Your Business?
By Mark Faust@EchelonManagement.com
“The goal of this business is to make money, of course!” responded the owner.
Then we asked a few more questions.
How do you involve your team in efforts to improve profitability or has this mostly been the job of management?
- Besides yourself, who else is given incentives to improve profitability?
- How aware are your people as to what areas most affect profitability, such as pricing concessions, controllable expenses etc.? Are you able to prioritize, quantify and communicate to the team to what extent the top areas of profit drain are within your business?
- What types of business, customers, products, services etc. yield you the greatest profitability? Is your sales team aware of these and are there incentives for them to sell profitably? Are you coaching them to effectively – helping to move more business toward the more profitable areas?
- What we find with our clients is that tremendous increases in profit can occur by implementing a process around improving profits. Here are a few strategies that can help to create results around increasing profits.
  It helps if you can determine incremental awards or incentives around ideas that improve profits. We’ve seen rewards given as a percentage of money saved and thus tens of thousands of dollars with a potential cap as well as simple small cash or gift card awards for any and every idea that has an impact on profitability. Determine an incentive program that you can live with and deliver upon regardless of how voluminous the profit improving ideas may become. Back up monetary rewards with genuine praise and gratitude; this can be in written or formal spoken expression.
Not that selling your most profitable products and services is always the highest priority, but it helps to show your team the rankings of how your products and services stack up in regards to profits. It also helps to show as many areas of costs that may have any potential for improvement. Don’t limit these areas to just the immediate areas of responsibility of the employee, but rather allow their creativity and awareness of what is happening on the front lines of your business help to innovate completely new solutions or incremental savings no matter how small.
Encourage even the smallest of savings. Even if just 15 employees came up with 15 ideas that each increased profitability by an average of just .05%, that could in some cases work to double the profitability of a company.
Often the greatest drains in profitability occur in the selling process. Sales people often are unaware that even just a one percent price concession is frequently well over a 10% reduction in profitability. Training your team to sell on value and to negotiate options and the estimates of what your solutions stand to deliver are just a couple of ways of inoculating your team from profit draining price concessions.
 There are the Eight Essential Areas of Objectives in the strategic planning process (for a free Strategy Handbook email us) and while Profitability Objectives are of the lowest priority according to Peter Drucker it is still always essential to have specific profitability objectives. Like all objectives they must be measurable on a regular basis, preferably at least monthly. There needs to be clear accountabilities and at least quarterly points at which progress will be measured and discussed.
Involve your whole team in setting and executing upon the objective of improving profitability and you will get far more accomplished than doing it alone.
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