Build A Winning Team

Recently, I was listening to the Tom Leykis show. I am a fan of Tom Leykis. He always has stimulating, shall we say, discussions that really get you thinking. And that’s what I like about the show. He was talking about the question, “Why should employees be loyal to their companies?” And, “Why should you be loyal to a company that makes you give them 2 week’s notice if you’re quitting, yet if they want get rid of you – your butts on the street tomorrow? Why should you be loyal to a company that you work for 10, 15, or 20 years, and then they just decided to down size one day, and you’re holding the bag. Why should you do your job better than the next person, when all they’re going to do is give you more work?”

Now I can really relate to this and maybe you can too. Let’s face it, a lot of us are in business for ourselves today because that’s the kind of thing we got sick of. We wanted to our own thing. Because we had a better idea. Like Ford. We wanted to do it “Our Way.” Like Frank Sinatra.But I began to think about the other side. Have you ever hired somebody, with all the good intentions in the world and then found out that they weren’t loyal to you at all? They were consistently late. They didn’t care about your business or your customers. All they cared about was their paycheck. They just took a day off, because, they felt like it.Or maybe you put a tremendous amount of time into training this person on your business, and they ended up stealing your clients? Many customer’s have come to me, as their consultant and ask me how to deal with a specific employee issue. They say, “Mark, I don’t know what I’m going to do with this person. I can’t get through to them. They’re constantly making mistakes, their slow as molasses, they have no sense of priority, their poor attitude is dragging the entire office down.”So I ask them, why don’t you fire them? They say, “Are you kidding, if I fire them, they’re going to take me to court and I know I’ll lose. Because it’s happened before. So I just live with it. But it’s costing me money, it’s costing me customers and it’s driving me crazy!”Listen folks, you can’t live with it anymore. We small business people can’t afford to make very many mistakes. We make a mistake and the big guys will chew us up and spit us out – lickety split. And you’re going to find yourself working for the MAN again. So “How Do You Build and Maintain a Winning Team.”If you have an employee problem, are looking for ways to get your staff to be more productive, or wondering how you can get your employees to get stuff done BEFORE you tell them to, then you will be interested in what I have to say.With the help of several member consultants of Virtual Consulting Net.com, we have prepared a “How To – White Paper” on developing and maintaining a winning team. It has been designed specifically for small business managers and provides specific step-by-step instructions for building a strong, loyal team. The good news is that it is now available FREE just for the asking. That’s right FREE!It provides detailed answers to the following questions:Recruitment

  • What are the main factors in selecting the right person for the job?
  • Isn’t it a crap shoot? How do you know if someone will work out?
  • What can you do to find out about a candidates character?
  • I often hear people say, “Uhhhg newspapers, I get such poor quality there.”
  • Where do you look to find the right person?
  • How do you get the right person for the right job?
  • What are your legal rights?

Retention

  • What can we do to keep good people?
  • How can we hold them accountable to get their job done properly and timely?
  • What if they don’t? What kind of things can we do to motivate people to be more timely, accurate and team oriented?
  • How can I make my goals, THEIR goals?
  • How do I get them to care about my company and customers?
  • What if the positive things don’t work?

Legal Issues

  • How do we let people go without risking a lawsuit?
  • Do’s and don’ts when recruiting.
  • When and how should I conduct exit and entrance interviews?
  • How to ensure that your employees do NOT have legal recourse.

AND MUCH MORE. The program also includes the necessary forms for interviews, performance tracking, meeting logs and more. It also provides the names, telephone numbers and web sites for many employee related resources, including governmental agencies, FREE help lines, and small business consultants.Just so to www.smallbusinesshour.com and ask for the “Build a Winning Team” White Paper and we will rush it right on out to you.

A Matter of Honor

I recently read an article that talked about a high-school biology class where nearly 25% of the students were caught cheating. Apparently they had plagiarized entire sections of their semester-long reports from various Internet web sites. The teacher had isolated the offenders and had given them a failing grade. The parents of these students protested that the failing grade was “too harsh” a penalty for their cheating children. Unbelievably, the school board agreed!

The article went on to point out that a Rutgers University study found that more than 75% of students cheat. The Internet has made plagiarism quite easy. There are many web sites where students can get ready-made reports for all kinds of topics. Schools also have access to software that allows them to catch plagiarists just as easily. But apparently they often choose NOT to use it. Why? Because they feel that policing plagiarism might hurt a cheater’s self esteem. In fact, many student groups have attacked the use of anti-plagiarism software as a potential violation of student rights!My question is… What will happen to these students when they have to compete in the real world? In the real world if you plagiarize, you suffer the consequences. That could mean litigation, retraction and most certainly professional embarrassment.Ok, I know what you’re thinking… What does all this have to do with business improvement?
Everything.If we really care for people, then we tell them what they need to hear. If we are too concerned about offending them or hurting them then we are in part responsible for their failures. Think of how much those high school students will be hurt in the future simply because parents, teachers and administrators were unwilling to bruise their fragile egos.Let’s face it many, if not most supervisors are at the very least uncomfortable holding their employees accountable. I am not saying that we should create an environment where perfection is the goal. I rather encourage peak performance rather that perfect performance. But it is critical for business owners, manager and supervisors to distinguish between a “mistake of the heart” or a “mistake of the head.” A “mistake of the heart” is a situation where an employee intentionally did something that was known to be wrong and tried to get away with it. A “mistake of the head” is when an employee is working hard to do the right thing but, for some reason, it does not work out that way. With mistakes of the head, we should be very lenient. With mistakes of the heart we should be quite strict.One way to ensure that we are creating an environment where mistakes of the mind are tolerated and mistakes of the heart are not is to make your expectations crystal clear to your staff. Over the years I have noticed that communicating expectations is paramount in achieving peak performance. The following are areas in which leaders should develop clear expectations for team members:1. Culture – Communicate your company’s culture clearly by modeling the kind of behavior that you want to see. If you are looking for more honesty and integrity then model honesty and integrity. Like it or not, they will do as you do, NOT as you say. This starts at the top. If you are a business owner, don’t expect your managers to accomplish this if you can’t.2. Rewards – When people do well we should congratulate them publicly. This should be done with great fanfare but in a genuine, sincere way. There’s nothing worse than phony flummery or flattery. Give sincere appreciation.3. Chastisement – When we need to provide chastisement or correction it should always be done privately away from any other staff member. We should be forthright in expressing our disappointment with the staff member’s poor behavior NOT anger with them as a person.4. Correction – When correcting make sure that you communicate the methods and procedures expected. This should include deadlines with non-negotiable dates as opposed to dates that can slip as well as priorities. What’s to be done first, second and so on.5. Performance – Paint a picture of the outcome for your staff. Show them a vision of a “good” job versus a “bad” job. Make sure they understand the degree of effort that you expect them to each contribute to the successful solution.6. Measurement – Establish a system to measure performance in small increments as well as a format for consistent communication. This forum will give you the ability to ask the right kind of questions to determine whether they are “on-track.” At this point you can provide feedback and make suggestions on course correction.7. Resources – Make sure that they understand the resources that are available to them. This could include staff, facilities, technology, equipment, outside consultants and so on. Encourage them to use the resources to their best advantage but in a cost effective way in order to achieve their goals.

As leaders it’s our job to foster integrity, honesty and honor. Team members look to us for confidence, guidance, direction and innovation. To whom much is given, much is required. As leaders we must hold ourselves to a higher standard than anyone else in our organization. Does this mean that we need to be perfect in order to achieve peak performance? Not at all. But is does mean that when we are wrong that we, as Dale Carnegie advises us, “admit it quickly and emphatically.”Remember your team members are not just a resource, they are PEOPLE. As I have said many times, we live in an age of relationships. How can you create relationships that go beyond just getting the job done? And how can we do so with integrity and honor?

Why GM Failed

GM is bankrupt. That’s no suprise. They’ve been bankrupt since 2006! They just avoided filing through creative financing like bonds, bailouts and banking relationships. Any other company would have long ago disappeared.

GM like many companies large or small made several massive blunders:
1. Lack of Market Touch. They lost touch with their target audience. They failed to make vehicles that appealed to their core consumers. Their leadership were Harvard Finance gurus who knew NOTHING of the automotive business.
2. Uncompetitive Product. When compared with their biggest rival, Toyota, their cars are uncompetitive, poorly designed and poorly built. In the last 50 years their market share has dropped from 60% to less than 19%. They have been on their way down for a long time.
3. Wrong Focus. GM has been pulling profits from their finance group more than their vehicle sales for many years. Rather than focusing on product innovation, creative marketing or customer satisfaction they were immersed in sustaining the economic model.

This is an example of what can happen to a business when they fail to focus on their CORE BUSINESS! Lose touch with the customer, the product and the marketplace and it is only a matter of time before economics will catch-up with you.

Book Review – Chaotics: The Business of Managing and Marke ting in the Age of Turbulence

This book is very focused on today’s volatile business world, and I really enjoyed reading it. I recommend this book for the business owner who needs practical “fix it now” advice. The reader will gain so much insight just by reading chapter 2, as it covers topics I’m sure today’s business owner is struggling with. I.E. – resource allocation, across the board spending cuts, quick fixes to preserve cash flow, and reducing sales related expenses, etc.

I particularly found a passage in the book that rings true and reinforces my stance that who we are is more important than what we do. The authors state, “So a company’s internal and external behavior leaves a legacy that affects the stakeholder’s future mindsets and behavior toward the company. Often times this reveals the absence of the company’s authenticity, a quality that is becoming increasingly important to consumers.” Being authentic in your marketing and business operations in imperative in maintaining happy customers that return. I recommend this book.

Interview on Houston Public Radio

Great interview on Public Radio with Ed Mayberry. He is NPR’s quintessential business guru in Houston and a genuinely nice guy. Listen in here!

Flat Tax or Not?

In order to return our economy to health and growth we MUST provide “tax burden relief” for small businesses. They currently employ half the work force, produce half of the private sector output, shoulder the largest tax burden and are likely to benefit from a flat tax more than the larger businesses. A flat tax could eliminate tax deductions and credits which are less widely available to small businesses as well as reduce compliance costs, lower interest rates and ultimately increase exemption for individual and small business taxpayers.I am interested in hearing your opinion. Email me at mark@markdeo.com

Writing Proposals

The client says, “Your recommendations sound terrific.” That’s good. Then the client says, “Can you put together a proposal? Something I can take to my boss, Mr. Sale Stopper?”

That’s good too. Right?WRONG!Why? For a couple of reasons:First, if you haven’t already noticed, customers learn in “prospect school” that the best way to avoid buying is to procrastinate. When they do this, they are neither saying “no” nor “yes.” The result is that they can maintain the relationship with us (the seller), continue to pick our brains (maybe even getting our expertise for FREE and buy from the cheapest bidder), all without making any sort of commitment. This sets the tone for the future relationship. A relationship that is “one-sided.” A relationship where WE have to perform, yet they can continue to postpone, delay and maybe even not live up to their side of the bargain. Even if we do get the business, we can end up working like dogs while they drag their heels with decisions and pay us in their own good time.Sound familiar?The second reason to not just roll over to the proposal request is that it may give them reasons for NOT doing business with us. Since proposals are not an interactive process, we may inadvertently say the wrong thing and never even know why we lost the sale.Here’s the way I recommend handling the proposal request:PROSPECT: “Can you put together a proposal for us?”
SELLER: “Sure, no problem. May I ask you a question?”
PROSPECT: “Yes.”
SELLER: “If we are able to develop a proposal that is acceptable to Mr. Sale Stopper, what would happen next?”
PROSPECT: “We would do business.”
SELLER: “Great! If I understand you correctly then, only you and Mr. Sale Stopper are responsible for making the final decision to move forward?”
PROSPECT: “Correct.”
SELLER: “Sounds good. Let’s review some of the things that we need to put in the proposal to make this happen. You mentioned our weekly service call. What else should we include? What are your key concerns? What are the best solutions? What is most important to Mr. Sale Stopper? Really? Why? What things will be important to you and Mr. Sale Stopper in the future? What would be the main reason Mr. Sale Stopper would not approve the proposal?”
SELLER: “This is great. Do you think we’ve developed a winning proposal so far?
PROSPECT: “It sounds good.”
SELLER: “Perhaps I can help you further. Customer service is critical to our firm, and for this reason we have a policy on presenting proposals. Our company requires us to deliver the proposal and present it directly to the buying team. This eliminates any possible confusion, maximizes use of your time and gives you a chance to ask questions. When do you think we may be able to do that with you and Mr. Sale Stopper?”
PROSPECT: “Well, maybe next Monday at 10am.”
SELLER: “Great. Now let’s look at another scenario. Even with all the elements that we have included in the proposal, it is possible that Mr. Sale Stopper might not go for our proposal. In that event, what would happen next?”
PROSPECT: “Well, I guess we wouldn’t do business.”
SELLER: “Sounds fair. When would you anticipate making that decision?”
PROSPECT: “Well, a few days after the proposal, I guess.”
SELLER: “That sounds reasonable. So if I understand you correctly, Mr. Sale Stopper and yourself will make a final decision on this by Wednesday, at close of business?”
PROSPECT: “I think we can do that.”
SELLER: “Great. I’ll be working on putting in writing what we’ve developed today. Can I ask one more thing?”
PROSPECT: “Sure.”
SELLER: “Can I call you on Friday to just check in and confirm everything. Perhaps you and Mr. Sale Stopper might think of something else that needs to be added to our proposal?”
PROSPECT: “Sure.”With this technique, we have significantly increased our chances of developing a winning proposal, as well as lessened the chance of continued procrastination. Most importantly, this is no longer OUR proposal. It is the CLIENT’S proposal. We have strategically secured agreement in advance of putting things in writing. We have created greater value to the proposal on agreeing to a presentation time rather than just mailing or delivering the proposal to the client. And we set a deadline for the approval or denial of the proposal.I will assure you that this technique works nearly every time. It does, however, require practice. If you are interested in learning how to implement techniques such as these, inquire about our upcoming class, “Out-Marketing the Competition.” In this class we work on branding, differentiation, proposal development and how to make our marketing initiatives more persuasive, compelling, client-centered and profitable.

What’s the Buzz

It’s a HOPE business, our CEO bellowed in my direction. You HOPE someone sees your ad, you HOPE they call you and then you HOPE they buy something.

Cocky New Jersey Italian that I was (or am, I should say), I was now REALLY afraid to give my presentation. I was about to wax eloquent on the virtues of why our company should start advertising. I was a 28 year old junior executive in a billion dollar conglomerate about to take on the CEO at changing one of his long-held principles: NO ADVERTISING!Well I lost that battle but I learned something more valuable. Traditional advertising rarely works. In fact I learned that the more NON-traditional the advertising or marketing the more dramatic the response.That’s why whenever I hear about some new type of buzz-marketing I get excited. Whether its Seth Godin’s Purple Cow, the future that Tom Peter’s is Re-Imagining, or Jay Abraham’s latest guru strategy, I get goose bumps thinking about ways to make customers come to us rather than chasing after them.But I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read the article in this month’s Fast Company magazine. Now if you’re not a subscriber to Fast Company I recommend that you sign up for it ASAP because it is the coolest business publication on the planet. Check it out at www.fastcompany.com.The article was all about buzz marketing. But this was buzz marketing like I’d never seen. A while back I wrote an article on this very subject that was picked up by a magazine and in that article I talk about how to create viral marketing buzzI discuss how today’s customers are suffering from information overload. They see and hear so many advertising and marketing messages that it becomes difficult to filter out what is valuable and credible through all the clutter and noise. As a result, customers are turning to their friends and associates for purchasing advice more that ever.Well the article in Fast Company took buzz marketing to the limit. The author Linda Tischler talked about a consulting firm that companies actually HIRE to create buzz for their products or services – unbelievable!The company is called; BzzAgents and they literally sell Buzz. When a client signs on apparently BzzAgents searches its database for “agents” that match the demographic and psychological profile of their target customers. They then contract with these 300 plus agents to spread the gospel, as it were. Agents receive information about the client as well as free samples. They have very specific goals in terms of creating positive propaganda and get this: they are NOT paid a dime! They do it because they actually believe in the product or service they are representing.Now don’t think you’re going to rush out and hire BzzAgents. First off BzzAgents rejects 80% of the companies that try to hire them. Their founder says, “We can help a product that has value but we just can’t help a product that’s schlock” (his words folks, not mine). On top of that the average 12 week campaign typically deploys over 1000 agents and carries a hefty price tag close to $100,000. Recent clients include Anheuser Bush, Monster.com and Land’s End. (Look for BzzAgents founder, David Balter as an upcoming guest on the Small Business Hour in the near future.)Worry not. You don’t need to sell you firstborn to create buzz. You can do it on your own in just a few months with a well thought out buzz marketing campaign and a few well chosen buzz agents.How, you ask? It’s quite simple. First you have to have something good to say – a unique story. Then simply start with a handful of loyalists. Give them something special – something that is valuable, in demand and limited in supply. Finally work at educating and inspiring them. Turn them into evangelists. Not for the sake of your product but for their own edification. Then get out of the way.Bzzzzzzzz!What’s that sound? Shhhh listen.It’s somebody talking about your company, product or service.I hope that this “Business Update” has been helpful in assisting you to improve the performance of your organization. For more information on how the Small Business Advisory Network assists companies in improving their performance, please feel free to contact us at 310-320-8190 or email mark@markdeo.comMark Deo

Viral Marketing

Click here to view videoWhat influences customers and prospects? Is it what a company says about their product or service through advertising, marketing and direct sales?Or, is it what other people are saying about the company’s product or service?Surely the later. Then why do we spend so much time and money on traditional marketing, advertising and selling, and so very little on word of mouth marketing?From Your Mouth to Their Ears
Most marketing focuses on building a case for a better product or service. This is good and necessary but it ignores the fact that for many, purchasing is part of a social decision. People rely on invisible networks of friends, relatives and co-workers for recommendations. This is buzz. I have spoken before about establishing a unique identity, branding and differentiation. Buzz is the natural extension of a branding and identity campaign. And it is beginning to take a much more influential role in the purchasing decision.Why Buzz Works
Today customer are suffering from information overload. They see and hear so many advertising and marketing messages that it becomes difficult to filter out what is valuable and credible through all the clutter and noise. As a result customers are turning to their friends and associates for purchasing advice more that ever. Marketing experts believe that the new customer, Generation Y – those born between 1979 and 1994 – shop by word of mouth. In the coming years, buzz marketing may that much more important.Buzz works so well because talking is in our genes. As human beings, we need to talk. We talk to connect with people. Sharing information is essential to our make-up. We talk about the latest movie we saw, the car we test drove, the book we read and so on.I did a presentation on this very topic at the C-Suite briefing we held a few weeks ago at the Queen Mary. To see a quick overview of the event, click on the image above. We will soon have this entire event available to view for FREE online, and will have DVDs available for purchase. Send me an e-mail at: mark@markdeo.com to let me know if you want to be informed when this is ready.

The Struggle Between Sales and Marketing

“We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Walt Kelly, Creator of “Pogo”, 1970Many businesspeople use the terms “sales and marketing” as if they complement one another as agreeably as peanut butter and jelly, but that is rarely the case. In the same way many executives hold the title of “VP of Sales and Marketing,” yet we often find that they will lean strongly toward one or the other discipline.Everyone would agree that both of these functions are critical within every organization and at times must be managed on an individual basis. While many companies seem to achieve some kind of acceptable balance between sales and marketing it is often reminiscent of the way cats and dogs tolerate one another’s presence in the same household. Yet imagine how powerful these forces could be if they truly DID collaborate and attempt to complement one another.More often than not I have witnessed a struggle between each of these functions which often stunts the effectiveness of the both. For example, I have seen entire marketing strategies conceived, documented and implemented without even interfacing with the sales group. On the other hand, I have seen marketing plans that have been completely ignored by the entire sales force while that department pursued their own mission.An equally problematic facet of the marketing/sales dynamic lies in document preparation. An investigation performed by “Executive Decision” an on-line professional resource interviewed Mr. Dave Fowler, senior vice president of marketing and business for Pragmatech, a software company specializing in proposal automation software. He reported that, “90% of content generated by marketing is never used by sales.” Fowler attributes this statistic to a fundamental divergence in purpose. Marketing has little time for varied industries and varied levels. They are focused on broad-based documents and in a sense, ring the dinner bell for sales. Sales teams, in turn, must deal with a specific customer in a specific industry. Despite marketing’s best attempts at document preparation, Fowler estimates that, “sales professionals spend 25% to 30% of their time finding, customizing and assembling content for clients.” No doubt this represents a massive duplication in efforts!Improving the disconnect between marketing and sales doesn’t need to be complicated. Both teams are working towards increased market advantage. While it is a fact that 50% of sales reps currently do not fulfill their quota requirements; this statistic is being partly caused by a global marketplace with heavy competition for an already Internet-savvy consumer. The answer, then, as evidenced by the success of technology companies, may be found in the combination of old and new: by employing sound principles of viral marketing and communication supported by the benefits of new and ever an improving internal culture.If we allow the struggle to continue, we might find that our biggest obstacle to improved brand position, market dominance and key client penetration will be that department across the hall. We may find that the real enemy resides in our own home.Find out more about how to create harmony between your sales and marketing departments. Visit www.sbanetwork.orgHave a great week!