TAYLOR Performance Solutions

One Day – March 23, 2012 Melville, NY

Not sure if you will benefit from the workshop? Call (800) 610-8170 for a free consultation.

If a workshop is not for you, presentation skills coaching is available as individual training. You can work with a coach in a private setting at your convenience for a reasonable fee. Either click here for more information , call (800) 610-8170 or email us at solutions @ taylorperformance .com.

In the last conversation you had with a business colleague – do you remember more of what you said or of what he/she said? Have you ever found yourself not listening to a family member but waiting for your turn to talk?

The number one complaint that people have of others in either business or personal relationships is “He/she does not listen to me.” Listening is the most important communication skill you can develop to improve how you manage others, sell to prospects, service your customers or interview for jobs.

Which of the following has happened to you because you didn’t listen well?

• The other person got very annoyed.
• The other person stopped talking.
• You tried to sell the wrong product to a prospect.
• You provided the wrong solution to an upset  customer.
• You lost a good customer or a great sales opportunity.
• Your employee complained about you to HR.
• The interviewer said “Thank you very much, we have a few more candidates to interview but we will be in touch.”
• Your customer repeated an objection.

Good listeners know that these things happened because they didn’t listen well. However,  many times people blame the other person or the situation instead of taking responsibility for their own listening.

So, how do you improve your listening skills? Here are three suggestions that are easy to follow:

Always let the other person know you are listening.

• Use body language that is generally perceived as active listening – i.e. – smiling, nodding your head, making eye contact, leaning forward slightly.
• Use verbal reinforcement – i.e. – saying things like ‘okay’, ‘uh-huh’, ‘interesting’
• If you are taking notes, stay connected with the other person.

Tell yourself you are going to listen and clear your mind of other distractions.

• If something pops into your mind while the other person is talking, jot it down quickly, tell yourself you will remember to get back to it and then refocus on the other person.
• If there are distractions you know about before the conversation, create an action plan of how you will approach the situation AFTER the conversation and then let it go.
• If your work environment distracts you, make positive changes. Sometimes just moving your computer four inches in one direction can help you focus on your conversations with your customers.

Listen with Your Ears and Your Eyes

Effective listeners pay attention to both the words the other person is using and how the other person expresses the words. Pay attention to tone, volume, body movements ,facial expressions and filler words when you are listening. Here are some examples.

• Frowning with Voice Dropping – Yes, that is fine.
• Smiling with Head Nodding – YES, that is fine!
• Filler Word – Um, yes, that is fine.
• Moving Forward in Chair – Yes, that is FINE!
• Moving Backwards – Yes…pause…that is fine? (voice rises at the end of the statement)

Each one of these statements includes the same words, but the meaning in all of them is very different. Listen with your eyes and ears to be the best listener you can be.

While it can be difficult to pinpoint the exact reason or reasons sales did not increase, this may be an excellent opportunity to examine your training strategy to determine if your sales training is not hitting the mark. The answers to the following questions may help you identify if you need to make adjustments to your sales training or overall sales training strategy.

How Much Content is Delivered?

To be effective in sales, a person needs the right balance of knowledge, skill and motivation. Too much information delivered during sales training can throw this balance off. When there is five days of content crammed into two days of learning, the result is that the salespeople can’t change anything and don’t have the time to identify where they need to improve – knowledge, skill or motivation.

Is the Focus on the Content or the Learners?

If there are over 100 PowerPoint slides presented during a two-day learning session, the focus is on the content and not the sales people. PowerPoints do not help make sales but practicing in a safe environment and receiving professional feedback does help make sales.

Is Training an Event or Responsibility?

Is the training an event for the sales team to check off their to-do list? Sales training should be a development opportunity critical to their everyday processes and responsibilities. To maintain the development process after training, the sales people should be held accountable for their learning and their managers should be providing coaching to help the learning stick.

Does the Practice Simulate Real Sales Situations?

If the training is generic and teaches your sales team how to sell widgets, there is a good chance that they will not be able to transfer the learning on a real sales call. When someone needs to develop a new skill, it is very difficult to learn a new language or new information at the same time. Make sure the sales training supports skill development and learning transfer by focusing on how to sell YOUR products and services.

Does the Training Focus on the Right Skills?

An accurate needs analysis is critical to developing sales training that drive business results. If your training focuses on closing and your sales team does not have any prospect appointments booked for the next two months, your training investment might not bring the desired return.

Do The Trainers Have the Right Skills?

Your trainers should have both training and sales experience. If your team has a long sales cycle and the sale is somewhat complex, the trainer should have this type of experience to be able to give developmental feedback. If your sales managers deliver the training, they should be able to instruct, facilitate and coach.

Remember that saying, “Watch Your Language” or “Don’t say that!”? Adults say this to kids when they use inappropriate language. This was the negative response invoked when we cursed, when we told the truth but insulted someone, or just said the wrong thing in certain situations. Remember, “Mommy, why is that lady so fat?”…”Ewww, your dress is ugly.” or “This tastes bad.”?

Fast forward to adulthood…do we ever outgrow this advice? No, we don’t. As professionals, we should always “watch our language” when speaking and when writing. Top performers, in our experience, always carefully choose the right words and rarely invoke a negative response. Here are some examples, for managers, supervisors, salespeople, service providers and job seekers, of how our words may be offensive or inappropriate to specific situations.

Managers and Supervisors

As a manager or supervisor, you are a role model and your employees model your behavior and the words you use. If you don’t “watch your language”, your employees won’t either. Your employees create “tool kits” of skills, behaviors, words and actions to use in different situations. Managers and supervisors influence what goes in this tool kit. Sometimes, what goes in is a helpful tool, like the ability to empathize with customers when a situation is frustrating. Sometimes what goes in is not helpful, like when a manager reams out an employee in front of other employees.

Imagine this…your employee expresses a concern about a colleague’s behavior. The behavior makes your employee feel uncomfortable. You don’t think it is a big deal and respond by saying, “There is nothing I can do about that. It is not a big deal and she is in another department so I can’t reprimand her.”  The following week, this same employee asks you for an update on a request he made to senior management. You respond, “They never tell me anything.”

The next day, one of your customers calls and complains about a mistake that he thinks your company made. This same employee investigates the concern and learns that the mistake is actually the customer’s. Which of the following statements might your employee think is the most appropriate for the situation?

• “It’s not our fault.”
• “I am sorry this is causing frustration. Let me see what I can do to help.

Most likely, the employee will use the first statement over the second one. And, unfortunately, it will invoke a negative response because it is implying that the employee doesn’t care and will not take responsibility.  The second statement invokes a positive responses because it shows the employee is taking ownership. However, since the manager has not role modeled the second type of statement, the employee doesn’t have it readily available in his “tool kit”.

Salespeople

In sales, words are almost as powerful as actual products, and in some cases, when two competitor’s products are the same, words are more critical.

Here is a situation reflective of what I have seen too many times when coaching sales people.

A salesperson, who we will call Jo, is meeting with a prospect that used a competitor in the past. Jo is familiar with the competitor and in the beginning of the conversation says, “Wow, I have heard they really overcharge their clients.” The prospect agrees that their pricing is higher than Jo’s but says that the quality is always top notch. During the rest of the sales call, Jo makes remarks like, “Did they tell you they use sub-contractors?”…”When you call, do they answer the phone directly?”…”They are really known for sub-standard work.”

Now Jo may be thinking that these statements will invoke a positive response in terms of getting the prospect to realize that Jo’s company is better than the competition. However, how does saying just one of these statements make the prospect feel? Who is Jo actually criticizing? Jo is criticizing the prospect’s decision-making process and intelligence.

If you or your salespeople don’t “watch your language”, you could send your prospect back to the competition. And, to make matters worse, they will tell the competition all the negative feedback you shared.

Internal or External Service Provider

Everyone has customers. Some are internal and some are external. Regardless, everyone deserves excellent service and that service needs to be perceived and defined as excellent by the customer – not by the service provider. Always watch your language when speaking to your customers. Here are my favorite examples of phrases that invoke negative responses.

“Are you sure?” – My husband and I were shopping and bought an office chair. The cashier asked us if we wanted to buy the purchase protection plan. My husband said no thank you and the cashier said, “Are you sure?” My husband’s body language stiffened up and his tone changed and he said, “Yes, I am sure.” The cashier then said, “But…” and my husband immediately cut him off.

What happened here? The cashier (and we know he was trained to say this) insulted my husband’s decision making process and intelligence by asking if he was sure. The statement implies that the customer does not have full capability of figuring things out on his own.

“Oh, I don’t know.” ( And then nothing more after this.) I called the help desk of one of the “cloud” programs I use. I needed help in figuring out how to complete a task. I also needed to figure out why a process I set up wasn’t working properly. I asked the representative what he thought was wrong. He said, “Hmmm, I don’t know.” And then nothing. So I asked, “Well what if…”. He responded, “That might work.” At this point, I don’t understand why this department was called “Help Desk”. So far, he hadn’t helped me with anything. So I asked, “Can you find someone who knows the answer?” His response…you guessed it, “I don’t know.”

I don’t even think that this last scenario needs explaining.

Job or Promotion Seekers

Every word counts in an interview, especially in this competitive job market and troubled economy. In some industries, a job posting receives 100’s of application.  Always “watch your language.” When interviewing. How do job seekers slip up? Here are some examples.

#1 -        Interviewer: Why do you want to leave your job?

Candidate: They don’t appreciate what I have to offer…My manager is a creep…They got me so p#*%&ed off. ..They promoted someone who was younger and cheaper.

#2 -        Interviewer:  So tell me about yourself.

Candidate: Well, it has been a rough time looking for a job. Ya know how it is.

#3 -        Interviewer: Do you have any questions?

Candidate: No…How soon can I take vacation? Do you guys offer dental?

Each one of these responses is almost guaranteed to result in a negative response.

In summary, in all situations at work or with personal relationships, choose the right words carefully and always focus on invoking a positive response.

For more information about how Taylor Performance Solutions can help you or your team “watch your language”, call us at (800) 610-8170 or email linda@taylorperformance.com.

First Quarter 2012 – Call 800-610-8170 for Date

or email us at solutions@taylorperformance.com

Melville, New York

9 am to 5 pm both days

Employees will be excited about attending training when they know that their instructor will be dynamic, organized and focused on helping them learn. Our Train the Trainer helps you identify your strengths and development needs and provides you with the feedback and practice you need to improve.

• 75% of the workshop is dedicated to practice opportunities and feedback

• Participants are encouraged to use their own training materials if available

• The facilitator is a coach and provides extensive, applicable feedback

• The class size is limited to six participants to allow for ample practice and feedback

Trainers and managers can deliver outstanding training when there is outstanding program design. If you want to get to your next level of effectiveness and improve the skills of your business team, our Train the Trainer may be the solution you need. This program focuses on adult learning principles, developing learning objectives that achieve business results, creating appropriate outlines and developing activities that support learning, develop skills and change behavior.

Fee – $975.00

Email registration@taylorperformance.com for more information.

Or register online at http://taylorperformancettt.eventbrite.com

Five Key Ways to Get a Return on Training

If you are interested in learning how to ensure you are getting a return on your training investment, click on the above link for a short video presentation.

Contact us today to help you design and deliver customized training that brings business results!

Sales Training

Customer Service Training

Leadership Training

Train the Trainers

solutions@taylorperformance.com

(800) 610-8170

Instill these three principles into your business and you can increase sales without increasing headcount.

Principle #1 – All of Our Employees are in Sales but No One is Just an Order Taker

Every employee should know how to listen to the customer (whether internal or external) and how to uncover possible needs during their interactions. For example, if you have receptionists who answer calls from possible prospects, they can do more than just answer the phone and find out who to transfer to in your organization. They should be able to answer basic questions. Instead of just taking a phone message, they should have the skills and confidence to build rapport with the prospect, connect with them so the interaction is memorable and ask a few qualifying questions so the sales person is better prepared for the callback.

Here is another example. How do your technicians or your back office support people “sell”? These employees should be able to fix problems and identify new opportunities. They should have the confidence, skills and ability to have an engaging conversation with your customers to surface needs that your company can fill.

Note – Before implementing this principle, ensure your employees know that selling is not a dirty word. Non-sales employees may relate selling to some of the bad stereotypes of salespeople, i.e. – vultures, no morals, liars, etc. Have a meeting with all your employees letting them know how your products and services meet specific customer needs. Tell them what your sales people do when they meet with customers or prospects. Excite them about the fact that your salespeople have dialogues focusing on customer needs and that they don’t sell things that people don’t want or need. (If your sales practices are not on the up and up then this post won’t apply!)

Principle #2 – Our Customer’s Experience with Us is 10X Better than Our Toughest Competitor

If the experience your customers or prospects have with your company is 10X better than your competition, you are significantly increasing the sales opportunities without increasing staff. If you look at various research on key drivers of customer satisfaction, you will see that price is NOT #1. It usually falls somewhere between #4 and #6. Usually the top five relate to something about the customer’s experience. If you focus on delivering customer service that thrills the customer, they will do your selling for you through word of mouth and referrals.

Now, with Social Media, ensuring an exceptional experience is even more critical. If someone is thrilled with the customer service and overall experience your company provides, and they post the experience on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc, they could potentially tell 1,000’s of people with just one click. Obviously, the dangerous flip-side is when they are not happy so you should always ensure that you retain your valuable customers by evaluating the experience they have with you.

So, how do you know that the experience your customer has is 10X better than your competition? First, develop a clear vision of the ideal customer experience. Then, ask your customers. Find out directly from them what would thrill them and get their point of view. You can learn the customer’s point of view by sending a survey, by conducting focus groups or annual relationship review meetings, by “being the customer” and doing your own mystery shops, or by hiring a company to evaluate through call monitoring or mystery shopping. Last but not least, learn what your competition does. Mystery Shop them on a continual basis and learn what they do that thrills their customers and then figure out how you can do more!

Principle #3 – Our Salespeople will not Become “Stalespeople”

If your sales people become stale, they may lose opportunities and not even know it. You can increase sales without increasing headcount by encouraging your sales team to continually evaluate their sales process and identify what is working and what is not working. What worked last year, last month or even in some cases last week, may not work today. They need to be adaptable and constantly evolving as professionals to maintain a competitive edge.

Simply put, your salespeople should be asking themselves the following questions on a regular basis to identify what needs to change so they can increase sales:

• What is the last thing I say to my prospects? This may be what the prospects use to compare what your sales people offer to what your competition offers.
• How am I managing my pipeline of prospects? Your sales people should have a better follow up strategy than this one. ‘I wanted to follow up and get the status of the proposal I sent.’
• Am I engaging and connecting with prospects from the initial contact? If your sales people don’t connect by listening and building rapport and your competition does, which interaction is more memorable for the prospect? Our memories and perceptions of interactions drive our buying decisions.
• What am I asking my prospects during our meetings? If your sales people are too focused on traditional, transactional type questions, they are most likely missing sales opportunities and doing too much negotiating on price.
• How am I presenting fees or price? Imagine this…your prospect just got off the phone with one of your salespeople. His manager asks him about what your salesperson offered. The first thing your prospect mentions to his Manager is your price. Is this how you want your prospects to make their decision, just on price? Your sales people should be describing the value your products or services bring to the prospect, otherwise you are missing opportunities to increase sales.

Encourage your sales team to conduct regular brainstorming sessions to evaluate what is working and what is not working. This might present a small challenge if your sales people compete with each other for sales. If this is the case, then you or your managers should conduct one on one coaching sessions with your sales people to help them brainstorm the best way to sell “today”!

©2011 TAYLOR Performance Solutions, Inc.

When we reviewed the year, we identified three key changes the clients made which brought some immediate results. They created Standards of Service, they viewed their client’s experience from their client’s point of view and they ensured they had a structure in place to practice and reinforce the training.

1.     Create Standards of Service

I have written about this in many previous articles. Standard of Service are your promise to your client of how you will service them. They are defined by the client’s core set of expectations. Standards can be used to hire new employees, train new employees, develop performance appraisals and survey customers. Standards help your business remain competitive because if they are followed your customers receive a consistent, high level of service. They benefit the customer because their interactions with your employees are efficient and effective which helps them be more productive. And they help the employee because they can self-assess what they are doing well and what they need to do differently to change results.

2.     Understand the Client’s Point of View

Our clients took a few bold steps to view the experience from the customer point of view. They set up silent call monitoring systems to listen to how their service representatives were interacting with customers. They created Mystery Shops/Mystery Call programs to experience what the customer experiences. And, they created and sent their first client surveys to ask for feedback from the client’s themselves. All of these methods provided specific examples that they could use to improve the experience.

3.     Practice after Training

From our perspective, the best approach was when our clients practiced after the training. Managers created real-life case studies and conducted short practice sessions to focus on key skills learned in training. They also told us they had fun conducting the practice sessions, which was great to hear.

What does your organization do to deliver the best possible client service? We would love to hear your feedback.

In 2011, many smaller companies decided to offer training for the first time ever. This brought different challenges. Regardless of the size of the company, here are three good ideas for developing employees to remain competitive in this challenging economy:

1.     Go to the Employee

Ask your employees about the type of training they want or they feel they need. This type of talent management enables you to see just how motivated and empowered your employees are about their development. Also, ask your employees how they prefer the training to be delivered, online, classroom or social media.

2.     Go to the Client

Some of our clients actually surveyed clients to clarify core expectations, key drivers of satisfaction and  the type of behaviors they want their key client contacts to demonstrate. When you go to the client, you are not only able to identify the skills, knowledge or behaviors that your employees need to develop, you are also identifying how to keep your customer loyal!

3.     Go to the Managers

Ask your management team for the specific skills, knowledge and behaviors demonstrated by the top performers. Create training programs that focus on these skills and ensure that Performance Management, Recruiting, Interviewing and New Hire Orientation also align.

How do you manage talent in your organization? What types of best practices can you share?

1. Solid Strategy

Over the past 12 months, many of our clients focused on developing solid sales strategies. Whether the strategy was for the year, the client relationship or their next client meeting, they were specific and well thought out. Since the strategies were specific, results and success could be measured by an increase in the number of sales appointments, an increase in sales and a more loyal customer base as measured by referrals and cross sales.

One type of strategy I would like to highlight was around client meetings. A strength in particular was that they focused on merging two agendas (theirs and the client’s) rather than trying to force their agenda onto the other person. This blending of needs brought a more collaborative approach to the meetings and the ability to drive results.

2. Focus on Skills

The two skills that our clients worked on to improve results were questioning and listening.  They planned their questions and promised to listen to the customer. This is definitely not a new concept but one which takes constant discipline and practice. It is not easy focusing on another individual. Letting go of your ego for a short time can be the difference between you getting the sale or your competitor. I definitely recommend fine-tuning these skills, especially now since the business that is available to you may shrink and you probably want to be the one who secures it!

3. Emphasis on Solutions

When meeting with their prospects or clients, our clients focused on solutions and product benefits, not just product features. What helped them drive sales results with this approach was they did this from the first point of contact. Their voicemails, emails, meetings all focused on how their product provided the solutions their customer needed. They focused on the customer more than they focused on themselves and learned exactly how their clients would benefit from their products or services.
What else do you think is important as you strive for sales growth in your organization?

1) Ask Your Employee to Assess

Ideal Timing – One or Two Weeks after Training

Depending on the skill your employee learned, sometimes asking a few questions can determine if this employee needs some additional reinforcement coaching or training. Here are some examples:

What are one or two things you are doing differently as a result of the training?

The answer you get should be specific to the topics learned in the training. It should mirror the activities or role-plays that the employee completed in the training.

What changes came easy and what changes are more difficult? What are you finding most helpful?

Most adults can change one or two skills or behaviors at a time. If your employee says everything came easy but when you review results (see next set of tips) they are not where you want them to be, you may need to do some reinforcement.

If you think about what you learned in training, what had the most impact on how you do your job?

If your employee cannot come up with something that had a specific impact and this employee had a need to improve in areas covered in the training, you may need to do some coaching and training as reinforcement.

2) Observe Behavior – Review Results – Ideal Timing – 30 to 45 Days after Training

Sales Training

If your employees attended a needs based selling program, they should be closing more sales, achieving a higher cross sell ratio and they should be having rich dialogues with your customers. You can quickly identify if your salespeople are reverting to a transactional approach if their first question or comment to a customer is focused on either the transaction request or a product.

Example – This sales person may need reinforcement training or coaching because the response is too transactional/reactive:

· Customer – I would like to open an account…purchase a couch…sign up for your services…

· Your Sales Person – What account…which couch…which services?

Example – This sales person may not need reinforcement because the first response is focused on the customer and what the customer needs:

· Customer – I would like to open an account…purchase a couch…sign up for your services…

· Your Sales Person – Great. Thank you for coming in. My name is Linda. What is your name? What brought you here today? We have many accounts…couches…services…in order to identify the right solutions for you, do you mind if I ask you some questions?

Customer Service Training

Observe your customer service employees after a customer transaction. Listen to what they say (or mumble). Observe how they hang up the phone. Pay attention to their body language.

What can your observations tell you about the need to reinforce training? Well, if the training focused on how to ensure customer’s expectations are met and exceeded, regardless of how difficult the customer may have been, your employees shouldn’t be complaining about the customer after a transaction, shouldn’t be mumbling ‘what a pain …’ and definitely shouldn’t be slamming down the phone.

If your training focused on the skills of communicating with customers, even when they are angry, your customer service employees shouldn’t look stressed during or after a customer interaction. They should be ready to move on to the next customer. Their body language should always be approachable and their voice calm.

Is it time to protect your investment?