The Leader, The Change, and the Human Being

The Leader, the Change, and the Human Being

Today we introduce our new guest writer, Louise Duranleau. Her introductory post tonight is on change management with “The Leader, the Change, and the Human Being.” We are pleased to present this brief bio in Louise’s own words: I was born in Quebec and raised in the United States. I have had the opportunity to work throughout Quebec, Canada, and the United States. Strategic advisor, project manager, continuous improvement manager, operations manager, and sales manager for several international organizations. My experience from assistant to coordinator, from project coordinator to project manager, from marketing director to sales director, from operations director to consultant, I had the chance to work in a professional and diversified business world. First woman to be part of a North American group of Canadian and American businessmen for a powertrain specialized company in Quebec City. Instigator and collaborator in the implementation of several national marketing and sales projects. Resource person and business link with internationally renowned manufacturers. My areas of expertise: Project Management • Change Management • Process Improvement Management in the Industrial, Transportation, Information Technology and Health Care fields • Sales and Marketing Management • Organizational Restructuring • Communication Plan • Training programs • Development of Management Tools.

The Leader, the Change, and the Human Being

Change seems perpetual all around us. Life, like work, is changing rapidly due to new technologies and easy access to information. We are in an era of continuous questioning, renewal, and improvement. I have learnt to live with change quite well. I am motivated by change because I have, so far, found my strength in it. I am a person who adapts easily to a new environment. Whether it’s a move, a trip to a foreign country or a change in the route plan; I digest, reflect, and then readjust my aim to better adapt to the situation.

Several years ago, I was offered the position of Project Manager for a powertrain company.   Imagine a blonde woman, without adequate training, without technical knowledge, immersed in a man’s world, who is going through a whole new change and who must sell the change; that is, to implement new ways of doing things in repair management and customer service. I made a lot of mistakes, but I managed to complete the project by adapting to each obstacle. I had to set up the project in a branch where I was not well known, to reduce the resistance concerning my lack of experience.

Today, with hindsight, I could reproduce the implementation much quicker. I learned to better plan and implement the change by considering major factors: organizational culture and foreseeable resistance that must be faced during the process of change. The success of a project depends not only on the deliverables, the budget, the schedule, and the team, but also on our ability to manage change within the company.

We can plan everything on paper: the equipment, the resources, the desired results, but we must never forget the human beings directly involved and not involved. The challenges of change should not be underestimated. We must be alert to the reactions of all those who will have to deal with the change, from near and far. Do not hesitate to consult with all groups in the company to get their input on changes that are planned in the company.

Change takes time. The individuality to maintain existing conditions may be strong. One can feel more comfortable with familiarity. There is no need to adapt to things we already know. According to Jennifer L. Kunst, Ph.D.  “This is why it is so hard to break a habit, even if we know it is not good for us. We believe that we need the very thing we are trying to give up.”

Never skip steps or introduce change with force. Michel Crozier, French sociologist, quoted “one cannot make individuals change in authoritarian and coercive ways”.  As a leader of change, it is especially important to understand what emotions the changes may generate in the individuals concerned. We must put the human being before the objective or result to be achieved, because the latter can sometimes seem more important than what the individuals are experiencing during the change.

Before embarking on a project, be sure to include consultation periods with not only management, but also with all employees involved in any way. You would be surprised to get important feedback from employees who are far from being affected by this change and yet can be supportive of the success of the project.

According to Daryl Conner, author of Managing at the Speed of Change, we must also determine whether the change is minor or major. That is, “mapping the human picture and examining the five key areas: sponsorship, resistance, culture (beliefs, assumptions, behavior), architecture (support in place), and capacity (intellectual, emotional, physical, or financial resources) in order to properly plan and manage change.” “Today, we’re seeing more and more that leadership has matured in its understanding of change management. Leaders are recognizing that, at least for major change, they need a lot of guidance around to deal with the human landscape. This support is not around ‘what’ is being changed as much as ‘how’ to execute change so full realization can be achieved”.

In reading many Conner articles, I also believe that as project managers, we need to do more introspection. We understand all the processes, but we also need to understand who are the people going through the changes and remember the values already embedded in the organization.

According to John Kotter, Professor of Leadership at the Harvard Business School, he argues that many projects fail because victory is declared too early. In one of Kotter’s 8-Step Change Model; Communication Buy-in guides us to better address resistance to change. Elaborating a communication plan throughout the process of change is considered a major asset to help understand and share the business motivation to change and validate the relevance of our actions. We certainly must not forget one of the most important phases; a training program to ensure that our employees become familiar with our changes.

When we have a lack of knowledge related to the project, we must focus our efforts on consultation and dialogue. We must do the same when we believe we have mastered the subject. For a project to work, you must build relationships and bring the different stakeholder groups together and validate that our knowledge is still current. We need to have a good portrait and understanding of who the people are.

Never forget that the human being is part of the success in every aspect of our life and our work. They should always be considered at every level during the change implementation and be considered the priority in everything we do. Be on the lookout, prior, during, and after, for people’s reactions to change. Please do not have a preconception and make your own conclusions.

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Friday Filosophy v.06.03.2022

Friday Filosophy v.06.03.2022

Sitting Bull (Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake(c. 1831 – December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota leader who led his people during years of resistance against United States government policies. He was killed by Indian agency police on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation during an attempt to arrest him, at a time when authorities feared that he would join the Ghost Dance movement.[

Before the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull had a vision in which he saw many soldiers, “as thick as grasshoppers,” falling upside down into the Lakota camp, which his people took as a foreshadowing of a major victory in which many soldiers would be killed. About three weeks later, the confederated Lakota tribes with the Northern Cheyenne defeated the 7th Cavalry under Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer on June 25, 1876, annihilating Custer’s battalion and seeming to bear out Sitting Bull’s prophetic vision. Sitting Bull’s leadership inspired his people to a major victory. In response, the U.S. government sent thousands more soldiers to the area, forcing many of the Lakota to surrender over the next year. Sitting Bull refused to surrender, and in May 1877, he led his band north to Wood Mountain, North-Western Territory (now Saskatchewan). He remained there until 1881, at which time he and most of his band returned to U.S. territory and surrendered to U.S. forces.

After working as a performer with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, Sitting Bull returned to the Standing Rock Agency in South Dakota. Due to fears that he would use his influence to support the Ghost Dance movement, Indian Service agent James McLaughlin at Fort Yates ordered his arrest. During an ensuing struggle between Sitting Bull’s followers and the agency police, Sitting Bull was shot in the side and head by Standing Rock policemen Lieutenant Bull Head (Tatankapah, Lakota) and Red Tomahawk (Marcelus Chankpidutah, Lakota: Čhaŋȟpí Dúta), after the police were fired upon by Sitting Bull’s supporters. His body was taken to nearby Fort Yates for burial. In 1953, his Lakota family exhumed what were believed to be his remains, reburying them near Mobridge, South Dakota, near his birthplace.

  • Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love!
  • Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children. 
  • They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbors away from her, and deface her with their buildings and their refuse. 
  • Strangely enough, they have a mind to till the soil, and the love of possessions is a disease in them. 
  • If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man, he would have made me so in the first place. 
  • Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am Sioux? Because I was born where my father lived? Because I would die for my people and my country? 
  • When I was a boy, the Sioux owned the world. The sun rose and set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle. Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them? 
  • What white man can say I never stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say that I am a thief. 
  • It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being, and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even to our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land. 
  • The white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it. 
  • There are things they tell us that sound good to hear, but when they have accomplished their purpose, they will go home and will not try to fulfill our agreements with them. 
  • If I agree to dispose of any part of our land to the white people, I would feel guilty of taking food away from our children’s mouths, and I do not wish to be that mean. 
  • What treaty that the whites have kept has the red man broken? Not one. 
  • What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian. 
  • What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and left me unfed? 
  • Who has seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken? 
  • God made me an Indian.

The Time is Now.

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Relationship Selling: Nine Tips & Strategies on Handling Incoming Sales Calls

Relationship Selling: Nine Tips & Strategies on Handling Incoming Sales Calls

Guest writer Floyd Jerkins closes his series on relationship selling with today’s blog post on nine tips and strategies on handling incoming sales calls.

The radio newspaper was invented in 1939. The idea was that a radio transmission would transfer the newspaper to the device in your home, which would then print it out on a nine-foot role of paper, which could then be cut or folded. Each page would take 15 minutes to transmit, which seems slow in our age of instant news access, but in those days was probably considered revolutionary. It didn’t ever really catch on, but it probably had a bearing on later inventions, such as the fax machine.

The telephone has proven to be one of the greatest inventions ever made but I guess it is a lot like the radio newspaper, if it’s not used right, it is just another device. We are in the “let your fingers do the talking” generation. Customers want to save time and money, so they start making calls seeking information before the make a purchase. Salespeople many times don’t handle these incoming calls as true lead. This misjudgment costs the business thousands of dollars every year. They can be as valuable as a walk-in customer if you handle it right.

Common questions customers ask when calling in:

  1. What do you have?
  2. How much do you want for it?
  3. What is your best price?
  4. How much is mine worth?

A salesperson can quickly gather information as well as give it on the call. Many calls I’ve heard had the salesperson answering every question the customer asks without gathering information to help them understand the customers buying patterns. The salesperson can control the call by just asking qualifying questions.

The goal is to give and get information.

It’s important to be of service to the customer, but also to yourself. Giving out your entire inventory list with pricing doesn’t build value, especially if we are talking about used products because there is no way to compare apples to apples. Find out why they called your business, when are they thinking of buying and other qualifying questions. Asking for the customer’s name and contact number is a fundamental goal. It’s all when and how you ask that makes a difference in the customer’s perception of whether you are helping them buy or if you are trying to sell something.

Nine Tips & Strategies on Handling Incoming Sales Call

1.) Take the Customer Out of the Market and Into Your Business

The overall goal of the call is to schedule an appointment with the customer. You want to take the customer out of the market and into your business. That’s where the money is.

In some instances, the customer may be calling from outside your trade territory. That does not mean they aren’t a buyer. And I get it, there are some sales made over the phone. I am more referring to what happens most of the time.

By planning ahead for your response to each of the common customer requests, you can improve your effectiveness and make more money.

2.) Answer With a Warm Friendly Greeting

Ok, I know that sounds so cliché, but have you called into a business and the person answering the phone just woke up? Or you called, and it sounded like you intruded on someone’s day? The tone and inflections you use create impressions about your business to the customer.

A warm, friendly greeting starts a positive impression of you and your business. When it happens, it is noticeable and can stand out among the prospects other calls where they experienced much less. When it’s positive, it’s the best way to engage a customer on the phone. Think back to the last few places you called. What did it sound like? How did the sound of their voice make you feel about wanting to spend your money with that business? Make no mistake about it; it does make a difference.

3.) Thank Them and Introduce Yourself

In today’s market, customers can buy the same product from five different places or, in some cases, order it and have it delivered to their front doorstep. The key is to make yourself and your business indispensable. Be the resource your customer wants to seek out.

Make a professional introduction of yourself to build rapport. Speak slower than you might in person. Over the phone, there are distractions. Use your full name vs. just your first name.

4.) Get the Customer Excited

Now, this doesn’t mean you pull a Tom Cruise on Opera’s chair. It means that you sound like you interested because you are, right? You want to make more money. You want to create more customer goodwill for your business.

Treat this call just like the customer was in front of you.

Thank them for calling and do that with a positive expression. Listen carefully to what they are saying.

If you are distracted for any reason, don’t take the call. Customers can tell when you are not listening to them. Don’t answer the phone when preoccupied with other thoughts or activities. If you can’t concentrate on giving the customer your full attention, let someone else handle it.

5.) Take the Incoming Call Seriously

Take notes, be a professional, and show the type of consideration you would like to have when you call a place of business searching for a product.

Eliminate distractions and noises so the caller can hear you. If you have loud background noise, recognize that to the customer. You know they can hear it, so recognize it.

6.) Qualify- Take Control by Asking Questions

Don’t let the prospect maintain control with constant questions. I can’t express this enough but learn to ask good questions. I’ve witnessed many salespeople taking these incoming calls only to serve the customer but never win themselves. The goal is to give and get information. If you give out your price list or tell them everything you know, what reason do they have to come to see you in person?

Can you seriously appraise their trade-in without looking at it? I know it’s being done, but I also know it’s a stop-gap measure that can easily spiral into more time and energy to make the deal work when you look at the trade-in real life. I’m talking about high valued trades, not a throwaway product.

Use questions and phrases such as: “What’s that worth?” “Anything wrong with it?” “This equipment will sell for…” “What budget or payment range are you looking to stay in?” Use “availability” rather than “inventory.”

Don’t ask questions like what do you want for it, or what do you need for it? It opens you up for negative questions. Every customer will tell you how great their trade-in is even when it’s not.

7.) Take the Customer Out of the Market and Into Your Business

The goal is to take the customer out of the market and into your business. Schedule an appointment so that you can be of service to them. Imagine if you looked ahead on your calendar for the week, and each day you had 3-5 appointments? Sure, not all of them will show up, but if 80% do, you will have a higher closing ratio of appointments vs. just guessing when they will come in.

8.) Get the Name and Phone Number of Every Prospect

What is the “sales goal” of the call? Is it to give the customer all the information they want and make the customer happy, only to get off the phone and not know who you were talking to?

If you ask, you will get, if you don’t, you won’t. The first rule here is to always ask, but know it is how and when you ask, they determine your success.

You may encounter the customer who won’t give you, their name. Now, think for a minute. If you were the customer under these circumstances, why would you not give them your phone number? I realize there are exceptions to this statement, but more times than not, it is because you didn’t earn the right to get their name.

Can you show enough value, “over the phone” to achieve a higher margin because your business demands it? Yea, some sales are made over the phone but more are not.

Maximize every opportunity! Ask for referrals. I’ll talk about this in a future article.

9.) Use Professional Sales Language and Approaches

Be careful about using industry jargon. What are customary descriptions to you may not be to your customer. You also don’t want to “low-ball” a customer. It’s simply another word for lying just spelled differently. Never lie just to get them in the door, but don’t tell them all the truth to keep them out, either. You won’t win a lot of poker hands when you show people your cards!

You are a professional, so talk and act like one. Prepare questions ahead of time, so you know how to navigate a call like this vs. winging it. Good questions lead to a close.

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Positioning: Who Are You For?

Positioning: Who Are You For?

 

Guest blogger Alex Kraft discusses positioning in today’s blog, with the important question of who you are positioning yourself for? Who is your message meant to target? Are you a partner to your customers?

When you work for an established company, there are certain things that get taken for granted. Customers in the market know your brand and they’ve experienced your products. Opinions are formed based on experience. For young companies, the art of positioning becomes incredibly important.

Wikipedia defines ‘positioning’ as ‘the place that a brand occupies in the minds of the customers and how it is distinguished from the products of the competitors”. How do potential customers perceive your product when they haven’t experienced it and it’s not established? What I’ve learned over the past 18 months is: words matter. It’s remarkable how certain words trigger different responses and can create opportunities or worse, close doors in your face.

One of the major challenges with positioning is that everyone seems to use the same words, regardless of whether they are accurate or not. As I’ve written before on this site, Heave in its simplest form allows dealers/sales reps to quote contractors equipment (for rent or sale) easily on their mobile device. I’m very proud of what we’ve built so far and couldn’t wait to tell the industry….so terms like ‘platform’, ‘marketplace’, ‘e-commerce’, found their way into our positioning. The problem is that every tech company says that they are a platform/marketplace/e-commerce solution. The result is that you get drowned out amongst the crowd and no one remembers anything. Even worse, a customer will just assume your product is the same as one that they’ve maybe had a poor experience with, because of that similar description (without even trying it!).

For equipment dealers, it’s similar. Pick a dealer, any dealer. Don’t tell me who they are, let me guess: do they have the ’best’ or ‘quality equipment’, with ‘THE BEST SERVICE’? Are they ‘customer first’?

Are they a ‘partner’? I remember when I started as a Volvo salesman and attended a factory training session. Naturally I wanted to learn the areas where we had a competitive advantage, something tangible. One thing that I left armed with was Volvo’s superior fuel economy compared to the competition. Unfortunately for me, I was flipping through a Construction Equipment Guide the next week and I see ads for Case promising the ‘best fuel economy in the industry’, same as CAT, Deere, and Komatsu. Now Volvo is just another brand promising the same thing as everyone else. I had to go back to telling customers we just had the ‘best service’….

With Heave, we created something new and started with a blank slate. I became frustrated early on as we met people in the industry. ‘Why don’t they get it?’, I would ask one of my partners. It seemed so simple to me, but I lived it every waking moment. The more I read and researched other companies, the more I came to understand how important positioning is, and how it can set companies apart. I didn’t realize the skill involved in articulating an idea concisely with an economy of words. Once I had an appreciation for the nuance involved, we began tweaking our positioning. As we met with clients you could tell that it was resonating more, and we were getting closer. The final ‘aha’ moment for me was something that I believe every dealer/OEM can also learn from.

Positioning goes together with identifying a target market. A mistake that I know well is not recognizing your ideal customer. In the early days of Heave, I was afraid that if there were 100 potential customers, we needed to appeal to all 100. We couldn’t afford to have a smaller potential pool of customers I thought. Thankfully, I came across a sales trainer named Josh Braun. Josh’s content opened my eyes to how successful salespeople don’t try to sell or pitch to everyone; they focus their efforts on those who fit the solution. It finally clicked for me. Heave is not for the 15-20- year veteran salesperson who has the same 15 accounts for the past 10 years. Heave is for the younger, inexperienced, hungry sales reps who are new(er) to a territory and building their book of business. Have you ever noticed that those who say that “it’s a relationship business” are the ones who’ve had the relationships for 20 years? That saying is code for “this is MY customer, go find someone else!”  This exercise was incredibly liberating for our team because it brought clarity to our mission and removed a ton of pressure. Now we weren’t wasting time talking to those who weren’t a good fit for our product. Do I believe that Heave could help that 15-year veteran salesperson? Of course, but why push a boulder uphill? Go talk to the 50,000 equipment salespeople in the US who are tired of cold calling offices and jobsites, that keep showing up and never get past the gatekeeper. Their manager offers solace by telling them, “Don’t worry, it’s just part of it.  It took me 24 months to get my first crack at quoting Contracting. Now they buy 5 machines per year from us.” That is our ideal user and our positioning followed. Now we were speaking directly to them.

While equipment dealers aren’t starting with a blank slate, there is opportunity to stand out since everyone has been using the same terms since the 1960s. Don’t make the mistake of just copying the competition. You don’t have the same resources as the competition, and you don’t get credit for the ideas if you just are copying what someone else does. Who are the customers that your competition doesn’t serve? Maybe this fresh positioning could be tied to embracing the technology driven changes occurring in the industry? Maybe your positioning can be focused more on certain products or customer segments? On second thought, consistency is your friend, and you can’t go wrong with ‘We take customers to lunch, sign paper contracts, and we stock a lot of parts.”

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