What is your PEOPLE strategy? When should it begin?

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What is your PEOPLE Strategy? When should it begin?

What is your PEOPLE strategy? When should it begin?

In this week’s guest blog, Don Shilling addresses your business and asks the question “what is your people strategy?” Not only that, when should it begin?

What is the “definition of a expert”? . . . . . I once heard that an expert was a factory rep at least 50 miles from home who was at your business to give you advice!

As I put words down on this page, I am in admitting I am not an expert. I just like to share thoughts and if you think they make sense then you can figure out how to implement them.

We have all gone through the exercise of developing a business strategy. Most sound a lot alike . . . .  and after we have meetings and cover the walls with Post-It notes or flip chart pages our “Strategy” may be to Increase sales by 5%, or perhaps develop a new store location in new and active part of our territory, maybe we will upgrade 30% of our vehicle fleet, or our focus might be looking for that new idea like taking on a new product line. Your team I am sure puts a lot of effort into this exercise and at the end of the day it all makes sense and gives you a map for the future.

Sometimes our strategy includes elements related to people and sometimes perhaps it is brushed off! The interesting thing is each strategy, like it or not, has to include people. The people who we either need to be hired or the people we must challenge to change to fill the new roles we need to execute this new bold strategy.

Today in our current environment it might take 60 to 180 days to fill a skilled position if you can find that person at all. As I mentioned in a blog before, we grow our own skilled technical people and that takes much longer than just a couple of months. Whether you promote from within or just need to re-train existing people it takes just as long. We must be prepared to admit this will probably be our weakest link in our strategy and address it far in advance of the annual Strategy Session if we want any of our strategies to succeed.

In an earlier phase of my career I was CEO of my organization back when I spearheading strategy development. I soon realized that was not just HR’s job to fill positions, it was mine! Not to “micro-manage” HR or replace them but to assist HR in getting involved with “People Attraction”.

Now People Attraction can take on many forms. We did the same everyone does, we checked our wage packages, our benefit packages, we talked about culture and we did employee rewards programs, reviewed our facilities to make sure they were safe and comfortable for our workforce.  We all have to do that!

However, I felt compelled to go beyond that. I started by getting involved in local Technical Colleges where we might find our next employee.  We tried serving on Advisory Boards and helping connect with these Institutions on a more intimate basis. We got involved in the local Chamber of Commerce committees that dealt with employment practices and trends. Made an effort to get involved with State Technical Education Agencies to see what was going on and to give advice and donations of resources where it made sense to promote our industry.

Last but not least I got involved with our local Workforce Development Council. In our State it is Governor appointed and encompasses a cross section of people and agencies in the State where we get to together and work to solve workforce issues. In most cases we have developed recommendations to our State legislature in development programs to attract, educate or retain our workforce. I have testified numerous times to Legislative Committees to spell out to them the needs of business and industry in our region and promote the things that will improve our workforce efforts. For example, last session we got a law passed to make tuition reimbursement to an employee not subject to income tax and we help enact a program to provide State matching dollars with private dollars for “High Demand Jobs” tuition education reimbursement.

This was kind of a “hidden” part of our strategy. Has it worked you might ask? I think so. As frustrating as it can be to deal with a cross section of leaders from industry, labor, education and government it is worth the effort.

Now when we sit down and set a strategy where perhaps we think we need a half dozen additional skilled employees to increase our market penetration it becomes an attainable goal and not a goal where are the end of the year, we have excuses for its failure. To sum up – as an Executive in your organization you must get involved and become part of the Strategy before there is a Strategy! Good luck.

Prospecting and Account Penetration

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Prospecting and Account Penetration

Prospecting and Account Penetration

Prospecting and Account Penetration: Virtual Selling Tips related to Vital Selling Regimens. By Don Buttrey, President of Sales Professional Training, Inc. For today’s guest blog, Don shares with us the unique challenges of prospecting and account penetration in the virtual world. In the world of “before,” it was a given that we could meet with our customers. This new normal challenges us to innovate our processes.

Not being able to drive around and see what is going on in the field is a problem today. We have to be creative with how we do our prospecting. Using the phone is much more effective in numbers it is the quality not the quantity that gives us some trouble.

Prospecting and Account Penetration

  •  Now is the opportune time to find and develop new accounts and new relationships within existing accounts!
  • Slower markets put pressure on ‘price’. But you can overcome that with good fundamental selling. One of your best negotiation strategies is to increase your prospecting. Having more deals in process (better participation/market awareness) gives you more power. The more deals you have in the pipeline – the better!
  • Have thick skin. Do not take rejection personally. Be carefully persistent. If they are a potential customer, they will appreciate your proactive effort!
For more information on our classes and assessments, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

Complacency

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Complacency

Complacency

Tonight’s guest blog on Complacency is from Ross Atkinson. Ross spent his entire 33+ year career in the Heavy Equipment software marketplace with PFW/ADP/CDK. He was the architect and software designer for most of the applications in the rewrite of the core Dealer Management System called IntelliDealer. Having been in many roles with the Company from installation to ownership, he has first-hand knowledge of the system requirements of dealerships and the people who use it. His specialty is the ability to design and create solutions to ensure the best user software experience possible.

Complacency

Even for the most computer savvy person, the rate of software change can be overwhelming. In many cases, your staff is too busy and is not given the time to understand what the changes are before yet another iteration has been introduced. I guess that could be the subconscious excuse for never venturing beyond the basic functionality and just using what they know to get through the day. Simply said, complacency!

From my many years in the heavy equipment software industry, I learned that there are few exceptions to this statement, however, the dealers that do overcome this self-inflicted shortcoming are very successful, not only in the utilization of their business system but also financially.

How do you make time?  Well, it starts from the top down: a commitment from management to the ongoing education of those who use the software every day. You educate your technicians so why not the rest of your staff who use their “tool”, your business system software?

I can also guarantee you that there is functionality that your business system has today that you are not using or are even aware of. You need to understand what’s available at your fingertips. This is followed by the opportunity to test the features and functionality first hand. It’s one thing to sit in a classroom or virtually listening to trainers, it’s another to try it yourself and see it in action; using your data.

Through this learning process, your staff can determine how these capabilities can benefit your day-to-day processes. The goal is to improve efficiency but also the opportunity to gain a better understanding of your customers and the services you offer.

Once you have mastered the commitment to education, challenge yourself and your employees to understand how you can “tweak” or change your business processes to take advantage of functionally and systems you previously deemed unusable.

I recall doing some classroom education many years ago when the dealership principal stood up, interrupted my session, and made the following statement to his staff, “Not changing is not an option!” Imagine if that was your dealership motto?

For more information on our classes and assessments, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

The Overlooked Telephone Salesperson

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The Overlooked Telephone Salesperson

Please enjoy our second vlog of the year.

Planning to Succeed or NOT?

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Planning to Succeed or NOT?

Planning to Succeed or NOT?

In his latest guest blog, Brad Stimmel shares with us the readiness of leaders for the next stage in “Planning to Succeed or NOT?”

Every good business leader that I have ever encountered make plans for the coming year.  And every plan has the first goal of creating success for that same period of time.  But are you sure you are making all the arrangements for your plan to succeed or are you just setting yourself up for unintentional failure?

The styles of annual planning process differ greatly depending on many factors of the company and its leadership.  In each company, the different styles of plans are usually financially driven.  And, of course, then it is broken down into its components by department and then by revenue, expenses, and profit.  This is pretty much the basic process done in many different manners by every company.  In some companies it is done from top management down and some companies it is created middle management up.  All of it will sum up to a potentially successful plan that is aimed at reaching the company goals for the coming year.

But there could be missing components that are equally as important. Ones that, if left undone, could increase the probability of failure to reach the company financial goals.

The concept is reduced to a twist on an old cliché quoted from an anonymous source:

“Ready, Fire, Aim”

It can be further qualified this way:

  • “Ready” means your standard financial plans that are well done and created with good planning and collaboration.
  • “Fire” means the approval, communication and launching this great plan for the coming year.

But… is everyone on your team “Aiming” in the right direction or even the same direction as others?  Usually not.

If each of your team members have not personally created a set of Measurable Objectives that will move their department and their personal efforts in the direction of the financial plans, then the probability of failure is much higher.

As Peter Drucker states:

“Objectives are not fate – they are direction.  They are not commands – they are commitments.  They do not determine the future – they are means to mobilize the resources and energies of the business to make the future.”

All managers and Sales representative should create a set of measurable objectives that create success for them and their departments.  The objectives should be specific milestones that are productively moving toward the overall company financial plan.  They should have specific dates to target and well-developed action plans to accomplish over time. They should name any collaboration required with other members, vendors, or departments. And finally, they should be agreed to by their supervisor but never dictated by him or her.

As Drucker says, “There is a great difference between doing things right and doing the right things!”

This objective plan should be cascaded to all managers and sales representative at all levels. The higher the agreement and the clearer the communication of these objectives up and down the organization, then success is almost inevitable.

The last important step after the objective planning is to complete a quarterly review on progress toward the objectives with each participant.  NO penalty and NO reward should be offered.  Just check for progress.  If the objectives are just filed away in a cabinet until the end of the year, then most likely not much will change until the end of the year. And then it is too late.

So here is the summary of the ESSENTIALS OF OBJECTIVES PLANNING.

  1. Individuals determine their objectives and share with their supervisors. They both agree upon and state very precisely the specific results that are to be accomplished by a specific future date either by the individuals or by the units they manage.
  2. These same individuals work enthusiastically to achieve the expected results because, in the process of developing their objectives, they have become sincerely committed to achieving them.
  3. Regularly, the results achieved by these individuals and the units they manage are measured and reviewed at least quarterly. (I suggest a dashboard be set up for each individual member if your enterprise management system software provides this option.)

This whole concept is carried along on a wave of increased communication.

“The clearer the idea you have of what it is you are trying to accomplish, the greater the chance of accomplishing it.”

For more information on our classes and assessments, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

Skill Levels and Assessments

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Skill Levels and Assessments

Skill Levels and Assessments

As with everything we do in the “Learning” business we are constantly adjusting our Learning Paths and Skills levels to reflect the scores we have been seeing from our Job Function Assessments. We are going to change the “Names” of each of the levels. We have used Basic, Intermediate, Advanced and Expert. Those are terms that we felt everyone would understand. We are going to change those terms now to use those most common in education. Now we are going to call the Assessments Levels Developing, Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced.

Let me explain what they mean:

  • Developing
    • This is the phase of an employee’s employment where they are learning the job, they are being trained, either by mentor or their boss, in how to do the job. This is in keeping with Don Shillings approach to employee development – “Grow Your Own.” This is an apprenticeship approach. Here is when they are shown how to do the job and then helped to do the job. This is before the employee is given the full control on their job. There is direct supervision of the employee in this phase.
  • Basic
    • This is the phase that the employee is in when they know how to do the job. Now they are learning how to take advantage of that knowledge and put into action their particular skills and competencies to make their job more effective. This is when the supervision tapers off and is no longer on a tsk by task or day by day basis.
  • Intermediate
    • Is the phase where the employee knows how to do the job better than most other people. They have a level of competency that requires less direct supervision. We must always remember that every individual starts their work experience with their job as an excited person. They are starting a new job and they are excited. Then depending on how the leaders treat them they will either grow into a self-reliant achiever or disillusioned and demotivated employee. It is really more dependent on the type of leader than the type of employee.
  • Advanced
    • This is the final phase of the learning path. A self-reliant employee who is ready and able to take on additional tasks and job functions. This is the final stage of this step on the career path of the employee.

We are also changing the threshold scores for each of these levels. We started with quartiles (25% blocks). That each individual taking our assessments would be coming to us with similar skill levels based on the standard score rating of quartiles. Twenty five percent blocks. We have found, based on the result of the assessments and our discussions with the employers that this does not apply in our Industry, nor for our employees. It is rather a triangle where we have a lot at the bottom of the triangle and a much smaller group at the top. We are moving to the following skill levels.

Developing                        0% –   50%

Beginning                        50% –   75%

Intermediate                   76% –   90%

Advanced                        91% – 100%

This is a significant change, but much more accurate relative to the skills of the employees by job function. It is important that we share this with you, our audience and clients. Thanks for your interest in our programs and we will continue to strive to improve and adapt our programs as the facts dictate.

The Time is Now

Out on a Ledge

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Out on a Ledge

Out on a Ledge

In this week’s guest blog, Sonya Law takes us Out on a Ledge with a look at the end of the year performance review.

How to jumpstart the EOY Performance Review to drive high performance in 2021? Out on a ledge … is how it can feel like sometimes for employees walking into their end of year review… It’s a mixed bag of dread and discomfort which only serves to weigh you down.  These negative feelings brought about by fear from past experiences where managers have got it wrong by using it as an opportunity to dredge up past mistakes for the first time.  Or worse they gloss it over and this indifference only serves to strengthen a performance culture of mediocrity and completely devalues the review.

As a Human Resources Manager, I feel like this is a missed opportunity to re-connect and re-engage the effort and performance of your employees leading into 2021.  After all, aren’t we all striving to create High Performance Cultures?

As managers we are really good at ‘what went well’ but often fail in asking employees what are our biggest challenges and what needs fixing.   Instead, we wait to ask the employee who has resigned in the exit interview, when it’s too late.    Organizations that facilitate honest, open dialogue will solve problems faster and improve overall innovation and performance against rivals.  Our ability to reflect on the year, our performance and grow together as human being’s and as an organization is a comparative advantage in Business.

So how do we conduct a good EOY review and what is it worth to the organization?

The three key success factors of a good EOY review are approachability, attention, appreciation.

Approachability: your manager is open and communicative in the review, in his or her language both verbal and non-verbal, this congruency builds integrity in the relationship and review.

Attention: the greatest gift, they give their employee their 100% attention.  That is, they don’t answer phone calls or send emails, they have committed to this time, they don’t re-schedule or put it off.  This is a big no-no rescheduling an EOY performance review! Where practical always commit to this meeting, it sends a bad message to the employee if you shift it, they feel deprioritised.

‘People want to feel heard, listened to’

Simon Sinek – virtual event – 24th November, 2020 – The Infinite Game.

When you do this well morale goes up, trust goes up they feel you have their back and it reduces fear and if you show care and exercise your empathetic listening skills your people will even be willing to suffer stress for you.

Encourage your employees to come to the meeting with what they see are the challenges and what needs fixing.  Resist the temptation as a manager to fix it for them, by giving them the responsibility it activates thinking.  Ask them what do you think? How would you solve it? Managers tell people what to do; but true leaders help people feel safe, promote thinking and drive a culture of Empowerment, where employees are empowered to make decisions impacting their work. You can take this a step further and if you here the language of blame, for example they ordered the wrong part, simply replace they with we ordered the wrong part. It’s a subtle way to encourage teamwork and accountability. To read more about this see Book titled: “Turn the Ship Around” by David Marquet, former nuclear submarine commander.

Appreciation – As the manager it is your role to show appreciation to your employee for their valuable contribution over the year.  You would be surprised how many managers fail to do this, and only tick the box – did they achieve goal – yes or no.  My top tip to get into the role of an appreciative manager, is to imagine that your star performer is walking out of their EOY review into a call with a ‘headhunter’ following your meeting!  What do you want your star performer to say when the headhunter dangles the carrot and tries to poach your star performer? You want them to walk out of the EOY review feeling inflated like a balloon filled with all the warm and fuzzy feelings that make us feel giddy when we are in love! Think about it like your most important relationship, reconnect, reengage them in the cause, vision, purpose, mission and the important role they have in that, we all want to feel connected and sense of belonging.

How do you prepare for this EOY review with your employee?

  1. Create an Appreciation folder in your Outlook for your employee.
  2. Collect things – throughout the year – note all the good things they do.
  3. Drop any emails into that folder – things you write yourself to remind you of the good things or emails you get from customers, suppliers or colleagues about how fantastic your star performer is, achievements etc.

Top 3 things to remember:

  1. All your employees are star performers
  2. You hired them or someone else in your organization did so and its up to you to make sure they fulfill their potential
  3. If they are a poor performer why did they make it to the EOY performance review – that’s a bigger organizational culture question, which would require some deep work.

So, what’s it worth to you?

If you don’t get this right – Instead of putting a STAR on top of the Christmas Tree this year you will be putting a job vacancy up online to look for a new STAR performer.

An EOY review is a great opportunity to unite your people in the cause so they are bursting with new energy heading into 2021, ready to face new challenges, refreshed and reinvigorated.

For more information on our classes and assessments, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

Call Reporting

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Call Reporting

Call Reporting

Virtual Selling Tips related to Vital Selling Regimens, by Don Buttrey, President of Sales Professional Training, Inc. Today, Don shares with us the importance of Call Reporting in Customer Relationship Management.

Let me discuss some items requiring more discipline and attention in this “Virtual” world we are living in today.

Call Reporting

  • If working remotely, it is even more critical to include to define your commitment to some specific start/stop times and aggressive guidelines on how many calls you will make each day. Own it. Be accountable. Do the grunge work. It will pay off in the long run! If you coast or get distracted it will bite you. Get fired with enthusiasm! . . .or . . . be ‘fired up’ with enthusiasm!
  • Set target ‘guidelines’ to make more calls/touches in this current market! And that is now feasible due to elimination of travel time. Use that to your advantage and be tenacious with the discipline of proactive calls! The slower the market, the harder we must work as salespeople! No excuses.
  • Mix up your touch points such as phone, email, video etc. Try multiple approaches until you connect. Do not give up.
  • Monitor and document communication preferences in your CRM for each contact (such as email, text, call, video –Zoom, Meet, TEAMS, FaceTime, etc.)
For more information on our classes and assessments, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

Apprenticeship Holds an Important Key to Workforce Solutions

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Apprenticeship Holds an Important Key to Workforce Solutions

Don Shilling

Today’s blog post, “Apprenticeship Holds an Important Key to Workforce Solutions,” is a new contribution from Don Shilling.

Brandeis Machinery Inc was recently recognized by the Associated Equipment Distributors trade association for their Industry Recognized Apprenticeship Program (IRAP’s) a program which they initiated in 2015. They are “Growing Their Own” as I have mentioned in my previous blogs. Apprenticeship Programs may be an important key for your organization to participate also in “Growing Your Own”.

Our company developed two Department of Labor Certified Apprenticeship Program a few years back and I must say when you throw around words like “Certification” or “Department of Labor” into the discussion it may sound a bit scary, or cumbersome or onerous. Not True. Let me explain by describing our experience, hopefully after this exercise your organization might be comfortable in developing your own Apprenticeship Program and start solving your own workforce shortages.

The Department of Labor has literally scores of certified apprenticeship programs reviewed and approved each with standards to follow and give guidance. If you go to their website you probably identify an apprenticeship program that exists and fits your needs. Great if that works. If you call your local Department of Labor Apprenticeship Office, they can help you in setting up your own program that follows those existing standards.

In our case, it was not so simple. The two programs we developed were not on the existing DOL list of apprenticeships. We decided to develop our own and not to jump to far ahead in this story but with the help of the Apprenticeship Director at our local DOL Office he approved the elements of our program that were different and married them with an existing program, to catalog a new unique program which is what we have.

A typical Apprenticeship Program is three years in duration and 6,000 man hours of mentoring and on the job training. Your supervisors are the ones monitoring and mentoring the Apprentice and they sign off on completion of each phase of this training.

In our case, we identified skill areas that we felt were more important than others and those areas needed additional skills training for an apprentice in our industry. We also identified Technical college classes we required the apprentice to enroll in, whether On Line or in the Classroom. Our goal was to fit some classroom work into a schedule the apprentice can handle and the On the Job skills training in most cases paralleled the classroom work.

When you break down our Apprenticeship Program it is more like 4,000 to 5,000 man hours of On the Job Skills training and about 1,500 man hours of classroom and on-line learning. On line learning does not have to be limited to Technical College credits but Certified Programs with measured results are important. Besides technical classes we also selected important classes like Safety, First Aid, Forklift Operation, Customer Service, Marketing and Inventory Analysis.

Once reviewed by the DOL Apprenticeship Director our program was signed off on and approved for Certification. As the Apprentice completes each phase of this program, we report to the DOL and at the end a Certification will be awarded to the Apprentice. The Apprentice owns that and takes it with him/her just like a diploma from a Technical College.

What is wonderful about the program is these individuals working through our apprenticeship program have exactly the skill sets we want and we needed. Very positive for us. The real winner however is the apprentice. An apprentice that has worked for you for three years and has achieved his certification is not only proud and loyal to your company but is on a career track with the skills to advance within your system.

Finally, the Department of Labor currently has a major push in place to expand on Industry Recognized Apprenticeship Programs (IRAP’s) thus many local State Agencies have access to funding from the DOL to develop and support these new Apprenticeships. It would be well worth your time to identify where an apprenticeship might work in your business and how that apprenticeship position needs to be configured to best fit your needs. Seek out help from the DOL and local agencies to bring this initiative into your organization. Today the skilled workforce will no longer be just “delivered to your door step”, instead you must develop a pathway for careers in the industry and ways for our youth to access those pathways. Good luck on your Workforce Development journey.

 

It’s Time for Implementation

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It’s Time for Implementation

It's Time for Implementation

As with everything we do implementation is the critical element to our success. As it’s time for implementation, here are some thoughts for you to consider.

HELP! I’m in CRM hell!

From my extensive work in training equipment dealers, I have observed the challenges that most of them confront. If a dealer is in the early stages of selecting or initiating a CRM, here are some important concerns to anticipate:

  • Connectivity problems – especially in rural territories.
  • Integration and compatibility with operating systems and existing databases
  • Customization flexibility and speed of requested changes or revisions of the structure or fields.
  • Technology comfort barriers of the users
  • Data entry time requirements and user-friendliness
  • Ownership of the importance by sales and support (facilitated by training)
  • Adoption and utilization of all functions (calendar, quoting, opportunities, machine population, service history, account prioritization and call frequency)
  • Integration and compatibility with all segments or functions of the dealership (service, parts, other divisions-such as power generation/GPS technology/allied products/etc., rental)

If you want to add more to our list please let us know by email. Good luck in your journey to implementing this important sales and sales management tool.

Don Buttrey is the president of Sales Professional Training Inc., a company that offers in-depth skill development for sales professionals and sales support. He has trained thousands of salespeople over 25 years and clearly understands the selling environment of equipment dealers and manufacturers. His curriculum is comprehensive and proven! Don is also the author of “The SELL Process”, a foundational how-to book on effective sales interactions.

Don can be reached at (937) 427-1717 or email donbuttrey@salesprofessionaltraining.com. 

Check out this website link salesprofessionaltraining.com  for more information – or to purchase online sales training.