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Skilled & Knowledgeable Employees Pay for Themselves

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Skilled and Knowledgeable Employees Pay for Themselves.

You Have to Keep Moving Forward

During this difficult time, the ability to restrict discretionary expenses has been quite easy. Stop it. Go back to 2019 and you will also find an attitude of restricting the investment in employee development other than for technicians. We forget that skilled & knowledgeable employees pay for themselves. This with many OEMs is encouraged as they affect the reimbursement of warranty expenses. What about all of the other employees in the company? Do their jobs stay the same from year to year? Do what customer’s need and want remain static or do they also evolve?

As a general rule that might be a reasonable choice. It was clearly the truth at most dealerships. Technicians yes everyone else we should hire the skills and that is that.

There could be nothing worse in my opinion.

I will explore inventory management as an example. The traditional world looks at inventory from the perspective of parts availability and asset turnover. I agree. The standards we teach have asset turnover greater than 5 times a year with parts availability greater than 98% for stock items. How do you stack up to those standards?

Today with stock order replenishment for the major OEMs less than a week the turnover should exceed 12 times a year and still hold 98% availability.

Do you know how to do that?

There is a financial measure called Return on Capital Employed (ROCE). If we look at that financial measure from a gross profit perspective then the calculation is gross profit times parts inventory turnover.

Start with a turnover of 5.0 and a gross margin of 35%. The ROCE is 175%. That is a very good number. You receive back in a year 175% of the capital you employed. Now take the turnover to 10.0 and hold the gross margin at 35%, The ROCE is 350%. Or look at it another way a gross margin of 17.5% delivers a ROCE of 175%. Let’s think about this from a different direction – your parts pricing can be influenced by your asset turnover. Lower the fast movers parts pricing from a 35% gross margin to 20% gross margin. Will that give you the opportunity to increase market share of the fast-moving parts. Of course, it will.

The time is now.

 

A New Value Proposition for Leaders

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A New Value Proposition for Leaders

How Do We Measure Success?

Tonight’s blog is courtesy of Ed Wallace, in a continuation of his last blog post: How Do We Measure Success?

Most executives and managers will tell you that strong human relationships are critical to their success. They say they also need their team members and employees to be great at developing and maintaining relationships, collaborating, innovating, advocating for company goals and keeping the organization functioning effectively.  Whether it’s external or internal business relationships, we need to understand how people think and act, what it takes for someone to want to listen to you, help you, work for you, work with you, and even buy from you.

The challenge we face during the pandemic is that proximate relationships are difficult to foster let alone to launch new ones. A recent McKinsey survey indicated that most companies are going to behave like they are as of this writing for another 12 months after the pandemic is over. This leads to what I call the need to become a hybrid relational leader. However, very few leaders take any kind of structural, systematic approach to doing this.

Intentionality

I find it paradoxical that if relationships are so important, then why are leaders unable to display ‘intentionality’ toward them?  The answer is due to the fluid, unpredictable nature of business relationships that makes companies struggle with just how to capitalize on their potential. In fact, many business leaders view developing business relationships as an instinctive mind-set rather than as an approach based on beliefs, new skills, and a repeatable process.  I’ve heard the phrase, “We focus on hiring and growing people with the most magic,” hoping that magic will rub off on everyone else. The common result is a haphazard, almost accidental process of relationship development. How risky is that now that we can’t meet with people in person as often?

What’s Missing?

So, why are leaders missing the relational mark? My experience, through many years of research into business relationships and working with over 28,000 business professionals and 300 companies, has shown me that there are five identifiable principles that lead to intentional relationship development whether it be proximate or digital and, not surprisingly, superior performance.  They are at the very heart of the practice of the most successful leaders at all levels in organizations and life. The Five Principles of the Relational Leader are:

  1. Display Worthy Intent
  2. Care About People’s Goals, Passions, and Struggles
  3. Make Every Interaction Matter
  4. Value People Before Processes
  5. Connect Performance to a Purpose

 

The Five Principles of the Relational Leader

Relational Agility: A New Competency

These principles form a system of beliefs for high performers that Relational Leaders follow and apply intentionally. I define this intentionality as the way Relational Leaders coordinate a principled, purposeful and practical relational approach. This results in a competency that I call relational agility that allows them to bridge the generational, cultural, and yes, the pandemic gaps, that exist today. Through my experiences and research, I know they can be learned, practiced and improved bringing a surprising level of precision to relationships in organizations.

This begins with the first principle, known as Display Worthy Intent- putting the other person’s goals and values at the forefront of each business relationship, creating an exceptional experience for others. Relational Leaders then apply the remaining principles to create relationships that immunize them against all competitors both within and outside their organizations.

We all create plans and strategies for many aspects of life – education, careers, building a home, retirement, and even playing games with our children. So why leave the development of important business relationships largely to improvisation or magic when even magicians have a disciplined process to accomplish their illusions. Relational Leaders deliver on the new value proposition for leadership through a strategic, intentional focus on their business relationships using the five principles and process that I shared in this article. Companies that ‘invest in relational capital’ will be the long-term winners in today’s complex business environment.

The margin for error in business today is razor thin, so why takes chances on your relationships!

Ed Wallace, President, AchieveNEXT Human Capital.

Ed consults with and speaks for corporations and associations across the globe with a client list that is a Who’s Who of Fortune 500 companies. He is the author of Fares to Friends, Creating Relational Capital, Business Relationships That Last, and his most recent the #1 best seller, The Relationship Engine.  In addition, Ed is currently on the Executive Education faculty of Drexel’s LeBow College of Business and Villanova University’s Human Resources Master’s program. https://www.linkedin.com/in/relcapgroup/

 

Four Tough Sales Questions

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Answers to Four Tough Sales Management Questions

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. He has given answers to these four tough sales management questions over the course of his career. 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.

Four Tough Sales Management Questions

As a sales trainer I get to work with heavy equipment dealers all across North America. In this 4-part series I will provide some answers to four tough questions that sales managers often ask me. I hope they give you some clarity and direction as a sales leader!

QUESTION 1: What preparation should I expect my salespeople to do before picking up the phone or meeting with a customer?

Don Buttrey: Most of the time salespeople do the typical prep such as considering the situation, doing some research, or reviewing notes on the customer such as past sales, problems, internal politics, personal facts, previous calls etc. That is important – but it is not enough. Often, at that point they just charge in or pick up the phone and “see how it goes”. I call this, “showing up and throwing up”.

I accept the reality that selling is very dynamic and that anything could happen.  However, one of the most important disciplines and skills I teach is, tactical pre-call planning. When salespeople make proactive calls, they are on the “offense” and they should prepare their offense! What will they say to start? What questions will they ask and how will they word them for maximum effectiveness? What benefits of product or distributor value will they leverage? What is their action-oriented objective and how will they ask for commitment or action?

My short answer to this question is that before every call salespeople should pre-call plan using the SELL Process tool. SELL stands for Start, Evaluate, Leverage, Lock: and each of these steps should be prepared in order to maximize every precious customer interaction. Preparation and ongoing practice are essential. You play like you practice—and salespeople just don’t practice enough.

For more information on preparation, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

Adult Learning & Dealership Development

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Adult Learning & Dealership Development

By Floyd Jerkins

With over 35 years in business, Floyd Jerkins is an accomplished senior executive in business development with more than twenty-five years of successful consulting and training experience across various industries. He’s well known for offering specialized services for business development. His is an important voice on the topic of adult learning and dealership development.

Through lifelong learning and having a host of practical experience from a career of developing his own company’s and leading people, his background and passions serve his customers with personalization and excellence. He’s coached and worked intimately with hundreds of business owners and executives to help them achieve more success. Floyd has led large scale project development and execution on an international platform. Today, he’s providing executive coaching services.

 www.floydjerkinsexecutivecoaching.com

 floydj@me.com

618.218.1763

Adult Learning & Dealership Development 

I’ve often heard that it’s easier to teach a 5th grader than an adult. I’ve never taught a 5th grader other than my kids, but what I’ve experienced first-hand teaching adults isn’t always the easiest.

As a child, we have this interest in nearly everything and are naturally curious. Then we become teenagers and have all the answers. As adults, there is a point where many stop learning about themselves and the ingredients for creating a prosperous career and lifestyle.

Education Creates Predictability 

I’ve employed a lot of people in my career. Through my consulting practice, we helped hundreds of businesses with various employee development issues. Nearly every business segment requires knowledge-based workers. These skilled men and women have to learn more because the business and customers are evolving. Each week and year, they accumulate this knowledge through experience and education.

An equipment dealership evolution is relatively predictable. Consolidation is well documented that the volume owners are shrinking, and the size of complexes are getting larger. As you move from a two-store to a 20 store complex, specific policies or procedures change with the organization’s size and scope.

The knowledge and skills required to operate the business at a corporate level are different, but still predictable, based on the roles and responsibilities. Location management and key production roles like sales and parts and service management are easily duplicatable. Well, easy is not always the case. If these folks need to learn more, where do you get this knowledge?

Typically, OEM’s offer training on various topics. When the notice comes in, key managers look across the room to see who they will send. A few training companies in the industry offer workshops for a couple of days on selected subjects. None of these offer a holistic curriculum-based education model similar to what you find at a local college or university. Why not?

Developing Talent and Bench Strength With Holistic Curriculum

Teaching adults always requires the teacher to develop methods to undo past learning experiences. Adults have a way to tune out things they think they already know or are uncomfortable to learn. That’s why at a college standardized testing is used to create reliable comparisons across all the test takers.

As the organization grows in size and scope, developing talent and bench strength should become as predictable as knowing when the next sale will happen. Growing this talent requires planned approaches to measuring what they learn by their roles and responsibilities in the organization.

Learning Without Scars has developed a holistic curriculum pathway for dealership personnel that measures learning. I don’t see this type of “behavioral education” anywhere in the industry. Here are just a few thoughts to consider:

  • The curriculum allows a dealership team to be taught the same methodology vs. sending your people to various classes that often require that you undo some of what’s taught to match your dealership.
  • The content contains concepts and applications that are proven; it isn’t guesswork.
  • Students are assessed before attending a class to know they are in the right class and the proper instruction level. Then they are tested after a class, so you know that learning has taken place.
  • Online learning classes that include video instruction is a win-win learning model. Students can access information 24/7 365. Anytime, anywhere so they can learn when they are ready.
  • A manager oversees this personal development and knows the test scores to evaluate performance, so there isn’t any guesswork if the learner has learned something.

Many people today want the magic potion to succeed. You can’t take a class and become effective if the teacher or the class material isn’t relevant. It takes real experience and a proven background of success. Ron Slee and Learning Without Scars has been successfully coaching and developing leaders and businesses for 40 years. That’s the facts, and I approve of this message.

 

 

 

 

Training is Hard!

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Training is hard!

Steve received a degree in Electrical Engineering and then served in the US Navy. He started with Komatsu America 1978. For the next twelve years Steve worked through various equipment sales positions before becoming the Vice President of Parts, Vice President of Service. During this period Steve sat on the board of a major distributor in the North east US as well as Hensley Industries. After twenty-five years Steve moved from the OEM side of the business to the Distribution side by joining Tractor and Equipment Company in 2003 as Vice President of Product Support. Steve is continuing his guest blogging in series for us today with a post on the reality that training is hard.

Throughout his career Steve has learned the Industry from the ground up. This allowed him to have a very clear view of what was needed to support customers, employees and owners in their pursuit of excellence. Working at high levels in both the Manufacturing and the Distribution side of the business gave Steve some great learning opportunities and chances to develop insights.  Steve retired in January of 2020.  After spending 40 plus years in an industry we are very pleased to be able to share some of Steve’s insights with you and honored to consider Steve a friend.

Training is hard

The guy that ultimately became my successor drove “Needs Based Training “in our organization.  He assessed the skill sets of each of our technicians and set up a training plan for each one of them.  The training plan is discussed with each employee during their annual review.  Every employee deserves to know how we think they are doing and how we intend to grow their skills.  This is hard stuff. The training for us was divided into three basic slots

  • Basic and remedial training.
  • Intermediate training and skill enhancement and
  • Manufacturer specific training.

Basic and remedial training includes managing scholarship employees at trade schools and online fundamentals training. Trainers have to be special people.  They need to have a deep understanding of their topics and they have to know how to teach.  We all think we know how to teach because we all went to school.  That is a ridiculous presumption.  Teaching is a real skill and a special talent. People have different learning styles and a trainer needs to be able to “read the room” to figure out how to best present concepts to each style of learner.  Technicians tend to be “hands on” people but they are not exclusively so.  Today’s young technician is probably much more diverse in their learning style. We need to be able to assess the appropriate skills each employee needs for their job through testing and the assessments need to continue throughout the employees’ career.  I also think pre-employment assessments are important.

I once had an employee with thousands of hours of training who could only function in the shop with considerable supervision.  The training was wasted on that individual. Why did he get so much training?  He was the easiest person for the Service Manager to do without.  Had we done appropriate assessments we would have found that person something else to do. Skills assessments are one of the best ways to determine who to invest in and perhaps to see who might need to get off the bus. The annual training plan for each employee is quite a task but well worth it. Employees are excited to have a plan they understand.  If compensation is also tied into training it really drives the perception that the company values competence. Your Trainers and Training Manager should probably be the individual deciding who should attend each class.

Of course, they should work in conjunction with the Service Manager but in the end, the Training department should make the call.  That probably won’t be popular but it is a needed discipline.  To make it easier to swallow, the training plan for each employee should be a joint effort of the training department and the employee’s direct supervisor.  Having an annual plan means you can have a training budget by branch and by employee if you want one.  This is hard and tedious but worth it. I once sat on the Tennessee Governor’s “School to Work” initiative.  The board was made up of 12 regions of the state and each region had a business person and an educator representing it.  We had a mediator who was a VP with AT&T who had both an education and a business background.  He told us he would act as a translator because business people tended to focus on results while educators tended to focus on process.  We really ended up needing lots of translation. I think one of the reasons Training is so hard for us is because “process” really is critical to success in training.  As a businessman, I have to tell you that if you aren’t willing to sweat this out, don’t waste your money.

For more information on focused training, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

Digital Marketing

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Digital Marketing

Mets Kramer

Digital Marketing: Billboard vs Engagement

“At the moment, our research shows buyers making 90% of their purchase decision before contacting the dealer.” And there it was. I had been having thoughts like these swirling around in my head for a few months now. But when Charles Bowles at Trader Interactive spoke with me, I had no idea how much our industry had shifted.

I have a theory about Digital Marketing in our construction equipment industry and I believe it can be considered in two ways.

  • First, is what I’d like to call Billboard Marketing, which refers to digital strategies geared towards establishing and maintaining digital visibility. These approaches are often additional marketing strategies, while continuing the existing methods of communication.
  • The second approach is called Engagement Marketing and includes digital activities to connect and develop engagement opportunities with your target audience. Dealers who implement Engagement Marketing consider their digital marketing presence as transformative and suggest these methods could replace most, if not all, past marketing approaches.

There are three aspects of Digital Marketing that I would like to look at and compare Billboard and Engagement strategies. They include Websites, Email Marketing and Advertising campaigns.

  1. Websites

Most dealers have a website today, which is a great start, but the buck doesn’t stop there. Listing your equipment, providing contact information and location falls under the Billboard approach: you present your information to visitors and hope they contact you. However, for Engagement Marketing, your website should provide a virtual visit to your dealership; images and videos of your inventory, and related documents showing the quality of the equipment and records of its health and maintenance. The icing on the cake would lead the visitor to a button they can click on to take them onto the next step. (Replace “Contact for more information” with “I’m interested in Buying”) But let’s be real, this call to action isn’t the icing, it’s the entire cake! How do you measure whether you are leading your visitor into an engaging relationship? Make sure you provide ample information about the machine so they can decide on the spot. If there’s not enough detail, Bowles says 90% of visitors will go to check out another listing to find what they need. Hop onto Google Analytics to help you assess whether you’re Engaging or Billboarding.

  1. Email Campaigning

The next common aspect of Digital Marketing is email campaigning.  Email campaigns are a great way to stay connected to customers and present new products. To use email campaigns effectively, it is important to consider your audience and develop strategies in order to create a continuing conversation. Mail programs such as Constant Contact or Mailchimp provide the tools to send information to tens of thousands of people.  A Billboard approach sends the same message to everyone who drives by it – no matter who they are or what they are looking for. We don’t want to use email campaigns the same way. Instead, consider a more strategic approach, engaging different segments of your audience based off their interests. Provide a mixture of Equipment For Sale messages and industry, fleet focused education. Use the tools provided by the email platforms to understand who is interacting with your campaigns and change the messaging and frequency for each segment to further engage your audience. While email campaigns can feel like a one-way communication, change your mindset and remember, email is most effective as a conversation tool. So, create campaigns that encourage your audience to talk back!

  1. Digital Advertising

Finally, Digital Advertising, whether Google, Facebook or others, are designed to bring visitors to your digital dealership: your website.  The Billboard approach will stop at bidding on generic words (ex. Caterpillar excavator, Komatsu bulldozer, Case backhoe, etc.)  which will hopefully bring visitors to your website to see what your dealership has to offer. But let’s keep in mind that digital advertising can be expensive, so the set up and focus of your advertisements should be focused for an Engagement approach. Let’s milk every opportunity! How about bidding on specific machines that are in your inventory? Specific combinations like Komatsu D65EX, for example, will have less bidders, making them cheaper and bringing visitors exactly to what they are looking for, the machine on your website.

The digital marketplace is real and becoming the source of future sales.  All leading industries are showing signs of transformation into the Engagement model of digital marketing.  Automotive sales, Commercial trucks are some but do not forget about Amazon and similar services. We are all proof that Engagement Marketing and Sales keeps us coming back for another slice.

We will continue this discussion soon.

To continue to develop your expertise in Marketing, please visit our website at Learning Without Scars.

You Have to Keep Moving Forward

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You Have to Keep Moving Forward.

You Have to Keep Moving Forward

This year has been a challenge to everyone and everything we had in 2019. Our health is at risk. Our jobs are at risk and in some cases are gone. Our businesses are at risk. Bankruptcies are on the rise. Everything has changed. And the very foundation of our life in the United States has also been challenged. Our history and traditions. Our safety and security. This is hard for me to imagine.

So, what are we to do? I am not going to become a victim. I want to try and control my own destiny. I am going to move forward.

I believe that what ever we have in front of us we have to face it. Whatever the market is going to be or is, all of us are in the same market. Let’s just compete within whatever world we find in front of us.

In the very first blog we posted after updating our website I wrote “James Belasco and Ralph Stayer, authors of the book “The Flight of the Buffalo,” couldn’t have said it any better “Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up.”

This time I suggest to you change is easier. We don’t have any choice. Working From Home has become an acronym WFH. Imagine? I read an article today where while working from home some people are using Virtual Reality headsets to make it more understandable. Wow.

I want to suggest that we get going again. In their book “Built to Last,” Jim Collins and Jeremy Porras cite BHAG’s – Big Hairy Audacious Goals. I want you to consider that. Don’t nibble around the edges now go for “Game Changers.” Something dramatic. Step outside of your traditional boxes. Spend less time in meetings and more time doing. Minimize long detailed position papers. Get to work. Clarify roles and responsibilities. Ask everyone to contribute. From the buyers to the warehouse floor and to the field sales force, from the office clerks to telephone sales employees. Everyone can contribute.

It has been said that Being Good is the enemy of Being Great. And Being Great is the enemy of What’s Possible. In other words, making progress is better than seeking perfection. Desmond Tutu famously said “If it is to be it is up to me.” Back to you.

The Time is Now.

High Demand Jobs

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High Demand Jobs

This week brings our second guest post from Don Shilling. He talks about the not-so-glamorous world of high demand jobs. Don was born to this industry. In his own words:

Don Shilling

I grew up in a construction family and worked for my Dad several summers during and after high school. Then while working on my degree at North Dakota State University I was hired by a construction equipment dealership. I started in their service department part time until I finished college. Then full-time service employment for a couple of years then transitioned into sales management. During the recession of the early 1980’s myself and three other managers started General Equipment & Supplies, Inc.

First as Sales Manager and eventually as President we grew our business from one location and 20 employees to 10 locations in four states and two Canadian Provinces and over 250 employees. Along the way we developed relationships with area Technical Colleges and created a College Tuition Reimbursement Program where today we Recruit a handful of new technicians annually into that program. Our company has also developed two Department of Labor Certified Apprenticeship Programs to fill hard to find skilled positions. I am currently semi-retired as Chairman of the Board.

High Demand Jobs

In my initial blog I discussed the fact that we need to be able to find good people and then train them. This seems simple enough, except what the Workforce Development Council defines as “High Demand Jobs” typically are not considered glamorous. High Demand Jobs don’t get a lot of attention when our youth are exploring their future careers.

Why is that? We find it easy to blame our educational system and all the College promotional materials out there that tout the excitement of degrees in computing or high tech. But, as they say, maybe it is time to look in the mirror if you want to lay blame. The “High Demand Jobs” are typically tied to industries who have allowed this to happen. Owners and managers within these industries have not taken the time to engage the educational system and demand equal time with our youth as they select their career options.

How Do Young People Discover Us If We Don’t Tell Them We Are Here?!

However, thanks to the Pandemic . . . maybe, just maybe, we have reached a time where we can turn that corner. What we have found in our local Workforce Development Council is the jobs that were lost during the Pandemic were tied to people who are perhaps under-skilled. In some cases, these were people who made employment choices early in their careers that were not focused on these high demand employment positions. In fact, most of the jobs that were considered “essential” during the Pandemic are also  on the “High Demand Jobs” lists. Perhaps with only a little additional skills training we can help the now under-employed find a stable career that is also considered “essential”.

Industry needs to react to this immediately! As Ron Slee says at the end of each blog, “the time is now,” especially for all of us who employ people in these “high demand jobs.” It is time for us to pull together to support the Career and Technical Education sector as it begins the process of re-tooling our unemployed or under-employed.

By support, I mean something very simple: you need to get involved. Perhaps you can start an apprenticeship program, or connect with your local Career and Technical Education system and see what they might need to start a program that would benefit your labor shortage areas. You can work at recruiting our youth and consider helping the right candidates with educational expenses. Bring them into your businesses and show them opportunities they might have never imagined. Let’s get started! You are going to like what you see in the mirror when you do.

For further information on re-tooling your skills, please visit us at Learning Without Scars.

The Woes of Unfocused Training

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The Woes of Unfocused Training

This week, we continue with a guest post from Steve Day, in which he discusses with us the woes of unfocused training. Steve received a degree in Electrical Engineering and then served in the US Navy. He started with Komatsu America 1978. For the next twelve years Steve worked through various equipment sales positions before becoming the Vice President of Parts, Vice President of Service. During this period Steve sat on the board of a major distributor in the North east US as well as Hensley Industries. After twenty-five years Steve moved from the OEM side of the business to the Distribution side by joining Tractor and Equipment Company in 2003 as Vice President of Product Support.

Throughout his career Steve has learned the Industry from the ground up. This allowed him to have a very clear view of what was needed to support customers, employees and owners in their pursuit of excellence. Working at high levels in both the Manufacturing and the Distribution side of the business gave Steve some great learning opportunities and chances to develop insights.  Steve retired in January of 2020.  After spending 40 plus years in an industry we are very pleased to be able to share some of Steve’s insights with you and honored to consider Steve a friend.

Unfocused training is a waste of time and a huge waste of money!

This may not be immediately obvious but I believe that a lot of the training we give our people is unfocused.

A manufacturer tells us that they want our people to attend certain classes at the manufacturer training center or they want our trainers to be able to teach the classes.  We then usually use a very scientific method of choosing who should attend.  We call up our branch service managers and ask them who they want to send.

The day that our chosen attendee is to leave, something comes up and the manager sends somebody else.  The thing that usually comes up is that things got busy and the service manager didn’t want to send the original technician because he is too important to the branch.  The person we end up sending doesn’t learn much because they didn’t have the basic knowledge to get the most out of the class.

But, something just “came up.”

We waste money. We damage our reputation with the manufacturer and we don’t do much for the self-esteem of the tech we sent off to fail.  We also disappointed the good tech that we didn’t train. This happens more than you can imagine.

If you want to ruin your day I strongly suggest you do the following:  Go to your Training department or your HR department and ask them to give you the training record of each of your Technicians and any of your Parts people that work with customers or the Service department.

Tell them you would also like to see this year an updated copy of each of those employee’s skills assessment and this year’s training plan for each of those employees.  I only know about five distributors that won’t be disappointed.

I will continue with these reflections next week.

For focused and sound employee development training, please visit our website at learningwithoutscars.org

The Critical Importance of Measuring…

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The Critical Importance of Measuring…

Today’s guest post, The Critical Importance of Measuring the Customer and Employee Experience, is from Ryan Condon. Ryan is the Co-Founder and CEO of SATISFYD. He has grown from a first-time entrepreneur at 24 years-old, to a business leader with 20+ years of software and service experience. Ryan was an early innovator in Customer Experience (CX) Management and developed a SaaS platform in 2001 to enable clients to gather feedback, resolve customer issues, and drive customer-focused initiatives. The SATISFYD platform provides Customer and Employee experience at every level of an organization and has been used in over 70 countries and 32 different languages. Ryan, his wife Aimee and their family moved from Chicago to Austin in July of 2016 to escape the northern winters and enjoy the outdoors.

Ryan Condon

The Critical Importance of Measuring the Customer and Employee Experience

We are at an interesting and ever-evolving crossroads as it relates to customer and employee experience. Although most believed we were already experiencing a gradual sea change where the importance of physical location on work options was diminishing over time, COVID has forced a more rapid transition to work-from-home/work anywhere opportunities for workers. This sudden change has been challenging for many as they try to adjust to this ‘New Normal.’ Opinions vary from those who think we will never return to working full time in physical locations to those who expect everyone will rush back into a collective space as soon as it is deemed safe.

Regardless of what side of this fence you sit on, we can all agree that things will never be the same. What this exactly means for the future is uncertain, making it critically important that we constantly keep our pulse on the ever-changing sentiment of our prospects, customers, employees, and candidates for employment. While existing employees will most likely stay at their current jobs short-term, they are being presented with new opportunities that do not require a physical presence and may be perceived as less risky to an in-person job. Candidates that you interview are actively listening and evaluating the different approaches organizations are taking to manage through COVID. How these approaches align with candidates’ beliefs and desires will have an important impact on their employment decisions. How is your organization being perceived?

This is a dynamic time

It requires flexibility, forward-thinking, and a willingness to challenge the norms that have made your business successful up until now. Good leaders will attempt to solve these challenges for stakeholders by drawing on years of experience and having a conversation with direct reports. Great leaders will also be sure to collect information from all stakeholders (prospects, customers, employees, and candidates) and constantly make course corrections to their organization as needed. They will also be testing and evaluating the outcome of those changes by continuously listening to feedback from stakeholders.

In these challenging times, it is more important than ever to listen. Those leaders who are able to gather and utilize stakeholder feedback in order to anticipate and adapt to change will have the edge.

We will discuss this more in future blogs.

Please visit our website at learningwithoutscars.org for information on our course offerings.