Posts

,

Unidentified but Personalized Content for Account-Based B2B Purchasing Groups. Interlacing the customer buyer stages utilizing Patrick Lencioni’s Six Types of Working Genius styles.

Unidentified but Personalized Content for Account-Based B2B Purchasing Groups. Interlacing the customer buyer stages utilizing Patrick Lencioni’s Six Types of Working Genius styles.

Guest writer Roy Lapa uses Lencioni as his benchmark in “Unidentified but Personalized Content for Account-Based B2B Purchasing Groups. Interlacing the customer buyer stages utilizing Patrick Lencioni’s Six Types of Working Genius styles.”

A content journey map may help you create and share relevant messaging with your target audience at each stage of the buyer’s journey. Further, by aligning your content journey map with Patrick Lencioni’s working genius styles, you provide interesting and effective media to guide and convert unidentifiable decision influencers. Although different types of working genius styles exist among various roles throughout your customer’s company, one needs to remember that the working genius style remains focused on an individual rather than their positional title. Hence, the material created with the working genius style in mind will appeal directly to the individual. In the likely event that account-based marketers do not know all the key decision-makers within a B2B buying committee, this method provides a workaround for reaching the right individuals.


The following table contains a brief overview of the 6 working genius types. 

Everyone has two strong geniuses based on what comes naturally to them and what brings them joy. When developing content, I suggest focusing on one working genius style, or perhaps two when located adjacent to each other. For example, to write a white paper for your customers about acquiring the most out of a semi-automatic intelligent machine, tailor it to appeal to the enablement and tenacity types.

Why produce B2B content according to a person’s working genius type?

  1. Recent changes in the workplace: from a highly structured approach to a matrix, cross-functional, team approach.
  2. Agile work environments allow more voices to be heard.
  3. B2B customers use decision-making groups that span across multiple departments.
  4. Innovative and direct, it appeals to everyone’s working genius style, regardless of title.
  5. In high-value purchases, roles and titles matter less.

 

The following illustration shows the first two stages of the buyer journey and the aligned persona types corresponding with Patrick Lencioni’s working genius styles. Keep in mind the importance of positioning the content to appeal to the individual’s natural working styles, not their title. 

This approach will provide you, the service provider, insight regarding the type of story to produce and consequently the type of media channels to focus on. Irrespective of the buyer stage, various types of media production (video, written, digital, social, whitepapers, case studies) may be appropriate.

 

ABM marketers can create content that synchronizes their messaging with the working genius type (or persona) and the corresponding buyer stage.

Conclusion

  1. Six individual working genius styles (personas) determine your content, not their job title. The persona map aligned to the buyer stage will appeal to all relevant people in medium-to large-sized account for each business situation.  (B2B buying groups)
  2. Consider different working genius types that may be involved with the company’s decision-making process. (Smaller organizations)
  3. In medium- to large-sized organizations evaluating substantial investments, there are typically more than eight individuals involved in the purchasing decision. All genius working styles (personas) will likely be involved.
  4. Media selection (mix, types, frequency) must match the working genius type (persona) and buyer stage.

Works Cited

Lencioni, Patrick M. “The 6 Types of Working Genius.” A Better Way to Understand Your Gifts, Your Frustrations, and Your Team, Matt Holt, 2022.

Did you enjoy this blog? Read more great blog posts here.
For our course lists, please click here.
, ,

Performance Reviews

Performance Reviews

I believe that performance reviews are a terrific opportunity to discuss, with the employee, what is necessary for the employee to do to become better at what they do and open up more opportunities for them in the Company. Further I believe, that for most dealerships this a missed opportunity. Most dealerships don’t do annual performance reviews. In my thirteen years working at two dealerships I never had a performance review. One of my bosses, when I asked him for a review, told me he didn’t believe in them. He asked me “did you get a raise, did you get more money,” I said yes, and he said “well that is your performance review.” Now think about that. This was a man in his sixties, and experienced business executive, who didn’t believe in evaluating an employee’s performance. You have to ask yourself what is going on don’t you?

Perhaps we should consider Patrick Lencioni and his book “The Three Signs of a Miserable Job.” (if you haven’t read it, you should) The three signs are Anonymity, Irrelevance, and “Immeasureability” – (there is no such word). The key sign in this discussion is immeasureability. The individual employee does not know how to measure their performance. Many of you will conclude, like my boss, that it is not that important. I believe it is crucial. People want to please other people. It is human nature. People want to do a good job. BUT someone has to tell that what doing a good job looks like. And MOST do not tell them.

The Performance Review is a perfect opportunity to deal with everything and anything that the employee and the Company wants to talk about. The LWS job function skills assessment provides an objective review of the employee skills and knowledge. What better platform than to have a discussion about how the employee can improve themselves and make them more valuable as a person and as an employee. In my consulting life, and also in some classrooms, I used to use a device I called “Five Things.” Five things that are the most significant in the following categories; to improve operations, that are a pain to do, to make your job better. I start most of the performance reviews I am involved with those five things subjects. Then we talk about them. Think about that list. It turns out that there were a lot of “things” that were on all three lists. The employee and I agreed with what needed to be done to fix those that were on all three lists. That is really positive. It helps the employee and it helps the company. That is the goal of a performance review.

Start with the employee completing the assessment that matches their job. Sit down and talk about it. How did they do? Was that what they expected? Review the classes that we recommend for that skill level. Then conduct a Five Things review. Both you and the employee will feel a lot better about each other, about the performance of the employee and your caring as the leader in the department for that employee. Is there anything wrong with any of that? I didn’t think so.

The choice is yours.

The time is now.

For more information on how our assessments can build Performance Reviews, please visit our website at learningwithoutscars.org

Finally, the Employees!

These past three weeks, I have been walking you through our “Back to the Basics” overview.  We have covered the Balanced Scorecard, the Stakeholders, and now we have arrived at our final segment.  Finally, we are going to take a look at the employees.

Importantly, the last major step on the Back to Basics road is the Employees. This is the group of talented hard working engaged people that do the work in your company. How are they treated?

This is not about salaries and wages, or the benefits your company offers. It is not even about working conditions. Those are fundamentals that will be de-motivators if they are not in line with the marketplace and even a touch higher. No, it is about what the employee sees as their opportunity to progress in the company. What is required to get to the next step in their careers? What do they have to do to earn more money?

When an employee performance review takes place is this a staple of the discussion between the direct supervisor and the employee? One of those subjects should be “What do I need to do to get more money?” This is a critical element in employee satisfaction and that leads to employee retention.

The biggest challenge facing every business today is attracting and hiring and retaining talented people. At the moment there are 7,000,000 jobs that are open in the US. Seven Million! Unemployment today in the US is 4.1%

Where are we going to find these employees?

Today there is some challenge in the view that the “older generation” has of the “younger generation.” They don’t have the same work ethic that we had is a comment I hear all the time. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have to open our minds to employees. We have to create career paths for talented people. We have to challenge our employees to get better at what they do. We have to embrace the Japanese approach of Kaizen – continually improving what we do.

As an educator, I taught education for six years at University, and I had some power over the students in that they needed to pass the course to get their degree. On the job we start having trouble. I reference again Patrick Lencioni in his book “The Three Signs of a Miserable Job.” These three signs are Anonymity, Irrelevance and Immeasureability.

Employees should be able to control their own destiny. They should know what the job is and how their performance is measured. This measurement should be objective and the employee and the employer should know how the measurement is done, where the data comes from, and what calculations are involved. It should be so clear that the employee can measure their own performance themselves. Daily, if possible. How well do you do on that basic element?

Then we arrive at employee development. Each employee should have a defined career path. They should understand and accept that this is their opportunity. There should also be a clear employee development plan. We offer help in this area within Learning Without Scars. We have a “Dealer Profile” that we ask our clients to complete.  This Dealer Profile identifies the numbers of employees in parts and service and product support selling by job category. Then we create an employee development program for each job function. We have a three-year program for most major tasks: in-store selling, parts office, warehousing, service inspectors, service writers, service foremen, and service office. We also offer management and supervision training.

So welcome aboard the Back to Basics train. Don’t forget we have to deliver results: for our customers, our employees, our owners, and suppliers.

Ignore this at your peril.

The time is now.

Friday Filosophy #2015-35

For our Friday Filosophy #2015-35 I want to give you all a quick peek at what we do in our classrooms.  In nearly every one of our learning classes I ask for definitions of three words: ignorance, stupidity and insanity.

There is a lot of hemming and hawing but ultimately we get to the end.

Ignorance is not knowing what to do.

Stupidity is know what to do and not doing it.

Insanity is continuing to do what you have always done expecting different results.

Pretty straightforward, I think.

How can we know what to do if we don’t read? So today rather than put out quotations to stimulate your thinking I am going to give you some authors that you should be reading.

Patrick Lencioni. This man has been extremely busy with ten or so books to his name. All of them are great reads and very insightful. Try “The Three Signs of a Miserable Job” and “The Five Dysfunctions of team.”

The second author is Clayton Christenden. Two books come to mind with this author; “How Will You Measure Your Life” and “The Innovator’s Dilemma.”

Finally are three individual books; Bold: How To Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World and finally Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think.

Fall is a wonderful season for reading. I hope you take some time and get these books and continue with your personal development.

The time is now.

, , , ,

Management vs. Leadership #MondayBlogs

Management vs. leadership is a topic that comes up in many of the programs I teach.  It is often easy to miss the difference.  When we are managers, we see ourselves as managers of people.

You manage processes, not people.

You lead people.

It is not enough to manage the process: you must have clearly defined goals and procedures that everyone has agreed upon.  The days of the “invisible” employee should be behind us.

Remember Patrick Lencioni’s 3 signs of a miserable job –

  • anonymity
  • irrelevance
  • immeasurability

None of your employees need to be anonymous in your workplace.  We spend so much time at work, we all know each other quite well.  The same applies to irrelevance – with a leader in place who has sought and received feedback, each staff member has a voice and is entirely relevant to the work at hand and the future success of the department and company.

Immeasurability.

How do your employees know when they are doing a good job?  It’s important to ask this question, as both praise and constructive criticism play a key role.

Just some food for thought for you this evening.

The time is now.

, , ,

Roles, Responsibilities, & Expectations – Parts & Service Management

It is more than job descriptions and standards of performance

Management gurus and management theory changes like the wind. From Peter Townsend to Peter Drucker to Porras and Collins and Lencioni and many more. It is much more than a cottage Industry it is a full blown educational and consultative foundation. We have gone through multiple iterations of significant things we MUST do.

We must have job descriptions and then we have to have standards of performance for each job function. That was a starting point way back when. Then we got into vision and mission statements and other buzz words. Or how about Total Quality Movement and Continuous Quality Improvement. Now let’s not forget Six Sigma and all of us needing to become “black belts.” Oh and now we have “Lean Management.” In the midst of this we have the Balanced Scorecard and Activity Based Management. Don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of benefits to each of these various “movements.” It is not just a series of passing fads. After all I grew up with Industrial Engineering. At the AED we have the Product Support series. The Handbook. The Opportunities Handbook and the Best Practices Handbook. It is a cookie cutter solution to all of our problems that we are looking for in all of these theories and from each of these guru’s. Would that it were that simple.

But let’s take a breath here and get back to some basics. There is a terrific new book out there from the Chairman of Koch Industries, called the largest private company in the world. In it one of the subjects broached is roles, responsibilities and expectations. I think that this is an extremely important book and it contains a series of good pieces of advice to contemplate.

The roles of the individuals in the parts department and the service department and the product support sales department. What are those roles? What do the employees think those roles are? How about their responsibilities? I believe this is important. Do each of the employees have a clear understanding of that which they are expected to be doing within the company? No, not their job descriptions what is their role? Or have they got to the place that they know what the process is and they repeat it as often as is necessary. This is the curse of our American business structure. We teach you how to do the job and then expect you to do it over and over again until you get really good at it. The Asians with Kaizen have a much better approach; Do the job better each and every day. Do the employees invest their intellectual capital in improving their jobs? Or do they find out how to do the job and then just keep on keeping on? This is a symptom I find in a lot of dealerships. People are doing what they are told to do and working in the business. They are not working ON the business. Do you understand the distinction there?

I believe that the employee who is doing the job knows how to do the job better than anyone else. Particularly better than the boss. So with the arrival of summer I thought it would be good to have each of us read this book on holiday. And then to ask how we can improve our daily lives by doing our jobs more effectively, more with the customer in mind, and more with making ourselves live fulfilling lives. Don’t forget In Search of Dignity by R.C. Sproul either. He reminds us that everyone wants to feel they have made a difference in their lives.

That brings us finally to expectations. What are the expectations that the employee has for their job? What are the expectations that the company has for each employee? This is much more than job descriptions and standards of performance. It becomes almost a “what do you want to be when you grow up” question. Those of you that are still reading might think this is too soft a subject but expectations are hard things. The struggle to attract and retain talented employees is all about expectations. Keeping employees happy keeps customers happy and makes money for the owners. This is not easy stuff.

So there is your vacation reading. The Science of Success by Charles Koch of Koch Industries in Wichita, Kansas. A great read and it is full of excellent points for your consideration and implementation.

Happy reading.

The Time is NOW…