To truly understand the value of your frontline do yourself a favor, go out and work on the frontline for a day. Is it really that easy to balance sales and service? Is it really that easy to keep a positive outlook after five consecutive rejections, three of which came from irate and disgruntled customers?

The pressure to repeat the process 10, 20, or 100 times a day can be exhausting, to say the least. Most decision makers in sales and service organizations were not promoted from the frontline, and have therefore never actually spent much meaningful time there. Putting yourself on the frontline will provide you with a completely different perspective and appreciation for what really goes on and what it takes to be successful.

Understanding and appreciating the challenging nature of frontline work is a critical first step to executing a successful sales and service program on a universal scale.

Creating a cohesive team from a group of independent workers with diverse backgrounds, abilities and aspirations takes patience, persistence and clarity of vision. Will it be hard work? Undoubtedly. Will it be worth it? Absolutely.

The following four environmental elements have been proven to move incongruent groups into effective teams and have a dynamic impact on how organizations function.

Commitment Through Input

Dictated goals and mission statements do not inspire. If you want your team to be fired up about the company’s direction, let them help shape it. Soliciting and using organizational input to craft a vision everyone shares will tether employees together toward the company direction. Whereas before, employees had nothing to lose if the company did not achieve its vision, now each person has a personal investment in the goals set.

Personal Accountablity and Leadership

The most progressive companies have learned that only through universal accountability can they function at their highest level. Circular models in which employees are interdependent and self-policing are highly effective. If you want your team to hold itself accountable, give each team member something to lose for poor performance and the ability to do something about it.

Collaboration and Trust

If there is a potential landmine that can derail the best team building efforts, it is the inability to resolve conflict harmoniously. Therefore, you must keep lines of trust and communication open by valuing all contributions, regardless of employee position or topic. Encourage respectful diversity of opinion. Understand and communicate that team members ultimately have the same motives – to satisfy their customers, families, fellow employees, managers and owners. The team is simply trying to determine the best course of action to satisfy all of these parties simultaneously.

Synergy

Organizations that reach their peak potential have a unique ability to combine solutions, “leap” beyond the collective knowledge of the team, and spontaneously generate new solutions as ideas are shared. A high level of synergy stimulates innovations that force competitors to constantly play catch up. Opposing companies cannot duplicate the game plan of a synergistic organization because it is organic and only grows when the team comes together and combines their creative energies.

Focusing on these four environmental elements will not only enable you to build strong organizational teams, but give your employees the one thing outside a paycheck they desperately want, but will never speak of – a sense of belonging.

Implementing monthly goal setting sessions and staying consistent with them will help your team stay motivated and focused on every sales opportunity. The most effective managers utilize the following techniques when setting goals.

1. Make it conversational and collaborative. Involving your sales associates in the goal setting process is critical. Goals that are handed to your team without their input or belief are not worth the paper they are written on. Schedule half-hour meetings with each team member the last week of every month to discuss and set goals.

2. Set the target goal, then discuss the correct dialogues and techniques that will help your sales associates achieve the goal. Allocating enough time during monthly meetings for practice sessions will help your team focus on the appropriate dialogues and build confidence.

3. Set goals in accordance with each individual team member’s motivational driver. In a professional setting people are motivated by one of three things – recognition, incentive, or accountability. Knowing your team members’ drivers will help you steer the conversation more effectively.

4. If possible, base goals on sales conversions and sales per day. This will allow your discussions to be centered on achievable goals and questions. Breaking the stretch goal down on a time basis will also help your team members stay focused.

5. Write it down! Studies have shown written goals always have a higher success rate.

Forget about experience, age, background, what industry your candidates come from and how many degrees they have. The SEE Factor is primarily what you should be looking for.

Sincerity: Effective selling is “relationship selling.” It is selling something you believe in. It is selling with conviction and purpose. It is selling sincerely. You need earnest people who care about the customer and understand that what they sell will enhance the customer’s quality of life. Sincerity needs to be a non-negotiable attribute requirement for any new-hire candidate you are considering.

Empathy: Empathetic people relate well to most other people. They like to work with them and they love to help them. Frontline people with this quality can relate to your customers, build rapport quickly and find common ground. They make great first impressions and customers instantly like them.

Ego: Your team also needs people with strong egos. An individual with a strong ego (as opposed to a false sense of superiority) is someone that wants to be the best and succeed day in and day out, someone that does not settle for mediocrity, wants to maximize every opportunity and does not crumble as a result of customer rejection.

Make no mistake these are the qualities of a top performer – the qualities of your next superstar. They are not common, and not easy to find, but they do exist. Now that you know what attributes to look for, all you have to do is make a personal commitment to sculpt your team one strong performer at a time.

Our goal is simple: build rewarding relationships and deliver results. But the relationships we strengthen are not just those with our clients; we also foster relationships between our clients and their customers.

While coaching the frontline of a client, I was recently approached by a customer who had repeatedly experienced difficulty in receiving reward program credits. He expressed frustration with the company and mentioned he would be using a competitor for his next purchase. Because we were between manager shifts, I acquired his contact information and assured him that the problem would not only be addressed, but resolved, quickly. Prior to his leaving, we spoke briefly about his patronage as the backbone of our client’s success.

The management team immediately contacted the customer and he was 100% satisfied with the resolution. In fact, the customer was so delighted with the way the dispute was handled, he wrote a letter to the organization expressing his renewed faith in the company and his restored confidence that outstanding customer service still exists in America.

The impact you have on your customers revolves around how you make them feel during their limited interactions with you. If you want to positively impact your customers and in the process, move your bottom-line, you need to move your customers through an emotional connection. This is done by the actions of your frontline.

By actively listening to the customer, displaying understanding, sincerity and enthusiasm about his problem, and being responsive to his needs this company was able to not only prevent the loss of a valuable customer, but create a potential customer for life.

- Tom Diaz, Senior Performance Manager, Frontline Performance Group