One of my more memorable client experiences occurred a few years ago while I was working with a company to improve customer service and ancillary sales. After conducting the initial discovery visits and leading the frontline team through our core seminars, the company experienced an almost immediate and very significant improvement in both service and sales.

The general manger was so delighted with the positive results of the program launch – the changes in employee attitude, happiness, and the positive bottom-line impact – he literally cried out, “Thank God for Frontline Performance Group!”

In that moment he understood the power behind our principles, program, and the reason for our unwavering commitment to creating service-based sales cultures: happy employees = great customer experiences = improved bottom-line results.

This, of course, is no secret. However, what most business owners and managers do not realize is that changing a workplace culture requires much more than just wishful thinking; it requires the implementation of a hyper-efficient, impactful business system. This takes time, commitment, persistence, and diligence. But as this client realized, those willing to transform their business culture into one that supports employees and a service-based sales environment will reap the benefits a peak performing sales organization has to offer.

Andy Racz - Senior Account Manager, Frontline Performance Group

By nature, human beings are social creatures; we want to interact, assimilate, commune, share stories and experiences. Social interaction is often the medium through which we develop relationships. It is how we formulate our opinions, our preferences and determine what we like, whom we trust.

Sales is a social event; yet the inherent, old school practices of many sales organizations are preventing them from making the “A” list. One such practice is attempting to sell customers on the merits of products and services without having an understanding of their likes and dislikes, their true wants and needs.

So, how do you get your customers to open up and tell you what they’re thinking? Just listen!

Since the advent of social networking sites, today’s customers have been talking about you and your business every day, to virtually everyone! According to a recent study, “three of the world’s most popular brands online are social media related (Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia) and the world now spends over 110 billion minutes on social networks and blog sites. This equates to 22% of all time online or one in every four and a half minutes. For the first time ever, social networks or blog sites are visited by three quarters of global consumers who go online, after the number of people visiting these sites increased by 24% over last year. The average visitor spends 66% more time on these sites than a year ago, almost 6 hours in April 2010 versus 3 hours and 31 minutes last year.” (Source: Nielsen, June 2010)

Getting with the program – utilizing social networking sites to hear what customers are saying and communicate with them will lead to more relational rather than transactional experiences for salespeople and their customers.

Lynda Fleming - Director of Learning & Development, Frontline Performance Group

Mary Kay Cosmetics has always been a brand synonymous with sales and service. Founded by Mary Kay Ash in 1963, the firm has since expanded into a global cosmetics company posting over $2 billion in annual wholesale sales. The company serves consumers in more than 35 markets worldwide and has over 2 million global independent sales representatives.

Growing a company to this size is no easy feat. It entails creating the right corporate environment, attracting the right type of people, as well as motivating and enabling your sales force to achieve great things. Mary Kay Ash was able to do all of this and more.

The following sales leadership actions are just a few of many that came directly from Mary Kay Ash’s playbook.

1. Know Your Role

In the early days of the company Mary Kay focused on her strengths – engaging and inspiring her team. Her son Richard Rogers, who still runs the company to this day, has said she believed her job was to “energize, recognize, teach, and motivate our independent sales force.” According to Richard, she left everything else to him.

2. When In Doubt Recognize

The pink Cadillac is a key incentive for Mary Kay’s top salespeople. A complimentary two year lease of a pink Cadillac is provided for each region’s top performer. At the end of the two year lease the sales star is eligible for another car if they continue to perform well. Since its inception in 1969, the pink Cadillac Career Car has been awarded to over 100,000 top performers and is still in effect today.

3. Balance Constructive Feedback With Positives

Mary Kay was legendary for her coaching and mentoring sessions. In her book The Mary Kay Way she described positive reinforcement as “Sandwiching every bit of criticism between two heavy layers of praise.” This relationship-focused approach to coaching made her sales force feel comfortable, valuable, and important to the company.

Implementing effective training, meaningful recognition programs, and valuable coaching sessions has been and continues to be very successful and lucrative for Mary Kay, Inc. So much so the company’s methods and direct sales model are still the envy of their competition and the focus of many business school case studies today.

Ken Stellon - Senior Vice President, Frontline Performance Group

In the 10 years I have been with FPG, I have conducted monthly goal setting sessions with thousands of salespeople across numerous industries. One of the key insights I have gained from these sessions is the importance of seeing the potential fruits of your labor before you move forward with achieving your goals.

What do I mean by this? Salespeople need something tangible, something they can visualize, to help them achieve their goals. As a result, when setting goals it is critical that sales leaders ask their frontline employees what they would like to do with the extra incentive money earned when (not if) their sales goals are met. When salespeople are asked this question their answer is often a halfhearted “put it in the bank.” While putting it in the bank sounds and is noble, I have learned that saving more money is simply not compelling enough for the average employee to push through the additional efforts and rejection required to achieve the highest levels of sales performance.

This is because saving more does not elicit emotion. Having an extra $100 in your bank account is nice, but it doesn’t drive behavior consistently – it does not cause acute pain when it isn’t achieved. Conversely, when you are staring at a picture of a sunset on Waikiki Beach, a cherry red Ford Mustang, a pair of deep blue Gucci jeans, or a new home with a swing set and a photo of your children alongside, it hurts when you fail. It sears and it disappoints. But best of all, it angers. This type of pain is a good pain, a valuable pain because it focuses your energies, resolve and concentration to achieve something of worth…and of difficulty.

Salespeople should be encouraged to choose tangible personal rewards as part of the goal setting process, and to use pictures to remind them of their goals. However, as I always tell our clients, make sure the images placed on your refrigerator or in your work space are a true representation of what you desire most – because what you constantly think about, you become.

Albert Einstein said it best, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

What are you imagining?

Chris Brown - Senior Vice President, Frontline Performance Group