As it is with many firms, ours is made-up of individuals from diverse backgrounds with exceptional talents.  We have a singular goal, that is to guide organizations to creating, and sustaining profitable service based sales cultures.  However, as we grow our practice in types of industries, number of clients and staff, so grows our diversities.  In fact, one of the few constants in our organization is a principle practice model we call the KPE (Khoury Performance Equation); it is our business blueprint designed to optimize sales and service performance through three primary areas of actionable focus:

- Creating The Right Environment

- Ensuring The Right Personnel Fit

- Executing The Right Action

A few years ago, I embarked on a mission to aid our team in developing more synergy in the area of application of that blueprint. The mantra for this initiative … Synergetic Diversity.  This tenet, Synergetic Diversity, can be defined as being a system of “pooling” differences (i.e. cultures, economies, industries, experiences, etc) to act as a whole toward one common goal.  When well practiced, it creates cohesive movement – it becomes a structured yet fluid dance.

Regardless of your industry, products, staff experiences or customer base, a synergistic approach to key tasks and initiatives brings a unified fluidity to your team’s efforts, maximizies performance and bottom-line results.

Below is a quick exercise to ensure your business initiatives remain on task. 

• Make a list of a few critical principles or practices that should exist across all verticals.
• What are some of the diversities that are affecting your objective, “total installation” of those principles or practices in our organization and/or with your clients? 
• What synergies in behavior (performance) among your team and/or your clients must exist to ensure success of the objective?  
• If there are critical synergies that do not currently exist, what is you action plan to address them?

Diversity is a component of success in today’s global business community. Use this exercise to gauge the synergy of your team’s efforts toward sustainable profit and growth. 

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

Fortune Magazine recently released their annual list of the 100 Best Companies To Work For. Here are some of the well-known names that earned their way on to the list:

• Wegman’s Food Markets - #3
• Zappos - #6
• Mercedes Benz USA - #15
• Stew Leonard’s - #18
• Whole Foods Market - #24
• Four Seasons Hotels - #53
• Publix Super Markets - #67
• Nordstrom’s - #74
• Men’s Warehouse - #87
• Starbucks - #98

Do you see what I see?  Not only are these ten companies on the list of Best 100 Companies To Work For, but each of these organizations have a strong reputation for providing outstanding customer service as well as sustained financial success. Coincidence?   I don’t think so.

In the book “The Customer Comes Second“, authors Hal Rosenbluth and Diane Peters discuss the philosophy of putting your people first.

“This is a formula that has worked for more than two decades, and has transformed his company from a small family business into a global industry leader, grossing over $6  billion.  In this classic on counterintuitive management practice, the entrepreneurial genius and visionary leader of Rosenbluth International shows you how to use exceptional service to win in any industry.” - Tom Peters

As I wrote in an earlier post, companies that say they’re “focused” on customer service are a dime-a-dozen.  Sadly, some companies “focus” on customer service at the expense of their own associates.  These organizations beat the drum of customer service while reducing staffing levels, cutting commissions and benefits and piling on extra workload all the while telling their people “you count” – as the associates add, under their breath, “for nothing”.

Does “The Customer Comes Second” philosophy mean companies need to give their employees heaps of perks and benefits? Definitely not.  You can hold off on constructing the new gym with the indoor swimming pool and free daycare for your associate’s kids.  That’s not how you create a “customers come second” working environment.   The true foundation of an outstanding work environment is high employee engagement.

The folks at Gallup have done extensive research on employee engagement.

“The world’s top-performing organizations understand that employee engagement is a force that drives business outcomes. Research shows that engaged employees are more productive employees. They are more profitable, more customer-focused, safer, and more likely to withstand temptations to leave the organization. In the best organizations, employee engagement transcends a human resources initiative — it is the way they do business.”

Through their research, Gallup has identified 12 key statements that best predict employee and workgroup engagement:

1. I know what’s expected of me at work.
2. I have the materials and equipment to do my work right.
3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
4. In the last seven days, I have received praise for doing good work.
5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.
6. There is someone at work that encourages my development.
7. At work, my opinions seem to count.
8. The mission or purpose of my organization makes me feel my job is important.
9. My associates, or fellow employees, are committed to doing quality work.
10. I have a best friend at work.
11. In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.
12. This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

What?  No game rooms or smoothy bars?  Nope!  Do some of the companies on the top 100 list have some of those perks?  Yes, they do, but that is in addition to creating a work environment with very high employee engagement.  So what is the “moral” to this story? It’s simple; create an environment with high employee engagement and you will be well on your way to a place on the Top 100 list.  The moral is simple.  Making it happen?  Not so much.

Lee Silverstein – Managing Partner, Frontline Performance Group 

What is the definition of a frontline sales representative?

Any team member that interacts with your customers is considered to be on the frontline. This includes face-to-face interactions, phone interactions, and on-line communications.

Why is the frontline important to my business?

In this increasingly competitive market, it is more important than ever for companies to do more than the status quo of merely maintaining business relationships. Business leaders who seek to improve company profit must continually strive to differentiate themselves through the service and sales ability of their frontline.

Imagine what would happen if your frontline sales team was not only genuine, sincere and helpful, but built a good first impression and rapport with your customers, asked the questions they needed to ask to truly understand your customers’ needs, really knew your products and/or services, and built value into what they were selling. The results would be tremendous! New avenues of growth and profit would be created including additional and incremental sales revenue opportunities.

Understand and appreciate the role of your frontline as the vehicle that can transform your bottom-line and you will create the power to generate unprecedented profits!

I often see high-level managers and business owners express an almost irrational fixation on a singular internal metric or Key Performance Indicator (KPI). Their steadfast focus, while admirable, is often shockingly misguided and harmful to the business. This owner intensity typically drives the organization to dramatically improve one specific metric while ignoring others, which frequently results in business trauma, unintended consequences and collateral damage.

One organization I recently worked with focused all of their attention, compensation and recognition on their top volume revenue producers. They characterized these agents as ”top performers” and rewarded them as such. Upon closer inspection, however, the agents who had produced the most revenue were not the best salespeople. They were simply “churning” calls and skimming opportunities rapidly for the easiest sales. This “cherry-picking” does produce large revenues; however, it does so at the expense of more needy customers who require greater attention and patience. Once conversion of opportunities handled and a customer service index were added as performance indicators, many of the perceived top agents fell significantly in the rankings. Although they were producing large revenue sums, the hidden collateral damage they were doing to the brand through their insensitivity to other customers largely outweighed the positive sales results they were generating. This situation is tragic…and common. Conversely, with the new performance indicators in place the true capabilities and contributions of some of the near-top and average agents were seen for the first time.

In one industry, an owner might place all of his focus on sales revenue only to get burned by profit slippage from excessive agent-to-customer incentives or discounts, or on the back-end through poor quality sales resulting in high accounts receivable defaults. In another scenario, an owner may become fixated on utilization percentage (as in car rental or hotel room usage) while simultaneously neglecting to see the harsh effect of the lower daily rates needed to drive that utilization. If you had a four room hotel, would you rather have 100% occupancy at $100 per room night or 80% occupancy at $150 per room night? The first example produces a Revenue Per Unit of $100 while the less-used property produces a Revenue Per Unit of $120 — a 20% revenue premium for less work! Factor in the reduced labor needed to handle the lower number of transactions along with the reduced product cost, and you see a new perspective surface. In yet another case, transactions produced per hour may be the driving force while little or no consideration is placed on the profit or brand-building potential of those transactions to the organization.

All of these metrics, along with many others, are worthwhile and critical to your success. However, it is important to remember more often than not it is the calibration of several Key Performance Indicators that will ultimately drive the two metrics that matter most, long-term customer care and profit.

Chris Brown- Senior Vice President, Frontline Performance Group

In order to be truly successful companies must strive to reach their full potential, not just improvement.

Compare overall performance to your top performers. Now imagine the behavior of your high flyers becoming the norm in your organization. If you have found a few people who can perform at this level, why not duplicate them across your entire frontline team instead of accepting mediocre or poor performance from the other 90%.

Take a look at the tremendous impact each individual team member has on your revenue and profit. Many business owners and managers are experts when it comes to their P&L statement. However, when it comes to the revenue and profit potential just one of their frontline associates influences each year, they are amazed at what is being left on the table.

Aspire toward your peak potential not your perceived potential, which is artificially bound by the people and processes you have in place now.