I have asked a lot of people, what does a good company culture look like?  The most common response I receive is: “you know it when you see it”.  Frankly, I think this is a very accurate answer.  However, what is it that we see that makes us respond in this manner?

I think one reason why we may respond in that fashion is all these organization have something that cannot be tracked, written or heard.  The best company cultures are felt.  The energy in the room immediately picks up your emotional state to a better one the second you are in the same room.  You see smiling faces and energetic activity towards the task at hand.  No one seems to be just going through the motions and you immediately feel a sense of belonging.  It is that sense which gets those people up every day to go to work, not their alarm clocks.

How do you create that in a sales environment?  It all starts with your leadership.  You could hire “A” players all day and fail with a bad company culture.  Sales driven organizations with excellent company cultures often have sales managers out on the floor with their reps.  These managers are very up-beat, carry a positive disposition and communicate constantly with their team.  Recognition is at a high and they lead by example.  They are never afraid to get their hands dirty and do not let their title get in the way.  They’ll excuse themselves from a conversation to go introduce themselves to someone they don’t know and find out then if it is a customer, prospect or potential new hire.  They make their employees feel good everyday and it may be as simple as never being too uptight. 

Take this for example; would you tell your sales reps to take a nap if they felt tired?  Yes, allow them to sleep on the job for a half hour and pay them.  Some studies have actually shown napping increases productivity!  When those employees talk about their organization and reference taking a nap to friends and family, that message is probably delivered in a positive manner.  While most people in life will not work in an environment where “sleeping on the job” is allowed, it is important to recognize the metaphorical message it sends.  It makes that employee feel special, valued and trusted, a few of the many things that may give them that sense of belonging … being an integral part of a greater whole. 

The next time you walk into any organization and the phrase “you know it when you see it” comes to mind about good company culture, pay attention to what is happening.  What is it that you feel and what is it you suppose the employees feel?  What are their actions?  What is different and can any of it be applied to your place of work?  It will take a lot more than allowing naps to create the right culture, but be prepared to get outside conventional corporate comfort zones.

Matthew Pietzak – Area Performance Manager, Frontline Performance Group         

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

Most every frontline sales manager will agree that keeping staff encouraged when they have very price sensitive customers can be challenging. It becomes quite easy to fall into the trap of believing that by in large, customers are cheap. But here is the reality; customers are not cheap. They are value driven and want to know that they are receiving the best price and service available for their hard earned money.  Understanding and focusing on their need for value will allow for the message to be heard and more sales to be made. 

Here are a few of the many successful techniques to help your team command the attention of value driven customers:

-  When presenting a product or service, always focus first on the benefits of what the customer is getting, prior to quoting the price.  All too often the price is presented first and then the customer shuts down their listening skills.

-  Focus on the value of what they are getting vs. the price they are paying.  People remember most, whatever they hear last so when presenting a sale price, highlight the “savings”. For example: “It can sell for as much as $99, today it’s only $69, that’s a savings of $30!”

-  DO NOT PREJUDGE!!!!  Only assume every customer deserves the very best product or service you have to offer.

-  People buy from those they like. Focus on connecting with the customer and delivering a presentation centered on enhancing their experience – with you, the company and the products/services you represent. 

Most importantly, bear in mind that a salesperson’s perception of their customers will affect the presentation and ultimately, influence buying decisions.  It is critical that frontline managers do not “buy into” the same perceptions that can distract and dissuade their sales team.  How a salesperson feels about their customers and the sales opportunities determines how well those customers will receive their message.  Encouraging your frontline to focus their energies on ways to vary their presentation for the value driven customers instead of dismissing the opportunity will increase sales opportunities and generate more revenue.

Ken Stellon – Senior Vice President, Frontline Performance Group

Studies continue to show – customers who have a problem that is resolved quickly and properly are likely to develop more loyalty to a business as opposed to a customer who never had a problem. Yet often still, many businesses operate with a complaint/problem resolution system that is so complex, not even the staff is able to quickly (let alone amicably) bring a complaint to satisfactory resolve for the customer and the company. In effect, some complaint processes are so convoluted, they seem to say to the customer, “Prove us wrong and perhaps we’ll talk about it.” … I think most of us have had that experience as a customer. You know – the one where it was less painful to just remain silent, suck it up and cut your losses rather than deal with the frustration of trying to get someone (anyone) to even listen. And dare you hope, perhaps get them to see things from your point-of-view. Even worse, some companies still operate under the premise that if no one’s complaining, business is good! - Hmmm, did you hear that?

Silence is not a good sign … If they don’t speak up, you lose! In most every industry competition is stiff, so when companies make it difficult for a customer to “tell them how they are doing”, it can impact sales and ultimately kill their business. When a customer experiences problems you never hear about, that means you never have an opportunity to make it better.  When this happens be assured, the customer never forgets the problem and most likely, they will not do business with your company again – Can you hear it now?

If you want to know what people are saying about your business you have to speak their language! Recent research has revealed that almost 75% of the “consumer population” is using social networks to help them make informed buying decisions and influence the decisions of others. In a recent Frontline Sales Forum post from the article How to Succeed With Today’s Empowered Customers, the author suggests, “…empowered customers have to be met by your empowered employees, using the same Internet technologies to keep up.”  - Go on, get beyond the brush!  

So, how should you handle a complaint? Whether your business has invested in a state-of-the-art complaint management system is less relevant to the cause than adhering to the fundamentals; here are a few tips:

1. Show appreciation!  Let the customer know that you strive to improve every day.
2. Listen Well!  You can help a lot more if you know the whole story. 
3. Be empathetic!  Make the customer feel comfortable about telling you the problem. Never take it personally.
4. Ask the customer what can be done to make them happy – their answer may surprise you! Many times they only want to be heard – which is less than you would have given.
5. Do whatever it takes! Perhaps price or some catchy marketing campaign will continue to drive that “first-time” customer to your door; but your primary goal should be to make sure that every customer will happily continue to business with you again. Almost any discount costs the company less than losing a customer for life.

Bottom-line, keep your ear to the ground – customers are falling. And if you pay close attention, you’ll save more than a few.

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

The difference is night and day.  One transaction takes place where the salesperson makes an introduction by offering me their name and asking for mine and another takes place with no introduction at all and gets right to the sale.  In the first, I feel important and appreciated.  In the latter, I feel like just another schmo.  In more casual terms, “I don’t feel the love” if you don’t take the time and make the effort to build some rapport before you try to get in my wallet. 

Here’s a fundamental concept to remember about service-based sales; people like to do business with people they know, with people they like, and with people they trust.  But unfortunately in today’s “hurry up, let’s go” society, the civility in everyday exchanges has become collateral damage and the basic foundation in relationship building has been lost.  We’ve sacrificed an essential component in a customer-focused sales environment and in the process reduced our ability to maximize our revenue opportunities and maybe even more importantly, severely handicapped the potential to create a “wow” customer experience.  And the saddest part - it only takes a few seconds to accomplish.

Would you build a house on top of sand?  The answer is obvious but that is exactly what happens when salespeople don’t lay a solid foundation before beginning the sales process.  Take the few seconds it takes to let your customers know that you are a professional (by introducing yourself) and let them know you care about them and appreciate their business by asking for their name…before you do ANYTHING else.  Then use their name throughout the transaction and be sure to thank them by name at the conclusion.  Show them some love and I guarantee they will reciprocate.  The bonus is that it will make you feel good about what you do and how you do it.

Walter G. Rudd, Jr. – Performance Manager, Frontline Performance Group