by Rebecca Morgan, CSP, CMC on May 27, 2010
- Sally is rigid with long-term customers even though she has the power to be flexible and make modifications.
- Paul is accusatory to other departments’ managers, making erroneous assumptions based on little information.
- Bill doesn’t carefully read emails so asks the same questions again and again, doesn’t respond to colleagues’ direct questions, and flames them about things that were covered clearly if he’d taken the time to read the communication.
- Laurie insists the customer service reps communicate only by text because that’s easiest on her, even though it is much easier for them to communicate by email.
- Fred stubbornly requires that other managers give him what he wants the way and when he wants it, without any willingness to discuss what would work for both parties.
- Sue Ellen gets defensive when anyone suggests a way to accomplish a task that is different than hers, repeatedly citing that any “reasonable person” would see that her way is the only way that makes any sense. She has determined that she is the sole arbiter of reasonableness and is not willing to discuss any other options.
- Justin has no concept of “win/win.” He only sees “win/lose” and will do nearly anything, at the cost of relationships with customers and coworkers, to ensure he is the one who wins. No one wants to work with him, let alone be around him.
- When Theresa finds folks aren’t agreeing with her, she makes up what she says the dead founder would have said to do, even though she barely knew him.
- Jeremy argues that he is right even though others who are more level headed disagree. He will not back down.
- Marilyn cheats on her expense reports and when asked for receipts and explanations, gets defensive and seems incredulous that she isn’t trusted. Only under duress and many requests does she produce partial documentation.
- Simon drags his feet on his part of a project. When cost overruns are certain because of the slipped deadlines, he accuses everyone else of being the problem and says they should be liable for any overage.
Do any of these sound familiar?
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by Rebecca Morgan, CSP, CMC on May 24, 2010
I’ve been patronizing Gayle’s Bakery and Rosticceria in Capitola, CA for decades. I make a point of stopping whenever I am nearby. Yesterday, I made a special trip 10 miles out of my way to take an out-of-town friend to have a Gayle’s experience.
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by Rebecca Morgan, CSP, CMC on May 7, 2010
“Effectively Growing Your Key Sales and Service Talent: Are You Sunlight and Water or Just Manure?”
You know you have a huge competitive advantage in your sales and service representatives. They can either make your customer relationships bloom and grow or die on the vine. As a manager, you can make a huge difference in how your people nurture your customers.
You need to ask yourself some hard questions: Are your team members growing or shriveling? Are you enabling them to flourish or causing them to wilt? How can you grow your own skills as well as nourish those with whom you work? How can you ensure even exemplars to grow their skills?
If you’re like most entrepreneurs, managers or executives, you know if you aren’t enhancing your people’s customer contact skills, you’re going to lose your customers. Your competitors are like weeds — ready to overtake your best customers – and perhaps your stellar employees.
You need to keep your and your team members’ skills sharp, but not sure how to do that on a limited (or no) budget. Rebecca will share her thoughts on keeping growing to thrive and not let your business die from lack of tending.
Rebecca will discuss:
· Why your best sales and service employees may be ready to leave – and your best customers might go with them
· Why maintaining status quo means you’re losing ground
· How you can develop your people with limited – or no – budget
· How to get the highest ROI from any development effort
Thursday, June 10
11 AM (PDT)/2 PM (EDT)
Register here.
by Rebecca Morgan, CSP, CMC on May 5, 2010
This was not what I expected to hear from the clean-cut, college-aged young man sitting in the parking attendant booth.
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by Rebecca Morgan, CSP, CMC on May 2, 2010
Recently, I and 20 other speakers presented 10-minute talks at an event. The night before, my colleagues and I met for dinner and the conversation turned to our presentations. Two friends were working out how they would manage to hook up their computers to show their slides since there was no time in between speakers.
I said, “Ten minutes is not enough for slides. It’s too much of a hassle since there’s no turn time.”
One pal said, “I only have 6 slides and they are hilarious. I want to show them for the humor.”
The other said, “My 30 slides really reinforce my points.”
Both slide decks were created in Keynote, so the authors told me how beautiful the backgrounds and transitions were. Unfortunately, most audiences don’t want to just see pretty backgrounds and transitions — they want slides that are meaningful to advance their understanding of key points.
It was more stress than I’d like to be under, but if these speakers feel their slides are critical to their presentations, I can understand how they would work out the challenges. However, I think nowadays with so many people using slides, it actually makes a speaker stand out when they don’t.
So I watched my friends’ presentation anxiously awaiting these “must-have” visuals.
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retained her as their workplace effectiveness spokesperson.
