Doing what's necessary, not what's always been done

I just received an email that has an overtime request form attached. I wonder why.

I work as a software trainer and it is expected that I will put in whatever hours are needed to complete the job when I am onsite, so why do I need to get permission first to do my job?

Not only that, but it is stated that this form must first be approved by the president of the company before I can work those hours, except under last minute circumstances.  I would expect the company president to be too busy to worry about my overtime hours, so why is he taking the time to approve hours that are worked only when they are needed?

Another question – why is the manager not trusted to know when overtime hours are required?  If the company president has to approve the request form first, then by definition the manager is not trusted to know when overtime is required. Why then is the manager in a management position?

And finally, why has this document not been updated in almost 5 years?  It still has someone’s name on it that’s left the company over 4 years ago.

I can’t help but feel that the company is simply spinning wheels to look productive instead of doing the jobs that make it productive.  Timesheets are good, but an overtime request? Especially for those of us who are required to put in overtime in order to get the job done? That’s just redundant and a waste of time and money.

So here’s the beginning of my rule list.

1.       1. Trust your managers to know their jobs.

2.       2. Don’t hire a manager you don’t trust.

3.       3.  Allow employees to manage their time.

Trust given is trust received. Trust received leads to happy employees. Happy employees lead to happy customers. Happy customers lead to a profitable business. 

Body Language

I recently started reading a book called 'Messages: The Communication Skills Book'

One of the exercises it has asked me to do is to look at people, really look at them and see if I can figure out what they are thinking.  We communicate our thoughts and feelings through our body language and facial expressions.

That got me to thinking about how I come to work each day.  Some days I'm happy and cheerful while other days I drag myself in, tired and worn out.  Hmmm, what am I communicating?  I don't believe in what I call the cheerleader syndrome, where I waive my pom pom around as I walk through the door, but what if I kept my head up, a smile on my face, and a cheerful hello for everyone I see?  I may not necessarily feel like being at work at that particular moment, but do I need to broadcast that to the world?  How will it affect my interactions with my boss if I drag myself in or walk in with a smile? 

I don't hate my job - far from it.  I like what I do and I'm darn good at it too.  But there are days where my feet just drag, I'm that tired at times.  I'm not sure how I'll perk up in the mornings as I walk in the door, but I suspect that if I can manage it then my day will go a little smoother.  

What are they thinking?

1:21 PM

A company that I am acquainted with recently put out their social policy.  To say that I was horrified by it would be a  rather large understatement. The phrase that immediately came to mind was  "the floggings will continue until morale improves".  In today's society people will talk - would it not be more beneficial to direct that conversation rather than suppress it?  I'm all in agreement about not saying anything about customers while blogging or on a social network site.  That is just simple common sense to most folks I would hope. The part of the policy that really floored me was that they would be using monitoring software to check out what each employee was saying online.. This is a relatively small company and over half of the employees have been there more than a decade.  If these people were saying something other than praise for the company, wouldn't it be a good idea to find out why? After all, a problem can't be fixed if no one even knew that there was a problem, right?

Who are you competing against?

Are you competing against the competition or yourself?  What’s the difference?

Well, when competing against the competition, you are always a step behind.  You’ve allowed the other competition to set the standard, to be the leader.

When competing against yourself, you ARE the leader, you’ve set the standard, and you’ve thrown down the gauntlet to the competition, daring them to catch you…. if they can.

Listen, Observe, and Engage

Listen, Observe, and Engage.

I like that, but what does it mean?  In elementary school we are taught that to listen we must use our ears, keep our eyes on the person talking, and to sit in a comfortable position with our hands in our laps.

How is it then that this simple lesson is often forgotten by the time we reach adulthood?  Communication is a two-way street between participants, both internal and external customers.  It includes both listening and talking. 

Are we really listening to our customers?  Do we actually hear what they are saying?  Hearing a customer involves much more than just listening to their words.  We need to also “hear” what they are not saying.  Do we keep our eyes on the customers, learning their body language, responses to comments, and other critical details that tell us even more than words what the customer needs or wants?  And what about our position?  Are we calm in the face of chaos?  Are we comfortable with our position, with ourselves?  The more comfortable we become with ourselves, the more that confidence is reinforced in the customer’s mind about our abilities.

Once communication is flowing between us and our customers, engagement will occur, cannot help but occur.  This leads to a tight bond of cooperation and loyalty that is difficult to break – a commitment of two parties to each other, both benefitting from the other, making us more than the sum of us alone.

The value of communications

Success is a constant uphill struggle.  Communications with your internal and external customers is like driving up that hill.  Without communications, you’ll be stuck walking.  So who will get there first, the company driving, or the company walking?

Not all repetition is bad

OK.  I admit that I don’t like making training videos.  It can be repetitious, thus boring.  Only one thing saves me from complete boredom and dulling of the senses – none of our competition uses training videos.  In an industry that is saturated and that contains a finite number of customers, a product must have something that it makes it unique, that sets it apart from every other product out there.  In my company’s case it’s our videos that go into the Help file.  These videos provide a benefit to our customers that no other system currently provides.  I say currently because once these become more widely used and known, our competition will jump on the bandwagon and make their own videos.  But by then we’ll have gain a larger market share and will be known for out topnotch training and resources.  I like thinking of our competition eating our dust :~)

The status and the individual

While a person is not the status they play in a society, they are often governed by that status.  While I may have thought about this from a marketing perspective in the past, it never really sunk in until now.

A customer may love a product, but if they occupy a status of comptroller, then that status may dictate that they have a valid reason for purchasing the product, such as the lowest cost, or the most bang for the buck.

One step further when marketing a product:  we not only have to market to the status of comptroller, but we also have to market to the individual who occupies that status.  We may have the best product, the lowest price, the best features, but if the individual doesn’t like the product then the status of comptroller will still not purchase the product regardless of what is best.

Marketing becomes trickier as we attempt to sell to the multiple personalities and statuses that a single individual holds.  We need to become experts not just marketing, but to an extent also experts in pyschology and sociology.

What should you do to be successful?

I have recently signed up for Seth Godin’s blog posts, and love the short and sweet thoughts he puts out there.  This last one I received titled “16 questions for free agents” is really amazing – one of those ‘yes!’ moments.  As he states so many people do ask what they can do to ensure success and it’s really not that easy.  Each person is different, the steps they will take are different, and each situation they find themselves in will be different.  Instead of asking what to do, they should be asking what they are willing to do to give themselves the best possible chance at success, even going so far as to define what success means to them individually. 

Here’s the link to the post: http://preview.tinyurl.com/29njreq

Courage

Here is a sampling of some of my favorite quotes on courage:

·         Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.  ~Raymond Lindquist

·         When we are afraid we ought not to occupy ourselves with endeavoring to prove that there is no danger, but in strengthening ourselves to go on in spite of the danger.  ~Mark Rutherford

·         Courage is tiny pieces of fear all glued together.  ~Terri Guillemets

I’ve been thinking a lot about courage lately.  So much has been happening in my life lately that most would say I have every right to curl up in a corner somewhere.  Instead I’ve been pushing myself to seek answers, to explore my options, to look beyond myself and see a new future full of possibilities.  Let me tell you it’s pretty scary to step away from the familiar, stepping into the unknown.  So many questions rampage across my mind –

·         What happens if I fail?

·         What happens if I fail?

·         What happens if I fail?

Ok – so they are really all the same question, but what a huge question it is.  So, what will happen if I fail?  I tell myself, who cares?  Maybe, just maybe I won’t fail.  Maybe I’ll find that my every dream comes true, that I’ll not walk away from all of this, but rather I’ll walk thru all of this, coming out on the other side a much better and stronger person.

Yes, I’m scared out of my mind most of the time.  Yes, I’m scared that I’ll be alone, be stuck in a dead end job, go nowhere, be no one, do nothing.  But, I also know that I can change my future.  I have control over my own destiny.  If I’m stuck, it will be no one else’s fault but my own for not trying.  So I walk into the unknown armed only with my courage and a few good friends.  Wish me luck.

There is always time to achieve your goals

I am constantly amazed at how clueless many in management are about what it takes to really get ahead in business.  For example, my boss has talked for months about wanting to promote our department, to be a profit center.  I work in Quality Assurance creating training materials for our customers.  It would seem obvious to me that we could become a major asset to the company by offering value through the efforts that we are already making each day.  Upon mentioning my thoughts on our own webpage where we could offer value in the form of ideas, suggestions, and information my boss informed me that we don’t have the time to do that. 

Not have the time?  How is that even possible when the boss’s desire is to promote her department?  Her thoughts were simply to place our training material on the webpage and offer it for a price – thus generating revenue.  My question is why would any of our customers even care to look at our webpage?  What is in it for them?  By offering value in the form of helpful “free” information we can begin to draw customers to our page where of course they will see what product we offer for sale.  This provides multiple opportunities for a sale as customers begin to check out the page on a regular basis for additional helpful information and then realize that, yes, they really do need additional training manuals, or would love to purchase additional webinar training.  But to get to this point it will take some effort to put together the content. 

Just as you can’t enjoy the delights of a pumpkin pie without taking the time to bake it (or at least buy it), you can’t enjoy the benefits of being a profit center without putting together value that draws in the customers for repeat purchases.

It's All In the Small Changes

Companies spend thousands of dollars on marketing campaigns trying to get their internal and/or external customers to make a change. What if there was a simpler way? What if it was as easy as the company making a few small changes.

Yesterday I had the please of reading a short article on how to get kids to eat more veggies. All it took was to move the salad bar closer to the cash register. Veggie consumption went up significantly and the school didn't have to pay for a huge campaign.

The Secret of Getting Kids to Eat Their Veggies

So what would it take to get customers to change undesirable, unprofitable habits to ones that better benefit say a software company? Hmmm

Want to lower the number of incoming support calls, but still provide excellent customer service? What about automatically emailing any software errors to support and include in the error a message letting the customer know that the error has been sent. In addition the error should let the customer know what their next step is - whether it is safe to continue with their current work, or if they need to work on something else. The customer will be happy knowing that someone is working on their problem, the comprehensive error message also sends an assurance that this company knows what they are doing. End result? The customer is happy with the company, and the company has saved money through fewer incoming calls and better customer retention. And it all started with one small change.

What to increase employee retention? What if the company made a change in their policy of allowing employees to flex their hours? Depending upon the position, most employees can do their work anytime during the day, or even do their work from home. So instead of requiring employees to work 8 - 4:30 Monday through Friday, why not allow them to flex the time they need to be out of the office for appointments and sick children? The work is still getting done so the company is not losing out and the employee gets a benefit that helps them to better manage their personal and family life. No cost to the company, but a great way to retain employees and boost company moral.

How could you get potential customers to view the company as being technologically savvy? Social Media of course and it can be started with a small change. Even something like having a Facebook page and a company blog brings more awareness about the company to potential customers. This boosts the company's profile with potential customers and doesn't cost a thing except some time.

So small changes can make a BIG difference. You may be asking yourself why more companies are not following through? That my friend is another topic altogether. Until the next time, think about what small changes your company can make, and remember that it doesn't take a giant leap to reach the top, only several small steps.

Working in the Zone

I've been reading a self-help book that has a pretty cool exercise you can do to gauge where you are in your life, to determine if you are balanced. Thinking this over for the last few weeks, it suddenly dawned on me that this exercise is perfect to help a marketing department determine whether they are on track with their objectives.

First, make a list of your identities/roles within the company and within your customer’s lives. For me this would include two sets of identities as I deal with both internal and external customers. For both sets of customers I would list: trainer, consultant, documentation specialist, and public relations specialist.

Take these roles or identities and place them on the graph that you have created (example below), basing the placement upon how you feel that you or your department has met the expectations for each of these roles/identities.

The goal here is to be in ‘the zone’. The Zone is that place where inspiration, imagination, creativity, and over all drive and flow come together to make everything you do one of those ‘Yes!’ moments – those moments when you can say that THIS is why you do what you do. Outside of these zones are Learning Zones. These areas are where your skills are being challenged to expand. You are learning new ideas, new concepts, and working harder than normal to meet deadlines.

None of us are meant to stay in these Learning Zones forever, but as we conquer new skill sets, our Learning Zones get incorporated into The Zone, creating an ever widening point of job satisfaction. The areas were we don’t want to be is outside the Learning Zones. At the top is the Burned Out Zone – where the stress is so much that we can never hope to cope and we eventually burn out. At the bottom is the Rust Out Zone – where there is no challenge, no joy, and no anticipation of things to come – where skills become rusty with disuse. So the diagram we use looks something like this:

We perform at an optimal level while we are “in the zone”. When we are in one of the learning zones, we are working, but it is more stressful, takes us longer to get the job done – in effect we are trying to expand our “zone” to include the learning zone. Is this where you want to be?

What can you do to bring the specific role into the “zone”? It may sound basic, but having this laid out will help you to realize what specific areas of your marketing you to need to work on in order to bring it into alignment with where you want to be.

Here at my company our marketing department wears many hats. They are involved with sales, direct marketing, contracts, customer support, and many other areas of company life. Where on the graph do each of these reside? Break the areas out further to help determine specific aspects of each hat. With direct marketing, where are you in regards to social marketing? To more traditional, email and phone marketing? And let’s not forget the all important internal marketing – direct marketing can play a huge role in marketing to a company’s internal customers. Which hat, or aspects of the hat is falling behind? Which are too much to handle at this time until new job skills are learned? By using this exercise we can quickly become aware of whether we are on the road to success, or if we fell off somewhere along the way.

So where are you?

Who says good service is dead?

There are many theories as to why, with all of the advances made in providing better customer service, so many customers in fact feel that they are receiving less service.

1. Tier service offerings
2. Automated voice systems
3. Less support personnel per customer
4. Less skilled personnel

These are but a few of the many theories that abound, and unfortunately they are all true. Not just one or two, but all of the theories combine to make a poor experience for many customers.

There is nothing wrong with a tiered service offering, provided it has been adequately communicated to the customer as to what they are receiving. At this same time, how can a company turn its back on a customer who really has no clue on the next step they should take? By going the little extra mile to assist the customer will direction, superior customer service is rendered.

Whoever came up with the automated voice system should be strung up. No one likes these and supposedly good companies have surprisingly bad systems in place. For example, I have been fighting with Wal-mart for the last 6 weeks over when a mattress I ordered would be delivered. I have had to resort to email communication because I simply can't seem to get a live person on the phone. No matter what number I press, I always receive the same message that their online support will provide me with answers. If you want to win customers, lose the automated voice system, or at least keep it to a bare minimum with very easy escape routes to a live person for those customers that just can't wait.

I know that times are tough, but tough times are also the best times for a company to scoop up a huge market share of customers by providing the extras that the other companies are dropping off their offerings. A company that I work for has been bouncing this issue around for some time now and I keep hoping that they will wake up and realize we need more support personnel. When I started at the company, we had twice as many reps as they do now, and I am pretty sure we had fewer calls. The company did hire someone as a call coordinator, so customers would not have to wait to talk to a person, but unfortunately it is not helping matters. Customers are still not getting their problems resolved in what they consider to be a timely manner. The key here is "what they consider to be a timely manner". If a company wants to win customers, then said company must cater to the customers' needs.

Less skilled personnel - this is perhaps the bane of the entire industry. Why is it that a group of people that are required to know so much, and do so much, are paid so little? In the company that I work for, the support group must know a lot of every job in the company from programming to project manager to sales, but they get paid less than any of them. A company gets what it pays for, and in this case, that tends to be less skilled employees. Even hiring someone with fewer skills and then training them has its cons when pay is not sufficient. A trained employee is no longer unskilled and thus can usually find higher paying job elsewhere that actually requires less work.

Thankfully all of these issues can be resolved by a few basic steps:

1. Listen to what the customer wants - then do it
2. Take care of your internal customers - provide them with adequate pay and training
3. Ensure that management does more than pay lip-service to both internal and external customers

Just remember:

Happy employee = happy customer = profits