Making-Money-Month Is Now!

Success in the modern business environment depends to a great extent on effective people management skills. These skills can be acquired and studied. It may be an advantage to have a natural affinity for managing with people, nevertheless you can do some things that will facilitate the process.

Relationship Development: Begin by remembering the names of the workforce. Encourage conversation; get eye contact during a conversation. Have a respectful attitude, and be attentive to everything the other person says, regardless of whether you are in agreement or not. Paying attention to what others say is one of the best people management skills in your arsenal. Welcome any comments from team members. Keep your promises: Do not give promises you won’t fulfill. When your word is broken, it can damage trust, and if they can’t trust you your staff won’t give you their best. When you say something or make a promise about something, you are squandering your time and effort if you don’t keep your promises. You will discover, when you can’t be counted upon, you can be assured they will behave in the same way. Feedback is essential: Feedback must be a interactive process. Keeping an open mind with regard to other people’s opinions is very important in managing people. If you can prove that you are approachable and receptive, you prove that you respect other people’s opinions, and they will listen to yours. Frank discourse also encourages creative trouble-shooting, original ways of accomplishing goals, and develops the team. If your co-workers have a voice, every team member takes ownership of the outcome of the project.

Encourage communication: Communication is central to dealing with staff skilfully. Be accessible, listen closely to people, be open-minded, and give all your employees an equal voice. Encourage team members not just to communicate with you, but also with each other. The growth of any business relies heavily on the open exchange of opinions, and in listening to one another, it becomes much easier to discover issues before they present as a problem, permitting corrective action to be put in place to prevent further problems.

Some effort will be necessary, even so the payoff is worthwhile. Through encouraging a good team dynamic and developing good listening techniques, a successful business can be yours.

It’s opinion in numerous companies that, so long as each and every member of staff has decent health & safety education, they have all the knowledge they might need to prevent an incident. The truth is though, a basic education in health & safety regulatory affairs just is not adequate. You need to supply your staff with competent supervision, not to mention provide the right safety gear and give them the chance to practice. Your staff must have an excellent supervisor to watch over the shop floor, however this person must also fulfill a greater purpose on the floor. Your choice of supervisor must be a good communicator, they should also see health & safety education as fundamental.

On top of following any relevant legislation, the task of a supervisor also usually includes supervising staff performance. This is a hard task. In depth industry knowledge is essential for a supervisory role as well as a very high level of understanding of safety legislation, risk assessment, and CPR. It’s just not enough to offer your staff health & safety instruction. They have to practise risk assessment and the recognition of hazardous areas. They need to know how to eliminate safety hazards and also how best to act when disaster strikes. Your employees are only properly prepared when everything has become routine. Safety equipment is equally as critical to the your staff’s well being as any training. Without the proper apparatus or if workers see that items are damaged only after a crisis has occurred, even the most advanced training won’t help them. Frequent maintanence of your equipment is crucial. If you find your equipment is in less than perfect condition, have it repaired or serviced as a matter of urgency. The right health & safety instruction is essential for the well being of your workers, however they also require good quality gear, frequent practises, and a supervisor who can motivate your staff. And then complying with health & safety legislation will before long become part of your employee’s working habits instead of something challenging for the workforce to remember.

Succeeding in the modern business world depends on the effective management of staff. People management can be improved and studied. It may be a plus to have a innate affinity for people, but there are many things you can do to make this process simpler.

Build relationships: Start by memorizing the names of the staff. Encourage conversation; make eye contact during a conversation. Show respect, in addition listen to everything the other person says, irrespective of whether you agree with them. Acquiring the ability to listen is among the best things you can do to better your people management skills. Be sure to receive any input from your team members. Live up to your word: Keeping your word is crucial. When you don’t deliver on what you promise, the fragile bond of trust is fractured, and without trust employees certainly won’t offer their best. Everytime you give a commitment or give a promise, do be sure you can follow through or it would be better not to give your word at all. To be honest, if you can’t be counted upon, they can’t be relied on to be available if you actually need them.

Be open to any comments: Feedback must be a two-way process. Maintaining an open mind with regard to other’s ideas is an important skill in effective people management. Being approachable and open proves that you respect other’s views, and they will listen to yours. Encouraging open discussion in addition opens doors to fresh ways of thinking, original ways of fulfilling goals, and improves the team dynamic. By allowing the employees some input, each member takes an interest in the results of the project. Communicating is important: Good communication is central to managing staff with skill. Keeping an open door policy, apply listening skills, keep an open mind, and permit team members an equal voice. Inspire staff not only to communicate to you, but with each other. The growth of a business relies heavily on the open exchange of opinions, and if the employees communicate well, it becomes much simpler to discover any issues before they might become problems, and corrective measures can be applied before things get out of hand.

A little effort will be necessary, but the dividends achieved far outweigh the work. By inspiring a good team dynamic and by taking heed of your team’s opinions, a thriving business will be yours.

Years ago, before I ever entered the field of marketing, I saw one of the greatest sales presentations I have ever seen, only I, and most of the 200 plus people in the auditorium weren’t aware that’s what was happening.

And it worked like a charm!

In fact, what made it most effective was that we weren’t really aware that we were being sold to. That in fact we were the targets of a carefully planned and executed marketing campaign that worked mainly because of that fact.

Since that time, I have used the technique myself in many different disguises and in more than one medium, but the marketing technique remains relatively constant.

In mail order marketing, it used to be called the two-step technique. My wife has another, more descriptive, name for it, but we’ll save that for later.

Here’s how it went down. It was the late 80’s, and I had completed 13 years of active duty in the army and was in the Texas Army National Guard, working full time as a federal purchasing agent at Camp Mabry in Austin, Texas. Periodically, the powers that be would hold what were referred to as “Town Meetings”. All the offices would leave someone to answer the phones, and all the employees would meet for question and answer periods, procedure updates, or sometimes, informational briefings. When you got everybody in the room, there were a couple of hundred or more.

One day, a Town Meeting was held, and we were all told we were going to receive a briefing on personal safety. A professionally dressed lady was presented to us, and she gave an excellent, humorous yet fact-filled presentation on defending yourself, or better yet, avoiding placing yourself in dangerous situations. She covered many means of self defense and ways you could fight off or escape from an attacker. She gave special attention to the situations in which a woman might be accosted while shopping or on her way to her car, for example.

The presentation was very valuable, and I saw several people even jotting down her recommendations and cautions.

During a question and answer period that followed, one of the women present asked the lady where some of the items she had mentioned, and shown, during the presentation, such as Mace or pepper spray, could be acquired.

Funny she should ask.

You guessed it. As it happened, the lady represented a company which sold those types of items. She had some free handouts, and she had a table with samples of various self defense items on a table in the back, and a catalog for those who wished to take it home and look at it. She was prepared to take orders for things she did not have with her.

Before the last person left the building, she had sold almost everything she had brought, and had taken orders for several hundred dollars more.

My wife calls it “giving something away”, in order to make a sale.

As I stated above, it has long been known as the “two step” method. In the heyday of mail order, a free report was offered, and, when ordered, arrived with informational material on other, similar items. If the person bought from that presentation, they were offered more items. This procedure had two valuable results. It gave the marketer a growing list of people who responded to that type of presentation and were willing to purchase those sorts of items, and it helped establish a trust relationship between buyer and seller.

I can wave the world’s greatest product around all day, and offer it at reduced rates, but I will make many more sales if I am waving it in front of people who are interested and motivated to buy that sort of product, and…in front of people who already trust me!

Sometimes it is easier to lead the customer to choose the product than to sell the product to the customer.

The author is retired from the Army after 21 years of service. He has worked as an accountant, purchasing agent, optical lab manager, restaurant manager, instructor and long-haul, over-the-road truck driver. He has been a member of Mensa for several years, and has written and published poetry, essays, and articles on various subjects for the last 40 years. He has been an active internet marketer since 2000, and now makes his living online. He has blogs on the subjects of Internet Business and Marketing, Health and Weight Loss, and Real Estate Investing.

Subliminal persuasion? It is simply influencing people at a level below their conscious recognition. Many people don’t even realize they are being influenced by a smile, making even that a subliminal technique. Here are two more subtle methods.

Subliminal Persuasion Using Inflection

It is easy to assume that a sentence like “I can’t promise you that price.” has only one meaning. In reality, though, inflection provides much of the actual meaning. Look at the each of the sentences below, each with a different word emphasized, and followed by the implied meaning.

I can’t promise you that price. (But maybe someone can.)

I CAN’T promise you that price. (There’s no way.)

I can’t PROMISE you that price. (But maybe you’ll get it.)

I can’t promise YOU that price. (But I can promise someone else.)

I can’t promise you THAT price. (But maybe a good price.)

I can’t promise you that PRICE. (But I can promise something.)

The meaning of our statements is determined by which words we emphasize, and it is a subtle process. If you can’t promise him that price, you can tell him “I can’t promise you that PRICE,” and he may still feel good about the situation, especially if you immediately follow with what you can promise him. You probably know what you want to say. Understanding the subtle and often subliminal power of inflection will mean you actually say it.

Subliminal Persuasion Using Their Own Words

Restate what a person has said they want, and then show them how you can give them that. We all need to have some internal consistency, so we don’t like to act against what we say. This is why, as long as you have what they need, this technique works well. For an example, we’ll suppose you are selling a prospect a vacation.

After listening to what they want, you find something that fits their needs, and then say, “If I remember right, you said you wanted a warm beach, under $2,000 for the week, and with nearby nightlife. I think we’re in luck. Both of the packages we just looked at fit your criteria, so do you like Cancun or the Bahamas better?”

It is tough for someone to say they are not interested when you just found exactly what they said they wanted, and reminded them of their words. They probably won’t even notice that you are using their exact words. They’ll just feel uncomfortable contradicting what they said, and find it easier to agree. That’s subliminal persuasion.

Steve Gillman has been hunting down obscure knowledge and useful secrets for years. Learn more subliminal persuasion techniques, and get a free gift at: The Secret Information Site (http://www.TheSecretInformationSite.com)

Imagine an office without a desk, or lights, a computer, or even something as simple as a chair. When the architects and designers started planning a building or office space they knew they would have to make concessions for these items during each of the building activities. As marketers, we take part in many activities, much like a builder or designer does.

Of these activities, there is one that precludes each of these; the annual planning and budgeting process. One part of planning often gets left out though, measuring the effectiveness of the activities we plan. Yet plans without metrics are like offices without chairs, conference rooms without tables, or buildings without a foundation. Parts of each exist, but there is a major component missing.

Recently surveys have concluded that 55% of business to business marketing executives face the challenge of measuring marketing’s effectiveness. A recent survey conducted by Unica made this statement: “However, survey respondents also said they faced numerous challenges, chief among them measuring marketing effectiveness, which was cited by 55% of respondents.” It was also stated that many executives don’t believe marketing is measurable. And 63% of them don’t consider marketing to be measurable. So it should be no surprise to learn that as many as 57% of marketing plans overlook metrics and that plans are more about counting activities rather than measuring the impact on business outcomes as was determined the fifth Business Readiness Survey conducted by VisionEdge Marketing.

Can we measure marketing’s effectiveness? Does it really make a difference?

It certainly does for many companies. One company in particular, VCON, found incorporating a metrics framework into their planning process to be extremely valuable. Founded in 1994, VCON develops and manufactures collaborative communication solutions that include videoconferencing and audio conferencing products. VCON’s entire portfolio is integrated together with a suite of management systems and development tools, providing a unique and fully integrated conferencing experience for the user. The company relies on an indirect channel to sell their solutions worldwide. For the past decade, VCON has consistently been the first to market with innovative products and technologies, both in the conferencing market and in the solutions needed to manage and deploy conferencing systems.

The marketing team realized that securing a larger marketing budget would require taking a more metrics-related approach as a means to demonstrate the marketing organization’s contribution to the company. So when they realized the need for a metrics-based approach, they hired VisionEdge Marketing to help them develop the right set of metrics. VCON turned to an outside resource to help create a framework for their plan. They chose VisionEdge Marketing because the company’s metrics expertise and a model ties marketing metrics to the goals of the company.

Laura Shay, VCON’s Global Product Marketing Manager, wanted an approach that went beyond tracking results from a variety of marketing activities, such as metrics associated with web site visits, click-throughs, and participants at a webinar. Rather she wanted a way to connect the marketing initiatives to the company’s market share, partner development, and up-sell objectives. “We had a good idea of the adoption process for our technology and we were monitoring dozens of activities and outcomes. What we didn’t know was whether these were the right things to be monitoring and how to tie activity tracking to the success of our marketing objectives and strategies,” added Laura.

VCON’s limited marketing resources were overwhelmed with the number of things that were possible to track. The challenge was getting the team out of the weeds of tracking various marcom activities and more focused on identifying metrics that would really indicate whether the marketing initiatives were moving the needle for the business.

Prior to the metrics development and framework session, VisionEdge Marketing examined the metrics currently being used by the company and the company’s business objectives for the coming year. “This preparatory stage was very helpful,” commented Laura. “It enabled us to start thinking about tying our marketing initiatives to very specific business outcomes such as market share, order value, and repeat business.” The business goals were used as a framework for the plan. By understanding the specific business outcomes, the session could focus on where marketing could make an impact and how to measure this impact. Within a half day or so the marketing department was able to develop a manageable set of metrics. A key part of the process was to clarify what outcomes have real impact on the business.

The metrics focused on two primary areas: The channel’s role in VCON’s success, and a goal of achieving 25% quarter-to-quarter growth from new products across all sales regions. Three metrics were selected: revenue/partner, qualified leads/region, and new products sold vs. previous product sold. Key indicators were defined for each of these and appropriate objectives and strategies were then incorporated into the annual plan. A side benefit was that the planning session was far more productive. “We didn’t get bogged down in discussing the nuances of each region and why tracking certain activities would or wouldn’t work. We could keep our eye on the larger picture and each region could address its individual differences,” added Laura.

The process enabled the VCON team to achieve two important outcomes:

1. A set of key metrics that crossed markets and regions

2. A plan and budget the management team could evaluate based on business outcomes

Of course the best outcome was the team was able to deliver a plan and a budget request the management team could relate to. “We were more successful in securing faster approval and a better budget, because the plan very clearly connected the dots between marcom activities and business outcomes,” said Laura.

VCON has learned the importance of a complete marketing plan and have already reaped the benefits by securing a higher marketing budget. They have learned the importance and ability of metrics to measure the effectiveness of marketing to show how their efforts impact business goals.

Since working with VCON, VisionEdge Marketing has continued to educate companies and individuals on the importance of metrics to a marketing plan and communicating marketing’s effectiveness to the company. By using VCON as an example, they are able to show how completing the planning process pays off for the company, as well as the marketing department; just as adding all components to a building, makes it complete.

To learn more about strategic metrics that align marketing with business goals, check out VisionEdge Marketing’s latest book, Measure What Matters by Laura Patterson, President of VisionEdge Marketing.

VisionEdge Marketing is a strategic marketing consulting firm that helps organizations develop metrics-based marketing strategies and processes that create a competitive advantage designed to attract, secure and retain profitable customers to maximize the value of the organization.

This article relates to the Coworkers competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. It tells the story of a coworker whose performance consistently facilitated effective cooperation, collaboration, and communication between the employees within one organization. While the Team Dynamics competency focuses on relationships within a single group, this competency targets coworker topics spanning the entire organization over multiple work units. This competency investigates your organization’s ability to successfully work in partnership on projects with one another and between groups to reach the common goals of the organization.

This short story, Coworker and Caretaker, is part of AlphaMeasure’s compilation, Tales From the Corporate Frontlines. It illustrates how one coworker’s knowledge, compassion, and dedication to the common goals of her company made getting the job done a joy for her entire work team.

Anonymous Submission

Every workplace has one. The employee who keeps the operation moving, the “go to” person who can always be depended upon to know the answer to any question. The person who always has time to hear your thoughts, and everyone in the office feels comfortable talking to. In short, the exceptional coworker.

Mary Ann retired from our office last week after 40 years of faithful service. She knew every client, sales rep, contact and associate of the company and in particular, her manager. She knew her own job duties completely, and was acquainted with the responsibilities of every other employee in the office.

Mary Ann was not management material, it was said around the office. I don’t believe that statement was true. I think she could have done anything she wished, and quite successfully. But she didn’t want to lead. She seemed quite content to do her part to keep things running smoothly - behind the scenes. She was the office “mom” - the birthday celebration organizer, the office supplies coordinator, the interior decorator. Her work was always finished, flawlessly, and she made herself available to train new employees and help them fit into the office family. Mary Ann put together lunches when coworkers retired or moved on, and always did a major part of the holiday party planning.

Always even-tempered, even under stress, she consistently had a good word for everyone who stopped at her desk. She could be depended on for a dose of common sense and practical wisdom. Whenever a crisis came up, and there was mass panic or chaos in the office, Mary Ann would enter and bring calm to the situation with her mere presence. She’d assess the facts, make a few suggestions, and everyone would begin to get back to reality and set about making things right again. “The Voice of Reason” we called her, and rightly so.

She will be missed. It will be interesting to see how our office gets along without her, and if anyone will move into her position. Any volunteers?

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© 2005 AlphaMeasure, Inc. - All Rights Reserved
This article may be reprinted, provided it is published in its entirety, includes
the author bio information, and all links remain active.
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Measure. Report. Improve your organization with AlphaMeasure employee surveys.

Josh Greenberg is President of AlphaMeasure, Inc.

AlphaMeasure provides organizations of all sizes a powerful web based method for measuring employee satisfaction, determining employee engagement, and increasing employee retention.

Launch your employee engagement survey with AlphaMeasure.

My husband and I recently returned from a trip to Austin, Texas. It was beautiful and refreshing. We also left the kids at home.

The reason I was able to leave the kids behind is because they have ROUTINES and a regular schedule.

Therefore, my close family members could read the 5 page printout of instructions I had prepared because the routines were easy to follow and continue.

You can incorporate routines into your schedule. When I say regularity, I do not mean rigid tight schedules.

Here is an example that may or may not work for you.

1. Go grocery shopping on the same day each week. I recommend going Tuesdays because the beginning and end of the week are usually busy.

2. Designate 2 days a week for laundry. I do not worry about the piles of laundry on any other day except Sunday and Wednesday. That way I don’t stress out about it until the regularly scheduled days.

3. I like to grocery shop Tuesday morning and then come home and cook it all Tuesday afternoon. I buy loads of fresh foods and then I freeze it after my cooking fest!

You can create a time map for yourself by listing all of your responsibilities and then plugging them into hour increments. So for me, a list would include- laundry, cooking, shopping, website editing, exercise, newsletter writing, etc.

Then, I plug all of these responsibilities into some hour of my weekly schedule. I try to make that hour the same every week. It’s easy to remember.

Think of what your responsibilities are-they probably do not change much from week to week- and create routines. You can even call it a “ritual” or “event”. Those words are more celebratory and make it fun.

So my “laundry day parade” on Sundays and Wednesdays is somewhat fun. (I try to spice up my life as much as possible)

What are your ideas?

Rebekah Slatkin is a professional organizer with a website full of information dedicated to getting you organized. Check it out at http://www.best-organizing-products-superstore.com The organizing product reviews and ezine are very helpful!

In Part One, I described the importance of establishing deep, human connections with people you lead. I said there were three ways to do that, by communicating information, by making sense, and by having your experience become their experiences. By far, the most important and most effective way, is the latter.

Now I’ll show you how to make that happen by developing and communicating a defining moment.

Write down three to five of your EXPERIENCES that made a strong impression on you. Describe each in a few sentences or paragraphs. That’s it. Do no more. The important thing now is to deliberately walk through the sequence of defining-moment development. It’s easy to get off track, but once you take the trouble to go through the process, you’ll have it for life.

For instance, an experience that defines much of what I do in leadership happened when my father lay on his deathbed. He and I had struggled for years over conflicting views of my career path, but when he got cancer, the terrible disease led to a healing in our relationship, and for the first time in years, we were able to talk with affection and no recriminations. During a long discussion one afternoon a few weeks before he died, I told him that I felt I had run out of opportunities in my life.

His thin hand, which had been so broad until he became ill (He came from a family of hulking carpenters.) closed around mine, and he said, “Brent, how can you say that? Everyone has opportunities all the time. Look at me. Even me, here, on this bed even I have opportunities!”

I didn’t think much about what he said until after he died, and then his words kept coming back to me. Sort of breaking open in my mind like psychological time-release capsules and releasing bits of understanding. I came to understand what he really meant. And I took that understanding into my life and work.

Since then, I have never lacked for opportunities simply because my father had me see that opportunities are never lacking nor have I allowed the leaders I’ve worked with to lack opportunities.

“Even I have opportunities” is a defining moment, an experience, one that led to profound awareness and purposeful action not for my sake, but for the sake of the leaders I’m consulting with. For the defining moment’s purpose is not to illuminate what you can do, but what they can do.

Now that you’ve written down some defining experiences, you can begin to change them into defining moments. The experience is the raw material; the defining moment is the instrument, shaped from the raw experience, that enables you to reach into the hearts of the people you speak to and motivate them to take action to get results.

1. Select an audience to speak to. It can be one person or many. It can be someone at work, in your family, or in your social circle. This should be an important interaction. You don’t simply want to communicate but to have a communion with the audience.

Don’t expect the defining moment to automatically generate that communion. Often, it simply marks a small step you’re taking in that direction. But that step is the very core of the right beginning.

2. Identify the needs of the audience. This is absolutely crucial to using the defining moment. The defining moment is all about human relationships, and you cannot have a rich relationship with someone unless and until you understand their needs.

3. Once you’ve chosen an audience and identified their needs, go back and select one of the EXPERIENCES you wrote about.

At this point, don’t try to connect that experience to what you are going to say to your audience. We’ll make that connection later. Many speakers try prematurely to make the connection. In doing so, they short-circuit the power of the defining moment. Hold off on making the connection until we’ve gone through a few more steps.

4. Take each experience and identify the physical facts that gave you the emotion. In my father’s case, it was his hand squeezing mine and his smile and gentle words, “… even I have opportunities.”

5. Have the experience be a solution to the needs of your audience. That solution lies in the lesson the defining moment teaches.

Here is the secret: The defining moment exists not for you to point out what you did, but for you to point out what the audience can do. In other words, your defining moment must become their defining moment. If it doesn’t become their defining moment, it doesn’t work.

Take, for example, my defining moment with my father. All the leaders I’ve worked with need to get more results than they’re presently getting. In fact, the leader who is satisfied with the results he or she is getting doesn’t need my help. My methods are not for the satisfied leader. To an audience that needs to get more results, I talk about opportunity, the opportunity to get results. Results are limitless!

When I talk to audiences about such opportunities, I use that defining moment. I say, “What I’m about to tell you isn’t so much about me as it is about you and the unlimited opportunities to get results.” That introduction is vital. It confirms that our interaction is about them and not about me. When my father’s words resonate with their deepest needs, the defining moment works. Otherwise, it’s a waste of their time.

6. Speak to your audience about your defining moment. Make sure it holds a solution to their needs. Don’t have your defining moment stick out awkwardly in your interaction. Have it be a spontaneous, seamless communication said in a natural, relaxed way.

As a leader, you do nothing more important than get results. And the best way for you to get results is not to have people respond to your orders but to motivate them to be your ardent cause leaders. We never know how good we are as leaders unless we are motivating people to be better than they think they are. The defining moment goes a long way in helping make that motivation possible.

2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com

The author of 23 books, Brent Filson’s recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. - and for more than 20 years has been helping leaders of top companies worldwide get audacious results. Sign up for his free leadership e-zine and get a free white paper: “49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results,” at http://www.actionleadership.com