“A brand is defined by the customer’s experience. The experience is delivered by the employees.”~Shep HykenListen – pay attention to what your customers are saying. Use surveys, feedback cards, and face to face conversations to see how you are doing.Be aware - watch each team member in the act of serving a customer – where are the weaknesses and how can you build them up?Define - what is and is not great customer service. New employees...
Nonverbal communication is made up of all the things we add to the words - when we smile, wave, or look someone in the eye when talking to them. Most of the time we think of those things as supporting our words, the verbal message, but in fact, most agree it makes up around 93% of all our communication. Why? Because those gestures, facial expressions and eye contact heavily influence how people interpret and react to...
“Great vision without great people is irrelevant.” ~Jim Collins, Author of Good to Great Today, finding quality employees could well be a full-time job. The challenge is that you already have a full-time job. The good news is that there are many outlets that make this less time consuming and more beneficial. Here are a few: 1. Post on your social media outlets. What started as a way to stay in touch with friends and family has...
Most of us don’t try to irritate the boss, we see no real positive gain in such. If your boss has empowered you to make decisions and act on their behalf, then my assumption is you probably are capable and have the power to answer questions that come up. As a leader, you are looking for people whom you can develop and hand off more responsibility to. Leaders need their people to think through problems, respond...
Honesty. If you are truthful, it builds trust. So how do you mentor your people to be honest? One way is to be honest yourself…always. Recently, I was doing a one-day training event with a great organization, and I had everyone list the traits of their childhood heroes. As we reviewed their heroes, it was clear that the heroic traits had more to do with the hero’s character and less to do with their knowledge. The act...
How does a professional turf expert stop weeds from growing in their turf-lawn? How do amazing companies stop negative employees from influencing the company culture? There are a lot of similarities. Let’s explore this a little further. To stop weeds from growing on a high-performance field or fairway, the turf is treated with a pre-emergent weed control product at critical times of the year. The pre-emergent’s job is to stop weeds from ever starting to grow in...
With so many companies experiencing growth opportunities, one of the biggest challenges facing our service industry is finding people to work. The demand for quality work has not and will never decrease. Quality is important and always will be. Some businesses have dealt with the labor shortage by decreasing the number of customers they will service or purging out their low margin - high upkeep customers. Others are ramping up employee pay and seeking new employees. The...
There is no more noble occupation in the world than to assist another human being — to help another succeed. ~Alan Loy McGinnis It is the end of the Christmas season, New Year's Eve is upon us and giving/getting gifts is still a big part of the culture. Did you give your team anything? Without knowing your team, I hope you did, but I don’t necessarily mean a material gift, although I am sure that would have been nice. What...
“You may delay, but time will not.” ~ Benjamin Franklin. Recently I was having a conversation with a young leader who told me he spent all day Saturday watching football and as a result, he didn’t get any work done. He felt bad because he had some projects planned, but he had wasted the entire day just watching football. This is a good guy; he takes care of his family, running a couple of successful “side hustles” to make...
Don't assume. One of the biggest mistakes I made was thinking our workforce thought of themselves as leaders. I assumed because I thought of everyone as leaders, so did they. When I ask our team to raise their hand if they felt like they were a leader, about half did and half did not. I needed to communicate more often and with greater clarity. Don’t blame your team. Once you blame others on your team, you lose...