What's New?

There is an urgent need for every center in this global economy to improve its processes continuously. The ongoing strive to be better than everybody else and become better than oneself the day before, is at the core of survival. And the key to your success is engaging your center team every step of the way.

Engagement is the name of the game. Engaged team members perform better and produce more. And they help engage clients. That makes the emotional connection that builds loyalty. Engaged team members like coming to work, they want to contribute; they want to make a difference.

Mounting evidence suggests that the more engaged team members are in what they do, the better their performance and the higher the rewards for everyone. The key is to have managers who are skilled at creating employee engagement. Are your employees engaged in their work, or are they estranged from your company's mission and their role in making it happen?

Are your employees giving your company "their all?" Do they believe that what they're doing is important? Do they feel appreciated? Do they show up for work each day with passion and purpose?

A red flag should go up if you answered "no" to any of those questions. Why? Managers who aren't taking care of their employees are missing out on significant cost-savings and profits.

Master of the Academy

The Academy wants to help you improve your team's performance and profitability. For as little as $33.00 a month, you can provide on-demand OBC workshops for the entire team. Take advantage of this special offer to start building your own online training library with the most popular workshops from the 2009 Revenue Optimization Webinar Series.

To learn more, please visit http://theallianceacademy.com/traininglibrary.html.

Training that Works

Too often, a new receptionist gets turned loose on the phones and clients without instructions on how your center operates. Most people don’t spend enough time stressing professionalism and client education. By following a training plan, your new receptionist can gain confidence and skills to represent your center well.

1. Plan a great first day. Remember your first day on the job? You were nervous about meeting co-workers, afraid of making mistakes and hoped you’d chosen the right job. Ask the new receptionist to start an hour later than the other team members on the first day. A shorter first day is less stressful and other team members will be ready to greet the new member.
   
   Give the receptionist a tour of the center and stop to introduce each team member and client along the way. Let the new receptionist observe employees, review client information, and read the employee handbook. Take the new team member to lunch and use the social occasion to get to know each other and begin to developing a trusting relationship.
2. Ease into training. The first week, the new receptionist should learn to greet clients, update itineraries and telephone answering protocol for each client. That’s it! Make sure they have mastered those tasks before adding more responsibility
3. Clearly define roles. Review the job descriptions for each center position and clearly define your expectation of the new team member.
4. Assign a mentor to instill confidence. A buddy system can grow skills in your new receptionist while developing leadership qualities in seasoned team members. Follow a training checklist that must be initialed by the new employee and mentor. This makes the mentor accountable for the new receptionist's success and gives both a list of learning goals to achieve together.
5. Provide learning resources. Besides hands-on-training and coaching from mentors, provide resources for the receptionist to review. For example, your company website, client's websites, marketing material, ABCN website, etc.

Developing phone and client-service skills doesn't happen overnight. Give your new employee constant feedback about exceptional performance as well as ways to improve.

Case Study

For business leaders in centers of all sizes, the writing is on the wall: You can make and save money by keeping team members engaged. Here are nine management tips for creating and sustaining team member engagement:

1. Let go of any negative opinions you may have about your team. Approach each of them as a source of unique knowledge with something valuable to contribute to the company. Remember that you are co-creating the achievement of a vision with them.
2. Make sure team members have everything they need to do their jobs. Remember when you started a new school year and you'd prepare by getting all new school supplies? Why not build just such an opportunity into your center by asking each team member, or the team as a whole, "Do you have everything you need to be as competent as you can be?" Remember, just as marketplace and customer needs change at daily, so do your team's needs change.
3. Clearly communicate what's expected of team members-what the company values and vision are, and how the company defines success. Team members can't perform well or be productive if they don't clearly know what it is they're there to do-and the part they play in the overall success of the company. Be sure to communicate your expectations, and to do it often.
4. Get to know your team members, especially their goals, their stressors, what excites them and how they each define success. I'm not suggesting you pry too deeply or start 'counseling' your team members. What I am suggesting is that you show an interest in their well being and that, when appropriate, you do what it takes to enable them to feel more fulfilled and better balanced.
5. Make sure they are trained and retrained in problem solving and conflict resolution skills. These critical skills will help them interact better with you, their teammates, customers and vednors. It's common sense-better communications reduce stress and increase positive outcomes.
6. Constantly ask how you are doing in your team members' eyes. I know it can be difficult for managers to request feedback-and it can be equally if not more challenging for an employee to give the person who evaluates them an honest response. To get strong at this skill and to model it for employees, begin dialogs with team members using conversation starters such as, "It's one of my goals to constantly improve myself as a manager. What would you like to see me do differently? What could I be doing to make your job easier?" Be sure to accept feedback graciously and to express appreciation.
7. Pay attention to company stories and rituals. Are people laughing at each other or with each other? Do they repeat stories of success of moments of shame? Stay away from participating in discussions that are destructive to people or the organization, and keep success stories alive.
8. Reward & recognize team members in ways that are meaningful to them (that's why getting to know your employees is so important). And remember to celebrate both accomplishments and efforts to give employees working on long-term goals a boost.
9. Be consistent for the long haul. If you start an 'engagement initiative' and then drop it your efforts will backfire, creating team member estrangement. People are exhausted and exasperated from 'program du jour' initiatives that engage their passion and then fizzle out when the manager gets bored, fired or moved to another center. There's a connection between an employee's commitment to an initiative and a manager's commitment to supporting it. A manager's ongoing commitment to keeping people engaged, involved in and excited about the work they do and the challenges they face must be a daily priority.

Ultimately, you must keep in mind that employees are a company's greatest assets. Their collective ideas, feedback and enthusiasm for what they do can help your business grow and succeed. Some people are naturally wired to give their all and do their best no matter where they work. But the majority of people require the guidance of skilled managers who welcome their ideas, ask for feedback and generate enthusiasm in order to have a sense of purpose and energy about what they do.

Focus On...

"Your Price is Too High"

Price is the single most common objection encountered by sales people in every industry, city, or secotr of the economy. It can also be one of the most difficult objections for many center managers to overcome.

Fear not - an objection over price doesn't have to be a deal-breaker! The following five-step process can help you handle price objections from both new and established clients, and go on to build long-term and profitable relationships.

Step 1: Talk it over first

The first thing is making sure to talk about the office price before sending the client anything in writing. Verbalizing what you think the price will be before sending a formal proposal can significantly reduce the chances that a price objection will arise. If they object, this allows you to deal with the issue face-to-face and right up front. If you just send the price in an email and they do not like your price, they might simply not call you back.

Step 2: Be 100% committed

Next, make sure you are 100% committed and convinced that your price is fair before you tell the client what it is. If you don't think your prices are a fair value, no one else is going to believe it either. As a sales person, you must be able to say to yourself: "You know what, if I was in the client's position, I would take the office. This is a great deal, at a good price!"

How can reach this level of confidence? Start by doing your homework. Find out in advance what your competitors process are like, so you know whether your customer is comparing apples to apples.

Plus, remember that an objection is often just an attempt by clients to see if they can make us squirm a little. They know that most sales people are terrible at handling objections, so they figure it's worth a shot to see if they can get a better deal.

As long as you keep in mind that an objection over price isn't necessarily an indication that the client is about to walk away, you'll be able to keep your cool and remain in your conviction that your prices are exactly what they should be.

Step 3: Don't assume anything

I'll save you the old joke about what you do to "u" and "me" when you "assume" anything. Suffice it to say, it hold true when it comes to finding out exactly what "too high" means to your client.

When most salespeople are told that their price is too high, they make an immediate assumption about what "too high" means. "Too high" is a very subjective comment. So before you start making any counter-offers, take a deep breath, relax and don't say anything for a good three seconds. Just pause, look at your customer and gather your thoughts.

Sometimes those three seconds of silence are enough to encourage the client to elaborate. If they don't, come right out and ask them precisely what they mean.

Step 4: Find out what "too high" really means

Start by acknowledging the objection and showing the customer that you appreciate them sharing it with you. This can be as simple as saying something like "Thanks for sharing that with me," or "I appreciate your honesty." Giving them small compliments helps them to feel good about asking the question and reassures them that you're both on the same side.

Remember, the client has every right to raise any objection or make any comments they want. The worst thing you can do is to try and justify your position or defend your prices. Instead, the very best sales people look their clients square in the eye and say, "You're right; our prices are not the lowest in the market. How much too high are we?"

By acknowledging the validity of their objection, you're turning a potentially costly confrontation into a sincere invitation to work together towards a solution that will be beneficial for both of you. More importantly, by being straightforward, you stand a better chance of finding out exactly what the difference is between the price you quoted and the figure the client had in mind.

Step 5: Listen, respond - and if need be, move on!

Last but most defiantly not least, listen to the answer the client gives you. Most sales people are good at asking questions. Only the very best are masters at actually listening to the response.

If you say, "How high is too high?" or "What do you mean by too high?" and be quiet, you will get a nice long answer. Once the client explains their objection, I usually respond by saying something like: "If we can't our price down to the lowest level, does that mean there is no chance that we will go forward?" or I might ask, "So is pricing your only consideration?"

By asking these questions, You want to find out - once and for all, beyond a shadow of a doubt-whether they are making their decision based solely on price, or whether other factors will influence their choice.

As sales people, we have to be prepared to walk away from business where the client isn't willing to pay what the marketplace has determined is a fair price. The ironic thing is, the more business you walk away from, the more business chases after you. As often as not, the minute you tell a client the deal is not going to work, is the same moment they come running back to tell you that they're ready and willing to do business.

Insider Tip

Are you a deviant?

What do Michael Jordan, Rosa Parks, Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos), and Lady Gaga all have in common? Positive Deviance! They've all done or are doing something that puts them at the far right end of the "bell curve"of normal distribution. They are "deviant". While the word has actually been associated with negative behavior, it doesn't have to be.

Deviant comes from two Latin words. "De" means "from"and "Via"means "Road." Deviate mean "Off the beaten path." People that demonstrate unconventional or uncommon behavior can be called positive deviants. I kind of like the term myself. And consider myself one of that group. Do you?

People who depart from the norm, walk to the beat of a different drum. Think outside the box, go with their gut and otherwise step off the path of how everyone else is doing things around here and are more successful because of it, ought to be watched.

In the last year have you found a unique way to reach your potential clients, redesign your workspace for better client collaboration, or discovered a new service that will make your clients more successful? If so, go with your gut and create something meaningful for you, your team and your clients. If not, go on a deviance hunt find at least one way to improve the way your center operates.

The Academy would love to hear about your positive deviance. Send your ideas to ssmith@theallianceacademy.com.