With the speed of social media, it is far too easy to make big and visible branding mistakes these days.
Top 10 Branding Mistakes
The most common branding pitfalls that our clients report include:
- Lack of Differentiation: Failing to truly differentiate from the competition in the eyes of your target clients. Differentiation is a critical component of a go-to-market strategy. It allows you to combat pricing pressure and stand out from the pack. True differentiation means that there are no other perceived substitutes of similar value and that you can back up your unique claims.
For example, on the TV Show, Shark Tank, entrepreneurs are often tripped up by the celebrity investors when their products are not perceived to be appreciably different. From Custom Chef Hats for women that can be replaced with shower caps to selling socks in sets of 3 in case you lose one, smart investors (and customers) know "different" when they see it.
- Inconsistent Messaging: Using complicated, jargon-based, inconsistent, contradictory and confusing messaging can alienate consumers and customers.
For example, we recently took our car to a 10-minute oil change place. Once we gave them our car, it took 20 minutes to change our oil. Now that may be faster than our normal garage, but we left dissatisfied because they did not fulfill their brand promise.
- Over-Extending the Brand: Extending the brand too aggressively and not focusing on what you do best.
For example, in the 1990s, Harley Davidson motorcycles had acquired a cult-like status. The brand stood for toughness, masculinity, freedom and power. In a bid to leverage the brand, Harley introduced wine coolers, aftershave and perfumes. After robust criticism from loyal customers, Harley discontinued many inappropriate products. More products do not always mean more sales.
- Failing to Align: Misjudging the importance of aligning marketing, sales and service causes problems and inefficiencies through the entire customer lifecycle.
For example, Comcast Cable advertised the new Xfinity1 platform in our area. We received weekly fliers and sales calls about the promotion. When we finally picked up the phone. they spent 15 minutes asking questions and running through our account. Then they told us it was not yet available in our area. They wasted our time and their time.
Read More about the Top 10 Branding Mistakes and 4 Smart Ways to Grow and Live Your Brand Promise
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Situation
Gas South serves more than 260,000 residential, business and government customers in Georgia and Florida and is best known for innovation and community commitment. Because Georgia is a deregulated gas market, customers can choose the best provider. Gas South's business is seasonal. The busy "Light Up" season runs from September 1 to the middle of November and is the prime time to convert calls into sales.
After outsourcing their service center for years, Gas South decided to bring the service center back in house to more closely align customer service with Gas South's service strategy.
When Gas South took the service center in house, the staff was asked to service and sell to better match the customer buying and issue resolution process. Happily, most reps exhibited behaviors that showed commitment to making sure the customers received whichever service they are eligible for, adhered to very basic standards like answering the phone correctly and exhibited basic courtesies like saying "thank you" or "please" when appropriate, and followed customer verification requirements on direct calls.
Complications
- While everyone was now expected to service and sell, not everyone had adequate service and sales skills to convert calls and give excellent customer service and the abilities varied significantly from rep to rep.
- Some reps were struggling to effectively move customers from the initial decision point to buying.
- Reps had to be trained to promote how the company provided a great service, motivate the customer to buy or address opportunities to sell long-term contracts.
- There was an opportunity to increase urgency created by the reps and, in some instances, reps did not have the skill set to take the call that was routed to them.
- Very little, if any, upfront discovery was done before quoting rates. When rates were quoted, they were given in a laundry list format without consideration for why one would choose a certain rate over another causing customer confusion and frustration.
- The Public Service Commission in Atlanta requires that a certain number of calls be answered in a certain amount of time.
- The call monitoring process was very detailed and sometimes missed the "essence" of the call while creating data overload and ambiguity for the reps and their managers.
Approach
- Conduct Sales Strategy Optimization Workout: Finalize the key success metrics to move and determine the critical few scenarios/call types with sales opportunities and craft an optimum and realistic approach to driving revenue.
- Design and Deliver Sales Pilot Session: Enable one core team to recognize and solve for top call types in order to impact sales conversion rate and average handling time.
- Train the Trainer: Enable one qualified Contact Center facilitator to deliver the sales workshops on an ongoing basis.
- Coach-the-Coach: Provide targeted performance methodology and feedback for customer service reps and their managers.
- Align Incentives: Update performance metrics and incentives to better align a sales and service culture
- Measure Results and Improve: Analyze the pilot deliverable results and critical few "Metrics to Move™" to determine next steps.
Metrics That Moved
- 35% increase in Sales Conversion Rate in 8 months
- 27% decrease in Average Handle Time in 8 months
- A specific, clear and coach-able customer acquisition process helped to uncover other underlying performance management issues to be addressed
Learn more about creating customer loyalty
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Is it really true that on time, on budget and fulfilling all requirements means project success?
Whose requirements are we really trying to meet anyway?
And who decides if the original due date can be changed when the scope grows?
In this article we'll address the key people swirling around your project: stakeholders. You'll find some tips and other resources for optimizing stakeholder involvement in your project. "Who cares?" "What do they care about?" "What am I going to do about it?" Those are the three simple questions a project team can ask to understand their stakeholders and develop a strategy for keeping them happy.
As we developed an interactive workshop on stakeholder management built on those three questions, one of our project management experts put all the pieces together when he said, "That's just risk management for people." We think he's right.
Review this classic risk management process. Can you see the parallel?
- Identify risks.
- Analyze and quantify the risk.
- Develop a risk response.
So on your next (or current) project, consider treating your stakeholders as opportunities or threats and follow the three proven tips in this article to manage and exceed expectations of who matters most to your success.
Read More about Managing Stakeholder Risk
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Take a 10-minute Alignment Research Survey & Get an Exclusive Copy of the Results
When it comes to strategy, IBM found that less than 10% of well formulated strategies are effectively executed. When it comes to culture, a recent Harvard study found that as much as half of the difference in operating profits between organizations in the same industry can be attributed to culture. When it comes to talent, you need look no farther than the Oakland A's and Moneyball to understand what differentiated talent strategies can mean to your business.
Take our 10-minute Alignment Research Survey to get key business insights and a chance to win a $100 Amazon.com gift card.
Companies perform better when their strategy, talent, and culture are aligned. Help your company by getting exclusive insights into how the alignment of strategy, culture, and talent impact performance when it matters most by understanding if:
- Your strategy is clear enough to act
- You are creating a high performing culture
- You have the right talent practices in place
You'll receive a complimentary copy of the Results and be entered into a drawing to win one $100 Amazon.com gift card. All responses are confidential.
Get started here: http://www.lsaglobal.com/alignment-survey
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Successful (and unsuccessful) corporate cultures can take on many different shapes and sizes.
While we are heartened by the increased attention being given to the importance of organizational culture, we are concerned about some of the misinformation being propagated by practitioners promising quick fixes and silver bullets for everything that ails under-performing businesses.
We define culture as how things get done in an organization - especially when no one is looking. We believe that organizational cultures exist by design or by default. And, regardless of their origin, they can play a critical role in your company's success.
Test yourself against these three common myths.
Myth #1:
As long as you hire similar and smart people, your culture will be a competitive advantage.
Let's start with the well-intentioned idea of hiring similar people - people like you. Successful teams thrive on diversity in approach, style and background as long as they have a way of dealing effectively and productively with differences. In fact, according to research published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin by the School of Management at Brigham Young University and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the richer the mix of players, the better the decision making and overall group effectiveness.
Secondly, hiring for skills and intelligence over cultural fit will not get you the talent that thrives in your unique culture. In fact, if you only look for "smarts" you may seriously sabotage your goal of creating a high performing corporate culture. Google learned this lesson during a period of high growth and now ensures that in addition to desired levels of proficiency, new hires have the right "Googliness." This includes the ability to collaborate, learn, handle ambiguity and be agile. In general, skills can be taught, but the key behavioral competencies that make sense for your unique corporate culture often cannot be learned.
Lastly, corporate culture is about more than who you hire. It is about the underlying values and assumptions that drive key business practices and behaviors. It is also about the level of alignment that those practices and behaviors have with your corporate strategy. High performing cultures are clearly understood, consistently modeled and observed, and intensely leveraged to drive peak performance.
Read More about the other 2 Culture Myths
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
When it comes to strategy, IBM found that less than 10% of well formulated strategies are effectively executed. When it comes to culture, a recent Harvard study found that as much as half of the difference in operating profits between organizations in the same industry can be attributed to culture. When it comes to talent, you need look no farther than the Oakland A's and Moneyball to understand what differentiated talent strategies can mean to your business.
Take our 10-minute Alignment Research Survey to get key business insights and a chance to win a $100 Amazon.com gift card.
Companies perform better when their strategy, talent, and culture are aligned. Help your company by getting exclusive insights into how the alignment of strategy, culture, and talent impact performance when it matters most by understanding if:
- Your strategy is clear enough to act
- You are creating a high performing culture
- You have the right talent practices in place
You'll receive a complimentary copy of the Results and be entered into a drawing to win one $100 Amazon.com gift card. All responses are confidential.
Get started here: http://www.lsaglobal.com/alignment-survey
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Because it takes time and money to get new salespeople up-to-speed and because buyers want stability, most of our clients want their sales force to stay over the long term.
While the desired length of time is unique to each business model, less than twelve months seems universally unacceptable and three-to-ten years of tenure appears to be an attractive range for sales leaders.
It Starts with Hiring Right
If you did your homework as a sales manager and hired well, your new hire will have the right interpersonal, motivational and intellectual competencies to thrive on the job and in your corporate culture. But your job as team leader is not yet over.
Know Why Top Talent Leaves
It is as much your responsibility to keep "A" players on the team and successful as it is to select them in the first place. That means that you have to keep an eye on the top three reasons that most salespeople leave:
- Greater opportunities for advancement, learning, promotion and commissions
- Easier sales situations with more differentiated solutions or in less competitive sales environments
- Better cultural fit regarding how things actually get done in the organization
Make On-Boarding Count
Even though your new hires may be well schooled in complex, solution and value selling, they are not familiar with your organization, with their co-workers, with your products/services, and with your customers. Help ease their transition to their new job by practicing six sales on-boarding tips and identifying the six early warning signs that you need to take action.
Read about the 6 Onboarding Best Practices and Warning Signs
Take New Employee Orientation Health Check
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
One of the most important sales leadership decisions is who to hire and when.
How do you know when to grow, expand, hire, develop or fire? There are so many variables to consider...not least of which is determining what it will take to recoup any investment.
Typically sales managers wait to add a new salesperson until the current level of sales justifies the added expense. Some use a cost-to-sales ratio. Others just wait until they land a big deal to add more headcount. Unfortunately many of these strategies can backfire for different reasons. So how should you determine the best size and configuration of your sales force?
Thankfully, professionals who specialize in sales force effectiveness have come up with 4 proven guidelines to help with this challenging decision.
- Watch for indications that the size of your sales force is skewed, either up or down.
While it may seem obvious, you need to pay attention to early warning signs. Are your salespeople complaining that they don't have enough opportunities? Are they being ignored by their customers? Is too much time spent on non-revenue producing sales activities? And what about your competition...are they downsizing?
These are all clues that you may need to decrease the size of your own sales team.
Conversely, are your salespeople complaining about their travel or workload? Are competitors ramping up their sales teams? Do you hear from customers that they are dissatisfied with their level of service? Are your salespeople only re-actively taking orders with little time to prospect and fill the pipeline with target accounts?
These are signs that your sales team is understaffed.
Read the Remaining 3 Tips For Growing and Shrinking Your Sales Force
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Is your team firing on all cylinders?
Every CEO we meet wants a high performing workforce that is engaged, agile, developed and productive in order to help execute their strategy. But before they spend big money and time on employee satisfaction surveys and the actions they generate, smart leaders make sure that the changes will bring about the desired business results.
Consider this real world example.
- Employees at a recent client cited the lack of career development opportunities as key to their dissatisfaction.
- They, like many other employees across multiple industries, wanted visible options to learn, grow and advance.
- The company quickly assembled an internal team to address the problem and, as a result, created a state-of-the art career resource center.
- Great news except for the fact that most managers did not support their employees going to the center because "they needed to get their real work done at their desk."
Not surprisingly, the pressure of the urgent day-to-day business tasks often outweighs the longer-term importance of retaining top talent in the eyes of front-line managers. So, as one employee put it, "another great idea that did not deliver great results."
Why?
In addition to day-to-day pressures, many managers view engagement, development and retention as someone else's responsibility. They believe that the annual employee satisfaction survey and the resulting action plan belong on the sidelines of their day-to-day business. What these well-meaning managers failed to realize is that even the best plans can and will fall short if they aren't supported at multiple levels in the organization.
That's where performance coaching can create a sustained and measurable difference.
Coaching for engagement and development can reduce the risk of failure, empower leaders to tap into their employees' discretionary effort, and encourage employees to own their careers. When the coaching relationship is directed at these issues, it helps managers and employees find simple, yet meaningful, ways to engage and develop beyond the everyday distractions and for the long term. And, very appealing to leadership, coaching can also mean big improvements in the company's bottom-line.
Read About the 6 Tips to Get Engagement and Performance Started
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Most of us have had to deal with a horrible coach, teacher or boss at some point during our lives. And it is rarely easy.
My worst boss micromanaged everyone on our team, was more worried about who he sat next to than what he delivered, played favorites and did not help us grow in our careers. Fortunately his boss saw through his antics and replaced him with a more superior and motivating leader before we all quit.
An article in the Huffington Post by Dr. Tasha Eurich wonders why there are so many bad bosses. She claims "they're bad because everyone is afraid to tell them." As bosses rise up the corporate ladder, there are fewer and fewer employees willing to tell bosses the truth about their behavior and the negative effect they have on the motivation and engagement of their followers. I know that early in my career I was certainly timid about providing upward negative feedback.
According to a survey by Reputation Management Consultants, the top three CEOs with the worst reputations are Donald Trump, Jamie Diamond of JP Morgan Chase, and Martha Stewart. If your boss emulates one of these three, you have some options. New manager training programs advocate open lines of communication between team members and managers. If this recommendation were followed, there would certainly be better leaders. A difficult conversation about the truth of their management behavior may eventually be necessary but, meantime, there are other ways to deal with a bad boss.
Get 3 Immediate Tips for Dealing with a Bad Boss
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Good learning leaders start by creating a strategy that outlines clear and compelling choices about where to play and what actions to take that all key stakeholders agree upon.
Easier said than done.
Done right, a successful strategic plan sets a learning and development function up to perform beyond just the sum of its parts. Without a clear direction, your training function may tactically achieve some short-term wins, but it will fail to garner the ongoing trust, support and results required to make a meaningful impact on your career, your company or your employee base.
We have learned from experience that there are many different ways to "skin the cat" - some work and some don't.
- At one professional services client that grew from 50 to 2,500 employees in two years across 5 countries, the executive team identified talent development as a strategic imperative for growth. The company then went on to build a world-class training function, deliver industry leading engagement and retention rates and successfully go public. Their approach worked.
- Conversely, at a fast growing high tech client, the challenge was that even though 87% of employees listed professional development as their #1 priority on a recent employee engagement survey, only 20% of the executive team agreed upon the value and strategic direction of their L&D function. Because of this, their learning results are inconsistent, top talent is leaving and their varied approach is not working.
We have learned that there are many different paths to creating a successful training function. In our experience, however, there are 5 main strategic approaches that differentiate one training function from another. One direction is not necessarily better than another, but you do need agreement on the direction to be successful.
Read About the 5 Core Training Function Strategies and Key Mistakes to Avoid for Each
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Two recent high growth clients have made significant shifts in their learning and development functions.
The first, a 4,500 person networking firm appointed an internal candidate who was a successful systems engineer and sales leader to run the function. The second, a fast growing services firm of 350 employees that plans on doubling in size in 12 months, hired a high potential line manager from a competitor. While both are passionate about attracting, developing, engaging and retaining top talent, neither have any training, organizational development, instructional design or human capital experience or backgrounds.
And, they are both already making great moves and asking all the right questions. Why? Because they are both taking a no-nonsense business approach to learning...the same approach that everyone should take to treat talent differently and impact the business where and when it counts.
In addition to high executive-level expectations, their added challenge is to create (or re-create) the training department from scratch. The executive team wants a strategy and plan that makes sense and that will make a difference.
What are the big picture and essential ingredients of the ideal learning and development function?
Read about 4 Big Picture Ingredients When Designing an Effective Training Function from Scratch
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
My other friend called the same person 15 minutes later. He explained our dilemma and asked what the possibilities were. He listened. He empathized with the difficulty of the request. He shared that we had stayed at the resort for 5 years in a row and really enjoyed it. He put himself in the customer service rep's shoes. He connected and made small talk. And guess what? We stored our bags at their offices and were all set for a great day of skiing.
It often seems as though the customer is at complete odds with the customer service rep. From a customer perspective, wouldn't it be great to better understand the world of the rep behind the scenes in order to know how to get more effective service?
Here are 7 tips from behind the barricades from our customer service experts that should help you as both a consumer and a service leader:
- Stay courteous. You may be legitimately angry but do not become abusive. The polite caller is more likely to get satisfaction with their complaint than the nasty, threatening caller. However, it is said that if you are "talking" to a computer, a raised voice might speed your call along to a real person and expedite a solution.
- Know that if you are a regular, long-term customer, you have an edge. Once your record is on view and the rep recognizes your valued customer status, you will be treated with more respect and are more likely to achieve the objective of your call.
Read All 7 Tips to Get and Provide Better Service
Learn more about Customer Loyalty
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
If you lead a contact center, you know how difficult it is to consistently meet customer expectations while also satisfying internal success metrics.
The performance pressure is especially high when your customer service strategy includes generating new revenue in addition to providing great customer service and keeping costs low.
While most of our clients have already made some initial moves to incorporate sales into their contact center, the majority continue to struggle with the transition from service to sales and finding the right balance between serving and selling. Some customer experiences are so fraught with up- and cross-selling that it is difficult just to buy a sandwich without having a 5-minute conversation about chips, drinks, specials, etc.
Based upon decades of research and hands-on experience, we have identified the top 6 call center myths that impede success. Once you understand what they are, you can build a plan on how to overcome these myths in order to:
- Better and more consistently motivate call center reps to serve and sell in a way that works for your customers
- Recruit and interview top contact center talent that fits your unique culture
- Identify, develop and measure the critical few service and sales competencies that matter most
- Reward and recognize sales and service reps in alignment with your strategy and culture
- Use proven performance coaching to drive sales and service
Read the 6 Biggest Call Center Sales Myths Now
Learn How to Live Your Brand Promise through Service
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Gartner's recent study found that larger projects fail 66% more often than smaller projects. Similarly a McKinsey/Oxford report confirmed that larger projects run almost 50% over budget, 7% over schedule and deliver half as much functionality as promised.
Intuitively, it makes sense. Larger projects are typically more complex, involve more people, have more pressure and take longer. Hefty projects are also magnets for unforeseen risks, major scope creep and politics. They also under-perform in terms of managing internal and external stakeholder expectations.
So what options do you have when major change is required that demands extensive resources?
Instead of taking on large projects that are likely to fail, divide them up into small chunks by ensuring:
- the core project team stays small (5-7 people showed the highest performance)
- scope remains tight (clearly identified success criteria)
- timing from start to finish is fast (less than 6 months correlated to success)
Besides the improved chance for overall success, here, according to project post mortem reviews, are the advantages of small versus large projects.
Read 6 Research-Backed Reasons Small Projects Beat Large Projects 2 Out of Every 3 Times
Learn 3 Proven Steps to Better Manage Project Stakeholder Risks
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Leading an important and highly visible project is as exciting as it is risky.
With more boards and executives depending upon project teams to execute their most pressing strategies, project leaders need to step up their game. Research shows that up to 75% of projects fail to meet stakeholder expectations.
In essence, an effective project leader enables teams to beat the odds by increasing the consistency of deliverables, better managing expectations of key stakeholders, more frequently being within budget, intelligently managing risk, and significantly improving communication, professional development, and employee engagement.
It is a lot to ask.
As a project leader, your success is dependent upon the success of others. So it is your job to create the environment required for everyone (including your customers) to succeed.
Get project leadership tools for success now:
Project Health Check
Top 5 Warning Signs of a Bad Project Leader
5 Characteristics of a Great Project Sponsor
How to Gracefully Overcome the Top 4 Project Challenges
Performance Pressure: How Much Should a Leader Push?
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Our experience and expertise, however, tell us it is indeed difficult, but not impossible, to change a culture. And, after designing and implementing dozens of culture shaping and change projects, we have learned what it takes to succeed. Culture change initiatives that work are characterized by 10 key principles and best practices.
Culture Change Success Rates
A recent survey looked at over 1500 companies worldwide that had engaged in corporate transformation initiatives in the past 5 years. 38% of these companies reported their initiatives were "completely" or "mostly successful." The remaining 62% stated their attempts to transform their organizations were only "somewhat successful" or "unsuccessful."
Success was measured based on improving the organization's performance using factors such as profitability, return on capital, market value and inventory reduction. Qualitative factors such as a positive shift in organizational engagement and morale, improved capabilities, and closer relationships with customers and suppliers were also measured.
Learning from studies like these combined with our 25+ years of hands-on experience helping clients on major change initiatives, we have come up with the top 10 culture change success factors.
If you are undergoing organizational culture change, this list is for you.
Read: The Top 10 Culture Change Success Factors
Download: Do You Have a High Performance Culture?
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
People resist change. Leaders resist change. Yet, to be successful, companies must constantly change.
Organizational change occurs at many levels and for many different reasons. From assisting an under-performing leader, to merging two businesses, to shaping a high performance culture and strategy, change is necessary to compete over time.
At its essence, change is about getting people to behave in a new way.
New habits are tricky. As humans, we embrace some big changes - getting married, buying a house, taking on a new job and having a baby. And we fight others - losing weight, quitting smoking, following a new sales process, being on time.
We know that people change when their circumstances change. Top leaders know that it is their responsibility to shape their organization's environment to get the most from their people within their unique strategy and marketplace.
Get organizational change tools now:
Change Readiness Health Check...
5 Science-Backed Lenses of Change Leadership
6 Critical Questions to Initiate Change
A New Way to Think About Change: The Agile Organization
Why Change Fails and How to Beat the Odds
Performance Pressure: How Much Should a Leader Push?
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Once your sales strategy is clear enough to act, it is the sales leader's job to create the high performance environment necessary to get results for you and your clients.
We define culture as how things get done in an organization - especially when no one is looking. Many still mistakenly believe that culture is "soft HR-type stuff" that can be ignored because it does not have a quantifiable impact on performance.
Successful sales organizations know better.
They understand and leverage their culture to outperform their competition. They ensure that the right behaviors get modeled, measured and rewarded for both their customers and their business. They consistently improve or dismiss sub-standard performers quickly.
One recent Harvard Business School research report described how an effective culture can account for up to half of the differential in performance between organizations in the same business.
Is your sales culture an asset or a liability?
Based upon over 20 years of research, here are the top 5 sales culture warning signs:
- There is an ambiguous definition of high or low performance
- Non-improving low performers stick around or high performers do not embody espoused culture
- It is unclear if "the way" creates success
- Key success metrics are perceived as confusing, conflicting, or unfair
- There is success-driven complacency
If any of these warning signs are appearing in your organization, it is time for you to act.
Read more:
6 Steps to Creating a High Performance Sales Environment
Top 5 Performance Environment Warning Signs
Do You Have a High Performance Culture to Drive Your Strategy
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Is your sales force set up to succeed?
Tristam Brown, LSA's Chairman and CEO will Keynote at the Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco on May 5th at the Four Seasons Hotel and Spa in San Francisco. Attendees will learn how to close the real-time strategy, culture and talent gaps to achieve unprecedented success.
The session, entitled Stop Doing Stupid Stuff: The Critical Moves Required to Create Real-Time Sales Results is for senior sales leaders who believe that they are headed in the right direction, but their sales team's performance is not where they want it to be. The interactive talk highlights how to not get fooled into making isolated or diluted moves that do not lead a sales force dramatically forward.
When it matters most to your biggest customers, do you have the capability and capacity to respond in real time? Are you are headed in the right direction, but your sales team's performance isn't where you want it to be? Unfortunately, many sales teams continue to make isolated moves that do not propel the sales force dramatically forward. Neither talent nor culture nor strategy alone will produce the real-time results necessary to succeed. Alignment is the missing ingredient to achieve real time sales success.
The session will help sales executives to:
- Assess their sales strategy to determine if it is clear enough to act and respond in real time.
- Determine whether or not they have a high-performance sales culture with the capability to succeed when it matters most.
- Attract, develop, and retain differentiated and customer-centric sales talent.
Read more about creating high performance environments...
Ask us about a Free Pass to the Conference
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
The talent of your team matters.
The talent of your team matters.
Successful leaders understand that extraordinary results are the byproduct of a dedicated team of engaged, motivated and high performing employees. Unfortunately, high growth companies often make the following people mistakes ...mistakes that negatively impact the business:
- Hiring for speed instead of cultural fit to meet increased demands.
- Neglecting key non-monetary moves that help retain current and potential "A" players.
An organization's top talent is always vulnerable to competitive offers. Most leaders know that (regardless of what they tell you on their way out the door) employees typically leave managers - not companies or jobs.
Bad managers make it nearly impossible for employees to be satisfied, but good managers know how to protect their direct reports from job or company failings such as ineffective strategies, structures, processes, systems, plans, policies and politics.
Improve the capabilities of your managers and you can make a huge difference in attracting, engaging and retaining top talent that consistently achieves best-in-class results. You can't afford to lose talented team members because of poor management practices.
Read more about the 3 proven ways to Engage Employees...
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
Last month, the New York Times reported that the jobless rate in the U.S. is the lowest in 5 years. Manpower ran a recent online poll of nearly 900 workers that found 83% are actively looking for a new position and another 9% percent are networking to see what is available. That adds up to 92% of respondents on the move. Add these factors to LinkedIn becoming such a powerful passive recruiting tool, and the situation adds up to a wake-up call for leaders looking to grow. Put employee retention on the top of the strategic agenda at your very next management meeting.
If your top talent--the ones who watch your back and who can run with any ball you toss their way--is leaving (or at risk of leaving), you had better figure out why. You need to put a stop to the brain drain. Not only can your organization lose momentum as you try to fill the gaps, but it also risks failure without those key folks.
Ask yourself:
- Do we have right talent management processes and systems in place to predict, track and minimize turnover in the next 12 months?
- Have we uncovered the critical few employee engagement weak spots for our most important jobs and top talent groups?
- Have we clearly identified our key talent and conducted "stay" interviews with them recently?
Historically, the beginning of the year (this month and next) is the most common time for organizations to hire...they need to fill positions for new budgets that become available in January and employees are also more open to make changes at this time.
The bottom line: Act now so you don't risk losing your top talent. Do not wait to get the engagement and retention discussion started with your leadership team.
Read more about engaging and retaining top talent...
About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned
