Top Ten Rules for the staff Christmas party:

1.   Set a 'Party Policy'

From the employer's point of view, the Christmas party is classed as a 'work activity'. It therefore should therefore be treated as such by having guidelines in place. This could be as simple as displaying employees' responsibilities, such as acceptable standards of behaviour, on a notice board. The employer's responsibilities, for instance meeting health & safety requirements and providing grievance procedures to deal with any resulting problems, should also be outlined.

2.   Identify potential hazards

Just as with any other work-related activity, a risk assessment must be carried out to identify potential hazards. This could involve inspecting the venue to plan for drunken slips and trips, considering the safety of people going home after the event, and even identifying any potential conflict between employees, so that table plans can be organised accordingly.

3.   Issue behavioural guidelines

This should be included in the 'Party Policy' and should clarify unacceptable behaviour, such as harassment, bullying and fighting. Employees should understand that, as this is technically a work activity, normal disciplinary procedures would be applied.

4.   Invite husbands, wives... and life-partners

If inviting employees' partners to the event, employers need to tread carefully. This should not be restricted to husbands and wives but also extended to partners of the opposite and same sex, to avoid potential sexual orientation discrimination claims. With the introduction of  Ontario legislation, granting same-sex couples the right to enter into  of marriage, employers should make extra sure that, if inviting partners, same-sex partners are not excluded from festivities.

5.   Avoid 'tipple tattle'

Boozing managers should avoid discussing promotion, career prospects or salary with employees who may use the convivial situation to discuss matters that are more suited to a formal appraisal or private meeting. The employee is likely to expect any career promises to be kept - even if the employer can't remember the conversation!

6.   Limit the spirit

If the employer supplies the alcohol, or encourages its consumption, they may be legally responsible for the welfare of the employee if they suffer from drink induced disasters - even if they occur outside of the party itself. The best solution is to limit the number of free drinks and be prepared to ask individuals to take it easy if they appear worse for wear. Suggested that you offer a cash bar.

7.   Don't poison your staff

If providing a buffet, the food must be safe to eat. Buffets present a particularly high risk of food poisoning from foods such as cooked meats, eggs, mayonnaise and cooked rice. Food should not be left out at room temperature for more than 90 minutes and should be stored below 5°C.

8.   Ditch the mistletoe

The Christmas party is the perfect environment for a festive fling but this could have repercussions when employees return to work. A brief encounter under the mistletoe can cause embarrassment in the workplace and put strain on working relationships. While many businesses have informal views on office affairs, most do not have a policy on workplace relationships.

9.   Curb drunk driving

As employers are responsible for employees' actions after consuming alcohol they have provided, sensible bosses will issue advice before the party about not driving after having an alcoholic drink. It is advisable to hire a minibus for the end of the night, or provide the numbers of local taxi firms to demonstrate that reasonable steps have been taken to minimise this risk.

10.   Don't expect miracles the morning after!

A contract exists between the employee and employer that they will be in a fit state to carry out the work they are being paid to do. Employers should decide to what extent they will be lenient to staff coming to work with a hangover, arriving late, or even not at all, and inform employees. More important is the safety of employees, who may not be fully sober the next day, especially if they need to drive or operate machinery. Employers should either advise employees beforehand not to drink too much alcohol, or remove the risk to safety by giving them alternative work until they are fit to resume their normal tasks.

Working with you.

Chris Wilkinson.                              

Certified Business Behaviour & Attitudes Analyst.               

Business Coach.

Tel: (905) 275-2907 (Mississauga--CANADA).

E-mail: buspilot@bell.net

8 Ideas on how to create a new company culture....

1.Creating a new culture calls for new methods. Creating a new culture will be extremely difficult if you insist on doing it by playing with the old rules. Trying to change while still using the old rules is futile — the rules themselves are part of the problem.

2.Champion the vision and re-channel the energy. When change happens, people get disoriented and fear and resistance take over. Start by communicating a compelling vision to focus employees’ attention. Give people something to aim at—be specific and avoid generalities.

3.Make your early moves bold, dramatic, and unwavering. Culture change requires a unique combination of passion, courage, conviction, audacity, and determination. Your early moves must be strikingly bold, lightning fast, and out of character in relation to the old rules. You must gain momentum quickly, and employees need to see your resolve or you won’t overcome resistance.

4.Surround yourself with talented, tough-minded nonconformists. Creating a new culture is not only about changing the rules; it’s about changing the rule makers. Surround yourself with people who are as passionate about the new vision as you are and are willing to stand up to the heat.

5.Re-engineer the reward system to reinforce the behaviors you want. Culture change won’t happen unless people see a personal return on investment for behaving in different ways. If you don’t radically restructure how you reward people you’ll fuel the fires of resistance. Change what you celebrate, honor, and who you hold up as heroes. Devote your time to those change agents and vision champions who add value.

6.Track progress, measure results, and hold people accountable. The cliché is true: You get what you measure and reward. Holding people accountable means paying close attention to what’s important. Like a rubber band, if you relax the pull of the new culture, people will revert back to old comfortable patterns. Tracking progress enables you to know Sincerely,  

E-mail: buspilot@bell.netwhere the resistance lies and where you should be allocating rewards.

7.Remove obstacles and bureaucratic practices. You’ll gain respect and credibility by breaking the chains of bureaucracy. But bureaucracy is a formidable adversary — it’s the ball and chain of ‘the way we’ve always done it.’ Your employees will have a difficult time contributing to the new cause if they are shackled by the old rites, rituals, and rules.

8.  Establish concrete evidence and tangible results quickly through small wins. Tangible pay-offs fuel the fires of motivation and contain the skeptics. It’s hard to argue with success when you can measure it in hard dollars, time saved, and percentages of rework minimized. Advertise successes—many cultural initiatives fail because employees in the trenches don’t see or hear about positive results.

Chris Wilkinson.

Certified Business Behaviour & Attitudes Analyst.

Business Coach.

Tel: (905) 275-2907 (Mississauga).

So what should we be doing to prepare for a sales call? Here are 14 tips.

1. Have an objective: Maybe one of the things I've screwed up the most in my sales career but when you think about it rather obvious isn't it? You need to think about what you want to happen as the result of the meeting. Often we don't have enough information going into the meeting to know exactly what objective is achievable so it’s good practice is to have a 2-3 outcomes that work for you. Most of the time in a complex sale "get the deal" is NOT a likely outcome.

2. Confirm who will be there: This one seems to be forgotten quite a lot. Meetings change their flavour dramatically depending on who’s there. Is the CEO coming? If so, his team will act a little differently. I just heard of a real life case where a CEO was supposed to be at a meeting but canceled last minute due to a crisis. Even though the sales person executed the sales call well the sale only moved forward slightly as the CEO was not present. Your preparation depends heavily on whose coming.

3. Prepare to fight the status quo: When you think about real selling today, fighting the status quo is the stiffest competition out there. So many of the opportunities we have in the pipeline seem to go to Neverland. Before any sales meeting how about preparing to fight you toughest competitor: Mr. Status Quo? What arguments do you have that are so compelling that this super-busy prospect will make a change?

4. Research the company: Sales 101 stuff. Make sure you do the basics of knowing about their company, visiting their website for goodness sake. It’s happened likely to every sales person sitting in a sales call and the prospect says “well you probably know that from our website” and they forgot to look!

5. Research the person: Also obvious but also not always executed well. You’re selling to the person not to the company. So find out what you can about them personally. Of course spend more time if this is a big opportunity for you and less if it’s a small potato. But do some quick research on the person whenever you can (Google and Linkedin at least.)

6. Anticipate objectives and questions: Prospects have questions. They may even sound like objections. What do you say to these things? Don’t try to wing it – you will take unnecessary risks by winging it. Go in prepared. Think about the most likely questions and objections you are likely to hear and prepare your responses.

7. Know issues in their industry & about their competition: What are the prevalent issues in the prospect’s industry? What moves are their competition making? What can you learn from their competition which gives you insight into what your prospect company may be dealing with?

8. Come in with assumptions: These days not only can you not ask questions like “what business are you in?” but you need to be a consultant that has an overview of the prospect’s market. You need to enter with a statement like “we’ve noticed lots of companies like yours dealing with cash-flow management issues [replace with relevant issue]. Is this affecting you? How are you handling it?”

9. Think about bringing some hope with the “N” in SPIN: Can you create a positive experience? If you’ve tried your hand at SPIN questions you’ve probably noticed the most powerful questions are the “N” questions. These are the “positive energy” questions. “What would things be like IF?” These tend to leave your prospect feeling good. As they allow him/her to visualize a better (less stressed) future. So what kind of “N” questions can you come up with for your super-stressed prospect? (By the way, these are also the hardest questions to ask so you’ll definitely only pull them off if you prepare them beforehand).

10. Prepare case studies and testimonials: Make sure you have your relevant case studies and testimonials lined up. Keep them in your briefcase until you really need them (hint: use them at the end of the meeting as proof not at the beginning as a “dog and pony show” -- you are there to listen).

11. Bring your ROI information: Same here as for case studies: what have you got that supports the ROI on your services/widget? Do you have any actually numbers? $’s speak the loudest, but operational metrics are great too. What can you show me about the amount of payoff and payoff time to break even?

12. How about an agenda? Sort of seems radical to many sales people but how about actually having an agenda for your meeting? A lot of your prospects are used to having agendas for well-run internal meetings so why not for your sales call? Agendas help iron out any misunderstandings on the goal for the meeting, saving you valuable time. Plus your prospect will likely be impressed at how professional you are, making you stand out from other sales people – cool.

13. What do they see when they look for you? When your meeting pops up on your prospect’s calendar they might be tempted to remind themself of who they are meeting with? Will they Google you? Check your Linkedin profile? Probably. What will they find? What picture of you will they have before you even enter their door?

14. Match prep time to the importance of the call: For more important calls spend more time on preparation. As a rule-of-thumb, I’d expect to spend at least one hour preparing for a fairly important one hour sales call, half an hour for a half hour meeting etc. - increase or decrease to taste.

Sincerely,  

Chris Wilkinson.

Certified Business Behaviour & Attitudes Analyst.

Business Coach.

Tel: (905) 275-2907 (Mississauga, ON Canada).

E-mail: buspilot@bell.net

Do you have a company e-mail privacy policy?

 Email Privacy—a sample policy….

  

Individuals using the email system should expect that messages sent on Company business or with the use of Company facilities are available for review by any authorized representative of the Company for any purpose related to Company business.  The Company reserves the right to access the contents of email communications at any time and for any reason.  It is a violation of the Company policy for anyone to use the email and computer systems to satisfy idle curiosity about the affairs of others, with no substantial business purpose for obtaining access to the files or communications of others.

 Email communications may be monitored at any time and for any reason, including but not limited to, breaches in security, violations of law, or infringement of Company rules.  If indications of illegal activity or violations of Company policy or security are noted during monitoring, the individual(s) involved will be reported in accordance with Company policy.

Do not send interactions or material that may be considered offensive to others, including, but not limited to, racial or off-color jokes, pornographic or sex-related links or content, or jokes based on age, national origin, ethnicity, religion, pregnancy, marital status, sexual orientation, disability or any other legally protected category.

If you receive interactions or material that may be considered offensive as described in the previous sentence, it is your responsibility to advise the sender to discontinue sending you inappropriate emails or messages.  If you are not comfortable advising the sender to stop sending these types of message, please contact your Manager or Insert:  appropriate contact for assistance.

	Although lawyer reviewed for use in Ontario, you should review this sample policy for your own unique situation with your legal representative, prior to use.

 

 Sincerely,  

Chris Wilkinson.

Certified Business Behaviour & Attitudes Analyst.

Business Coach.

Tel: (905) 275-2907 (Mississauga, ON Canada).

E-mail: buspilot@bell.net

7 Mistakes that cause high sales rep turn-over....

Sales rep turnover can be very costly for organizations, both in terms of hard costs (actual outlay of training and other dollars) and opportunity costs (lost future business). According to Gallup research conducted in 2006, five of the top predictors of turnover are:

1. The immediate manager
2. Poor fit for the job
3. Lack of commitment to quality

4. Pay and benefits
5. Connection to the organization, or to senior management

In addition to those mentioned by Gallup, there are two other causes of significance:

6. Poor hiring
7. Insufficient onboarding

Let’s look at each of these individually.

1. The Immediate Manager

The most common cause of sales rep turnover is a sour relationship with the direct manager. This relationship is critical, and if it doesn’t work well it will lead to a termination or resignation. One CFO commented, “People need to be appreciated for their hard work, and if the employee doesn’t feel this respect then he/she will leave.”

Sales managers’ main role is the development of their sales teams for maximum performance and results. There is a direct correlation between a sales professional’s success and the competence, value and mentoring abilities of his/her sales manager. Top managers make a habit of doing the following:

• Setting high yet achievable standards for their reps
• Helping their sales professionals develop their skills and improve their teams’ results
• Co-authoring short- and long-term sales goals with their employees
• Coaching and mentoring their employees to help them achieve superior results by implementing on-going development plans
• Developing highly productive coaching relationships with their people and understanding each salesperson’s key motivators
• Holding their teams accountable for the activities that will lead to the success and accomplishment of their sales goals

2. Poor Fit for the Job

If a salesperson doesn’t enjoy the type of sale that

his/her organization is engaged in, this will lead to turnover. If the salesperson doesn’t enjoy sales at all then he/she will not last in that role.

3. Lack of Commitment to Quality

Salespeople will take issue with their company if they don’t feel that the company stands behind its products. That is, when they make a sale the organization can’t support the delivery of quality goods and services. Sometimes the fault for this can rest with the employee if he/she is overpromising what the organization is capable of delivering.

4. Pay and Benefits

Many employees leave their companies because of insufficient pay or benefits. Although Frederick Herzberg’s research on motivating factors shows that an increase in pay has less impact than a decrease, it is still an important factor in employee turnover. One thing to note however is during exit interviews people often identify pay as the reason for leaving, as this is an answer that will have little impact on the individual’s reputation when they leave the company.

5. Connection to the Organization, or to Senior Management

Employees like to feel a connection to the overall organization. They like to understand and feel part of the vision, mission, strategy and key priorities. With this in mind, be clear about what you’re trying to accomplish as an organization – not just financial goals, but also purpose. What do you aspire to bring to the world as a company? What kind of a culture do you want to create in order to do that? What will the organization look, feel and sound like if you’re embodying that mission and culture? How will you measure success? Once you’ve clarified your future consistently, focus on keeping that vision top-of-mind and working together to achieve it.

6. Poor Hiring

If sales success is approximately 50% talent, then performance conditions account for the remaining 50%. Hiring someone with the wrong talent will effectively remove half the equation. Poor hiring could be caused by a deficient process, mismatched profile of skills and experience, or both.

Deficient Process: If the sales manager is under a lot of pressure to fill the vacancy quickly, rush decisions could be made. Is the policy of your organization to respond to all candidates within a certain time period? How many candidates do you need to see in order to know you are getting a representative sample? What about job try-outs or probationary periods? These may lessen the risk associated with hiring.

Profile Issues: In hiring the right person the sales manager should consider both expected accountabilities AND required competencies. A thorough review of this profile should be done by both salespeople and managers before it is put in place. It’s helpful to outline unwanted characteristics as well. What allowances have you made to ensure you attract the very best talent?

7. Poor On-Boarding

The goal of an effective on-boarding program is to get the new salesperson up to full productivity as quickly as possible. A strong on-boarding program should be used as a hiring tool during the recruiting phase as a way to attract potential candidates. Consideration should be made to get the new hire up to speed within six months including a structured schedule for their first three months of employment. Sales managers need to be held accountable for the use of the on-boarding program and laying out very clear expectations of both activity and results within these first six months.

First line sales managers are the key to diagnosing sales force turnover problems and identifying and implementing solutions for reducing turnover among all three performance segments. Managers are the ones who have to determine if a low performing salesperson has future potential or not. They are the ones who must coach and develop a salesperson to realize his/her potential. They are also the ones who can find the right motivators for holding on to high-performing salespeople.

Sincerely,  

Chris Wilkinson.

Certified Business Behaviour & Attitudes Analyst.

Business Coach.

Tel: (905) 275-2907 (Mississauga--Canada).

                 E-mail: buspilot@bell.net

8 crucial sales skills

 Skill #1: Building the buyer-seller relationship*. Salespeople need to develop a better understanding of the buying process that customers actually follow-the real decisions they make, and when they are made. Then salespeople need to match their sales process with the customer's buying process. When this is done, salespeople begin to walk arm-in-arm with the customer as they arrive at the best possible solution.

Skill #2: Planning the sales call*. Most companies today lack a well-defined sales process. Very few have documented the sales practices that lead to b commitments from customers. As a consequence, salespeople don't plan sales calls properly. For instance, every call should end in some kind of commitment from the customer-an agreement to do something that will move the process forward.

Skill #3: Asking the right questions*. Most salespeople do not ask the right types of questions, even if they prepare questions prior to the sales call, which most don't. The impact of poor questioning skills is enormous. It leads to resistance in the form of stalls and objections, bad presentations that offer improper solutions, failure to differentiate from the competition-and missed sales opportunities.

Skill #4: Business acumen. If you're going to help your customer become more successful you need to know how businesses work in general, how your customer's industry works, how your customer addresses their target market and how your firms offerings can help them better serve their own customers. Without business skills, you'll never have the credibility needed to sell

Skill #5: Actively listening. Sales pros miss important cues and information by talking too much themselves and their products. It's much more important to shut up and let the customer talk. Yes, you should guide the conversation, but then listen and digest properly we learn so much about what the customer really wants, so that you can position your offering appropriately.

Skill #6: Presenting meaningful solutions*. Most salespeople claim that this is the skill they are best at. In fact, we as managers tend to hire people who have "the gift of gab." In reality, quality is far more important than quantity when it comes to making presentations. When salespeople zero in on presenting only specific solutions to previously agreed-upon needs, they rarely fail.

Skill #7: Gaining Commitments*. If you really think about it, the only reason to employ salespeople is to gain customer commitment. Yet, when asked, most salespeople admit that this is their weakest skill. Research suggests that almost two thirds of salespeople fail to ask for commitment on sales calls. Any effective sales training program must have a solid solution for this problem.

Skill #8: Managing Your Emotions. The way sales pro explain to themselves the causes of their successes and failures is vitally important. Developing a style that sees adversity as temporary and isolated builds the mental toughness, emotional resilience and patience to bounce back from setbacks and be proactive when the time is right.

Sincerely,  

Chris Wilkinson.

Certified Business Behaviour & Attitudes Analyst.

Business Coach.

Tel: (905) 275-2907 (Mississauga-CANADA).

E-mail: buspilot@bell.net

30 (+19 more) Employee Exit interview questions

1.        Tell me about how you've come to decide to leave?

2.         What is your main reason for leaving?

3.        What are the other reasons for your leaving?

4.        Why is this important, or so significant for you?

5.     Within the (particular reason to leave) what was it that concerned you particularly?

6.      What could have been done early on to prevent the situation developing/provide a basis for you to stay with us?

7.     How would you have preferred the situation(s) to have been handled?

8.     What opportunities can you see might have existed for the situation/problems to have been averted/dealt with satisfactorily?

9.     What can you say about the processes and procedures or systems that have contributed to the problem(s)/your decision to leave?

10.    What specific suggestions would you have for how the organization could manage this situation/these issues better in future?

11.   How do you feel about the organization?

12.   What has been good/enjoyable/satisfying for you in your time with us?

13.   What has been frustrating/difficult/upsetting to you in your time with us?

14.   What could you have done better or more for us had we given you the opportunity?

15.   What extra responsibility would you have welcomed that you were not given? 

16.   How could the organization have enabled you to make fuller use of your capabilities and potential?

17.   What training would you have liked or needed that you did not get, and what effect would this have had?

18.   How well do think your training and development needs were assessed and met?

19.   What training and development that you had did you find most helpful and enjoyable?

20.   What can you say about communications within the organization/your department?

21.   What improvements do you think can be made to customer service and relations?

22.   How would you describe the culture or 'feel' of the organization?

23.    What could you say about communications and relations between departments, and how these could be improved?

24.   Were you developed/inducted adequately for your role(s)?

25.   What improvement could be made to the way that you were inducted/prepared for your role(s)?

26.   (For recent recruits of less than a year or so:) What did you think about the way we recruited you? How did the reality alter from your expectations when you first joined us? How could we have improved your own recruitment? How could your induction training have been improved?

27.   How could you have been helped to better know/understand/work with other departments necessary for the organization to perform more effectively?

28.   What can you say about the way your performance was measured, and the feedback to you of your performance results?

29.   How well do you think the appraisal system worked for you?

30.   What would you say about how you were motivated, and how that could have been improved?

…AND 19 more sample questions

Call Business Pilot @ (905) 275-2907.

TODAY!

Sincerely,

Chris Wilkinson                

Certified Business Behaviour & Attitudes Analyst.

Business Coach.

Tel: (905) 275-2907 (Mississauga).

E-mail: buspilot@bell.net