Business Strategies Blog

 from the experts at Corporate Performance Strategies

Archive for February, 2009

Mentoring Employees is a Key to Surviving a Recession

23 February 2009 Dave Brookmire 0 Comments

The U.S corporate training market shrunk from $58.5bn in 2007 to $56.2bn last year, the greatest decline in more than 10 years, recent research from California consultancy firm Bersin & Associates recently found. This doesn’t come as a surprise – we have been covering this issue for several months on this blog. But these trends do reinforce another point we have been making: the best way to survive a recession is to focus on your existing employees, invest in their development and train them to sustain the business both in good times and in tough economic times.

A recent post from management-issues.com gave a great perspective on this issue:

“In the current climate it was almost bound to happen. Hard-pressed employers are taking an axe to their corporate training budgets, with spending declining at its fastest rate for a decade. But, while this means there will be less formal training and development of workers being carried out, it can also be seen as a valuable opportunity for managers to get more hands-on in the mentoring and coaching of their staff.

“Research by California consultancy Bersin & Associates has found that over the past year U.S firms have been forced to cut back sharply on their spending on training spending. But this is not so say that training has disappeared completely. In its place there is now more coaching, informal and collaborative learning and increased reliance on using external trainers rather than maintaining expensive in-house training departments.”

Read the full article: “Mentoring your way out of a recession.” As I have said before, the most effective managers are those who understand that there is a difference between management and leadership. They are the ones who are strong leaders and who can bring about change by infecting their employees with a vision for success. What better time than now to focus that extra attention on your top talent? Share your experience and expertise with them, and mentor them into positions of strength so that they can tap into their own creativity and innovation to help sustain your business through the recession.

Once your employees grab hold of your vision, they will fight for it just as hard as they would for their own dreams. In an uncertain economy like the one we are dealing with now, the last thing you want to create is an environment that makes your employees feel expendible and unimportant. This economy creates great opportunity for innovative entrepreneurs and small businesses to thrive. Strong leaders who take the time to invest in their employees will come out on top once the dust settles. If you need to learn more about mentorship or talent development, contact me.

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Customer Relationships Need a Human Touch

07 February 2009 Dave Brookmire 0 Comments

Following up on my last post regarding being customer experienced focused: there are certain things that are pretty sure to kill or severely damage your relationships with your customer. For example – robot answering services. For some things, automated or online systems are actually more convenient and improve overall customer experiences. But customers aren’t stupid, and they know the difference between a system set up to help them and a system set up to deflect personal interaction to either A. cut down on costs by reducing the number of needed call center employees or B. reducing a customer’s ability to deal with a time sensitive issue – (whether purposefully or not) – (best example – banks).

This is a great video giving a brief case study outlining how customer relationships are damaged by call centers that employ more robots that humans: It’s tagline is “Reality check – maintain customer focus”:

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Customer Experience Driven Companies

07 February 2009 Dave Brookmire 0 Comments

I read a great article today from the Harvard Business Journal entitled “Becoming a Customer Experience-Driven Company.” The author gives an anecdote we can all relate to – concerning the all to common lack of positive experiences with airlines – and uses his story to make this point: “customer experience is an organizational mindset. It’s not something a business buys, it’s something a business becomes.”

The author goes on to say:

“Though the business community increasingly recognizes the importance and power of customer experience to drive innovation and positive financial results (witnessed press coverage of such favorites as Apple, Amazon, Proctor and Gamble, and Nintendo), most companies have not successfully embraced it. This is because becoming customer experience-driven is not a snap. It’s more than just embrancing “The Power of Design”, or building empathy for your customers by observing them (though both of these things are important). Nor can you buy a technological fix, no matter what the CRM providers say.

“Embracing customer experience is a process, one that requires fundamental shifts in how your business behaves and is organized.”

Although a lot of this may seem like common sense – after all, positive customer experience is one of the foundational principles of good business right? – many companies seem to have a problem either understanding how customer’s experience their company or executing …

Why? I believe that a positive customer experience isn’t completely a matter of tactics. Businesses that value their customers and work to promote a positive customer experience in everything they do have some strong traits in common:

  • They have strong leadership
  • They have a clear vision
  • Their employees feel valued and are dedicated to the vision!

That’s why no software or CRM or any other kind of tool can fix this problem in a business – it’s a total mindset, because how you treat your employees is reflected in the experience your customers have! How is your leadership? Is your executive leadership successfully passing on the company vision and gaining employee loyalty? What message are your customers getting in their experience?

(By the way, Google is a fantastic example of building a successful business by putting customer experience first – more commentary on that to come).

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Cutting Meetings – Cutting Costs or Alienating Employees?

07 February 2009 Dave Brookmire 0 Comments

I received this article in an email today and thought it raised an interesting point. Although all businesses are having to become hyper cost sensitive and cut costs wherever possible in this abysmal economy, cost cutting decisions can’t be made without consideration of the implications, both long and short term.

For example, cutting meetings and training sessions may seem like a no-brainer on the surface, but the Harvard Business Journal argues that cutting out interaction with employees, vendors and other business partners can send the message that they aren’t important and can cause relationship damaging alienation.

The article reads:

In a post at Harvard Business Online, John Baldoni worries about the impact budgetary cutbacks will have on corporate meetings this winter. “I hear from colleagues in the communication business [that] meetings are being scaled back or canceled to a large degree,” he reports.

“Scaling back makes sense; canceling meetings does not.” Here’s why:

  • Meetings give your leadership team the chance to outline the company’s plan for the coming year—critical information for external partners like dealers, vendors and franchisees.
  • They can also give your sales team an immediate sense of what to do in the short term.

“Both constituencies need to take the measure of their leaders and to discover for themselves if those at the top have the right stuff to lead,” says John Baldoni.

He recommends presentations that offer a clear vision for addressing current economic conditions; create the sense that you’re not only up to the challenge, but prepared to face it head on. Also, cultivate an interactive atmosphere that encourages participants to share their stories and offer feedback.

The point: “Cancelling such meetings, except when there are no other alternatives, sends the message that employees and even vendors and customers are expendable,” says Baldoni. “Instead, keep corporate confabs on the schedule and use them as a tool for energizing your constituents and renewing their trust.”

The same can be said for investing in your employees’ personal and professional development. I have heard from numerous colleagues that travel expenditures have been one of the first things to go. But I would advise employers not to simply ban all travel point blank.

As we have discussed, the best ways to survive this type of economy are:

  1. run lean and mean
  2. invest in your people!

If your employee wants to attend an event that will give them valuable education and help them perform their job with more confidence – which will ultimately benefit the business as a whole – consider their request.

And, back to the golden rule, the key to business longevity is relationship. Maintain face to face interactions with your clients, and make the effort to meet in person, albeit less frequently, despite the short term costs. The long term benefits are much more valuable!

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