Companies are obligated to make their front lines successful. Not the other way around.

A major wireless company has changed the sales goals and compensation for their retail kiosk staff. I know this because someone I love is a rookie salesrep. He’s been at it seven months and he loved it - the company, the products, the customers. Even the retail hours that had him coming home long after his baby was in bed. He was sold on his sales job. And he was sold on the corporate ladder he saw open for climbing.

And now the game’s changed - they’ve added a requirement to sell a certain mix of products and customers. The bar has been raised. But that’s not really the problem.

The problem is that his Manager told him the new goals are impossible.

“I need to get better at calling current customers and getting them to come in for new phones. What can you suggest?” the kid asked. “You’re already doing it just fine,” was the reply.

“How am I going to hit these new goals?” the kid asked. “I have no idea,” was the reply.

Too lazy, too greedy, too shortsighted?

It’s hard to say why this company introduced a new program without getting their front line Managers on board first. Maybe someone tried but was not given the training budget. Maybe the word leaked before the tools were designed to help the supervisors help the salespeople.

Either way it was a terrible way to treat people you have screened, hired, and trained. A certain amount of baby-whining is expected from salespeople when quotas are raised - even a first year Director can see that coming.

This company’s leadership should have prepared for it in advance. It was an expensive, lazy mistake that would be discussed in B schools and laughed about in the years to come if it weren’t so common. “X” is not the only company making this error.

Your front line staff deserves to be led by people who are worthy of being followed.

There’s a lesson here for every company. Every company makes changes in their sales targets, expectations and compensation. This means every company needs to know the steps for getting it done right. It’s simple. Teach managers how to present and coach to the new standards before the new standards get launched. If the job requires a new daily action plan, then the front line Managers had better be able to show their teams how to do the work.

When a salesrep goes to his manager and asks, “How are we going to do this?” he deserves to be reassured that the person he trusts can and will teach him to succeed.

What is your company doing to address changes in sales targets this year? Is the management team getting the tools they need to make the changes work? Or, are changes in sales programs being used to cause attrition in a slow economy?  Please share your thoughts and experiences with our community.

Technorati Tags: wireless, sales, sales training, causing attrition, slowing retail sales economy, sales managment, coaching tools, goal setting, impossible goals, retail management, retail kiosks, ronna caras, sales leadership mistakes

What would you think if I told you that American Idol’s Simon Cowell has a lot to teach most businesses about effective coaching? “My opinion”, I must add quoting the master of mean. And an educated opinion as is Simon’s.

Although I haven’t signed my $100 million deal with Sony Entertainment, yet, I have studiously observed thousands of hours of coaching and customer or prospect interactions. And I know for a fact that most business coaches are not causing performance improvement well enough. I can’t help but wonder if Sony’s customer care or sales organizations are as effective at developing top performers as their favorite talent scout, Simon.

To be clear, I am not referring to the nasty comments about age, appearance and intoxication levels. Those are made for TV, we all know this. In business, anyone hurting the feelings of others for a laugh should be fired.

Instead, I refer to the 4 clear and concrete standards Simon Cowell imposes on every auditioner every time.  That’s what a good coach does - sets high standards and evaluates performance against the standards over and over again.

It’s always the same 4 components:

1. CONTENT - in AI, the content is the song choice. He expects singers to credibly tell a story that will help audiences to know and like them. In business, content includes positive word choices, messages of reassurance, and explanations of solutions or products. Shouldn’t we all coach to content?
2. DELIVERY - in AI, this is about stage presence. Does the performer know how to connect with the audience and sell the message? We ask telesales people and service pros to do this all the time using the phone as their mic. In retail, we coach to eye contact and body language. Good content with lazy delivery will make no one a success. Delivery is a key standard for all business behavior.
3. PERSONALITY - in AI, this is the “star factor”. The ability to reveal unique bits of who they are so viewers feel they can know and trust them. That’s the reason for the video clips and backstage peeks. Boring, stupid, or forgettable people don’t make it. Personality doesn’t compensate for consistently bad content and poor delivery, but break out stars can be made on personality in music and in business. Just ask Madonna or the top salesperson in your company.

4. ACCURACY - in AI, accuracy is about vocal skill. This is the only category Randy and Paula know how to comment on and neither does it well. Randy’s “pitchy”  was never concrete enough. Pitch too high? Too low? Wrong key? What on earth does be mean? Paula commits the worst sin of all in this one category. “You were ahead of the music, but so what”. Imagine telling an employee they were inaccurate but it doesn’t matter because they were adorable? Simon’s feedback has real value. He focuses on the melody, the composer, and making the song sound better than the memorable original.  In business, accuracy may be less glamorous - applying company policies and entering data - but people do not keep their jobs if their accuracy is poor and they don’t become a pop star if they can’t hit the notes.

So how can business take a page from Simon’s coaching playbook? It’s simple. Set high standards in these same four concrete and important categories. Consistently coach to one or more of these areas every time, every employee, every week. Find the coaches who use hip, throw away comments to preserve employees egos but aren’t correcting what needs to change - and teach them a new methodology. Everyone worthy of working for your company should have stellar performance as the goal. And your coaches must be there to help them achieve it.

Technorati Tags: simon cowell, american idol, randy jackson, sony, caras training, coaching

Recently, Starbucks announced their new “interactive community” called My Starbucks Idea. In 2 days they had tens of thousands of hits at their site. Some obvious recommendations, such as the introduction of a loyalty program, have 50+ comments and variations per entry. There is no doubt that the Starbucks community of consumers wants to be heard. In fact, I had to laugh at all the people taking their valuable time to write and complain about how much of their valuable time it takes to wait for coffee with 11 ingredients… (AdAge has a few opinions about customer posts as well.)

For those of you with service or sales experience, the posts at Starbucks will hold no surprises. After reading 200 comments from the 13 categories, I can state with total confidence that there is no new information here. Use your imagination and every CSat survey or customer complaint you have heard in any job, anywhere, and you already know what people are writing about.

So, if the customer demands are not new, this means the solutions are not new either. But they do have heightened urgency. Now that Starbucks, like many retailers, is inviting consumers to ask for stuff, these retailers are obligated to give at least some of what was asked for. Even though it involves the same “best practices” we’ve been talking about for years, it will feel like a win to the consumer.

So how do the consumer demands translate to real action at the retail level? Three simple things:

1. Get the on-site manager out from the back office and focused on coaching people to a higher level of quality. Including:

• Stopping the gabbing between employees and getting them to give full attention to customers.
• Demonstrating how to engage customers with a smile and eye contact.
• Routinely watching and tasting to be sure barristas make each coffee as taught so customers receive the product they want.
• Creating contests that will polish staff’s speed and accuracy skills so they can do more in less time.
• Opening up another line when more than 3 people are waiting. (Okay, so they’ll need more registers for this - but I had to include the thing that bothers me the most. Get rid of some merchandise and make counter space for checkout… USA Today has an interesting article that talks about “cutting the clutter”.)

2. It’s not just the local management that needs to put more skin in the game. Get the corporate trainers into the stores to observe and correct. If things don’t look, sound or taste their best, then trainers need to design in-store activities to improve the performance level. Shutting down for 3 hours for training is an expensive and exciting event - as widely reported by every US news outlet. Take a look and listen to the video interview from Elliott Masie called “Venti Learning with Foam” to hear what other corporate trainers thought about Starbucks’ 2/26/08 program.

Here’s the bottom line: events are rarely enough to develop skills unless they are reinforced at least once a week for a few months. Well-designed in-store activities run by top barristas or skilled managers will get genuine learning transfer at a much lower cost.

The customer-friendly dialog we are seeing and hearing about is all wonderful. Empowering consumers and making them feel heard is helping marketing departments worldwide to write better copy and design superior campaigns. What it is not doing, yet, is improving the real world customer experience. But it can.

3. When leadership steps out from behind the writers’ desks and onto the front line they will be showing genuine support for the faces of their business. The faces who make or break their business.

It takes hard work to get more results, not hard copy.

Let leaders in Operations, Marketing, Distribution and Finance go into stores and observe, demonstrate, and re-train to get the product they expect - hard skills and soft skills alike. Let them “walk the talk”.

Bond top line to front line.

Satisfying consumers requires the same investment now as it has always required. Though only the few truly great companies in the world are doing it.

Invest in the thousands of employees who have entrusted their rent money, car payments or family meals to you. Three small but essential acts. Then quality, consistency and profits will soar.

Technorati Tags: starbucks, retail training, customer service, leadership, coaching, quality assurance,

Recently I received an email from my oldest brother who had copied in his children and presumably his 20-month old grandchild, although I suspect the baby was not reading the message. He signed the message “Love, Stan/Dad/Papa”.

It got me thinking about how many roles we all take on in our personal lives and in our careers. Even at work, we know people who feel like brethren who tease, cajole and commiserate; parents who advise; grandparents who dote.

So where does the role of coach fit in? My big brother has been my informal coach during many periods of my life. He possesses expertise in finance, electronics, long-term relationships, and things with motors. To this day these are still my weaknesses. So I go to him every time I need to make a decision. He has the answers. I follow his lead.

But what would someone have to do to make me self-sufficient in these areas? I think it’s a whole lot more than giving answers and a hug. People don’t learn when someone does everything for them. Eventually we need to know the mechanics so we can solo. This means the approach of encouragement and pats on the back will not get the job done. To make someone self-sufficient, the coach and learner must have a learning plan. The coach must make sure the fundamentals of the relationship are explained clearly. “I am here to make sure you achieve greatness in this job or at this task. I will do whatever is necessary to make sure you achieve your goals. It will be hard work. If you want to succeed I will help you. If you seem like you want to give up I will push you. I like and respect you but I am not your adoring audience. I am your coach. You will do what I teach. Very soon you will not need me to coach you on this subject anymore because you will have mastered it. Then we’ll move on to something else. Eventually you may do so well you become my boss. Then it will be your turn to teach me. Until then, I’m in charge.” The coach has to be willing to teach a little and watch a little. She or he cannot be too busy or impatient to devote the time needed for this person to reach the pre-determined goal. Most of all, the coach cannot be so fearful that the learner will fail that she or he takes over and does the work. People learn by doing things right and by making mistakes. Coaches are there to debrief afterward and correct so the challenges become easier and the mistakes fewer.

What does this mean for you as a coach in your business environment? It means you must put aside the desire to be brethren, parent or grandparent if you want to create self-sufficiency. These roles, however enriching, may be inhibiting the growth of your colleague - the person you are entrusted to develop. Reserve the loving care for the other roles you take in life and for the people who need you to sign your emails “Love, Stan/Dad/Papa.”

Technorati Tags: coaching, mentoring, professional development