What’s Your Organization’s Attitude?

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StrategyDriven Corporate Cultures ArticleWhat’s your organization’s attitude? How is it impacting your culture? How is it impacting how you’re viewed externally? How is it impacting your results?

What are your employee’s attitudes about your company? What are their attitudes about your customers? How do they feel about the work they do?

Why is your organizational attitude important? Your attitude is everything.

We take it for granted that an individual’s attitude, to a large degree, drives their results. We’ve all known people who have the skills and experience necessary to do the job, but their disempowering attitudes and beliefs kill any chance for success. So why do we think it’s any different for an organization?

Your organization’s attitude drives how your company is perceived internally and externally. It drives how hard people are willing to work, how collaborative people will be and the level of ‘wow’ service you provide your customers.

The biggest driver of your organization’s attitude is your core values. Core values define your personality as an organization. They’re a small set (3 to 6) of nonnegotiable rules that you live by. Most organizations have core values that have evolved over time, without any attempt to proactively define them. Core values like ‘don’t admit to your mistakes’, ‘whoever screams the loudest wins’ or ‘me first, company second’ can become prevalent if you’re not careful.

Your key job as a leader is to create, communicate and hold your organization accountable to a set of core values that define what’s best, what’s right, what’s most noble about your culture. What are the characteristics you admire most in your employees? What do your clients value most? If you had to pick five members of your team that best exemplify what’s great about your culture, who would you pick? What behaviors or attitudes do they exhibit that made you pick them? These characteristics are the seeds your core values are created from.

To make sure your core values are not just a plaque on the wall, each core value should pass 3 tests:

  1. Are you committed to firing anyone who blatantly and repeatedly violates the core value? Regardless of an employee’s level of productivity, if they’re not living your core values, they are a cancer in your organization. If you’re not willing to fire them for violating a core value, it’s not really a core value. Remember, core values are non-negotiable.
  2. Are you willing to take a financial hit to uphold the core value? For example, let’s say one of your core values is ‘Respect, in everything we do’. Your largest client screams and curses at your customer service representatives and refuses to change their behavior. Do you fire the client and lose their significant revenue? If not, it’s not really a core value. Remember, core values are non-negotiable.
  3. Is this core value alive in your organization today? Can you tell recent stories about how employees have demonstrated the core value? If not, you may aspire to that core value, but it’s not a core value.

The right set of your core values should guide your key decisions, such as:

  • Hiring – Only hire people that have shown that they live your core values. You can help someone develop new skills, but it’s almost impossible to coach an employee to become someone they’re not.
  • Evaluating Employee Performance – Regardless of productivity, if someone is not living the core values, they’re a C-player and you should send them off to work for the competition.
  • Promoting – Promote people that exemplify your core values. Leaders that live your core values will set the example for others and drive a phenomenal culture.
  • Prospecting – When qualifying new customer/client prospects, evaluate whether their core values conflict with your own.

New products and business strategies come and go, but your culture is the foundation of your organization. What are you doing to create an incredible culture of passion, excellence and accountability? How will you impact your organization’s attitude today?

About the Author

Mike GoldmanMike Goldman is a nationally recognized speaker, consultant and author of the book Performance Breakthrough: The 4 Secrets of Passionate Organizations. He has over 25 years consulting and coaching companies from the local entrepreneur to the Fortune 500.

Throughout his career at Accenture and Deloitte Consulting, he helped companies like Verizon, Disney, Polo Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Kmart, Dillard’s, Liz Claiborne and Levi Strauss. In 2007, Mike founded Performance Breakthrough to help mid-sized companies achieve dramatic business growth. He does this by working with leadership teams to ensure they have the right people, strategies and execution habits for growth.

Who is the real decision maker? Find out or lose the sale.

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The prospect tells you, “I only need one more approval and the order is yours.”

For joy, for joy – the order is mine! – Eh, eh, eh – don’t celebrate too soon. The one last person needed to approve, is the real decision maker. The boss. The guy you were supposed to be talking to in the first place. The one person who can say “no,” and there’s no possibility of reversing it. Rut-row.

Throw some water on yourself, pal. This sale hangs by a thread – and what are you doing about it? Going home and bragging “it’s in the bag,” or saying over and over – “I hope I get it, I hope I get it?” Neither will work.

Here’s what to do: The words “I only need one more approval and the order is yours” must trigger your response to the prospect – “Great, when do we all meet?”

Get the prospect to agree to let you attend the final decision meeting.

If you’re not present when the last decision is made – odds are you will lose the final battle of the sales war without being able to fire one bullet.

Try this: (In a non-salesy, friendly way), say to the prospect, “I’m an expert at what I do, and, Mr. Jones, you’re an expert at what you do. Surely as you discuss our service, questions about productivity and profitability will arise. I’m sure you agree that the right information needs to be presented so that the most intelligent decision can be made, true? (get commitment)

And questions might arise about our service. I’d like to be there to answer questions about my expertise so you can make a decision that’s in the best interest of your business.” (If this fails, try adding on the phrase – “Pleeeeaaase, I’ll be your best friend.”)

If the prospect (customer) agrees to the meeting, he or she considers you a resource, a partner. They trust you. If they don’t agree to let you in the meeting – they just consider you a salesperson.

When others need to ‘final approve’ the deal, besides learning to know the buying process better, you must take these five action steps or the sale is in jeopardy…
1. Get the prospect’s personal approval. “Mr. Prospect, if it was just you, and you didn’t need to confer with anyone else, would you buy?” (The prospect will almost always say yes). Then ask, “Does this mean you’ll recommend our service to the others?” Get the prospect to endorse you and your service to the others, but don’t let him (or anyone) make your pitch for you.
2. Get on the prospect’s team. Begin to talk in terms of ‘we,’ ‘us,’ and ‘the team.’ By getting on the prospect’s team, you can get the prospect on your side of the sale.
3. Arrange a meeting with all decider’s. Do it any (ethical) way you have to.
4. Know the prime decider in advance. “Tell me a little bit about the others.” (Write down every characteristic). Try to get the personality traits of the other deciders.
5. Make your entire presentation again. You only have to do this if you want to make the sale. Otherwise just leave it to the prospect. He thinks he can handle it on his own, and will try his best to convince you of that.

If you think you can get around these five steps, think again. (It’s obvious you’re looking for shortcuts or you would have known the buying process in the first place.)

If you make the mistake of letting your prospect become a salesperson on your behalf (goes to the boss or group instead of you), you will lose. Most every time.

Here’s 2.5 ounces of prevention (for next time):
1. Qualify the decision maker as the ‘only’ by asking a seemingly innocent question at the beginning of your presentation – “Is there anyone else you work with (confer with, bounce things off of) on decisions (situations) like this?” The object is to find out if anyone else is involved in the decision BEFORE you make your presentation.
2. Prevent the situation from occurring by saying in your initial presentation: “If you’re interested in our ——-, when we’re finished, would it be possible to meet the CEO and chat about it?”
2.5 The most powerful qualifying question you can ask is (AND IT MUST BE ASKED EXACTLY THIS WAY): “Bill, how will this decision be made?” Bill will give you an answer. AND YOU FOLLOW UP WITH THE QUESTION: “Then what?” And Bill will begin to give you the saga about how the decision is really made. You ask “then what?” four or five times and PRESTO!, you’ll have the name of the real decision maker.

The number of sales you make will be in direct proportion to the number of actual decision-makers you sit in front of. The problem with most salespeople (not you of course) is that they are sitting in front of someone who has to ask their mommy or daddy if they can buy it or not.

Real salespeople sit in front of real decision-makers. How real are you?

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

The Big Picture of Business- Evergreen Business Strategies. Digest of Take-Aways From 36 Articles.

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Last month, we celebrated the third anniversary of this magazine. My article was about the significance of anniversaries as important milestones. I am the only columnist who has been in every issue of this magazine. My articles reflect the Big Picture of Business. After that, the niche writers cover their areas.

This is the second part of the anniversary celebration. It seems fitting to reprise key take-away comments from the last three years, as a digest to apply to ultimate business success.

The biggest problem with business, in a one-sentence capsule, is: People exhibit misplaced priorities and impatience, seeking profit and power, possessing unrealistic views of purpose, and not fully willing to do the things necessary to sustain orderly growth and long-term success.

What organizations and individuals started out to become and what we’ve evolved into being are decidedly different things. The path toward progress takes many turns, expected and unexpected. How we evolve reflects the teachings, experiences and instincts that are not part of formal education.

Take ownership of planning programs, rather than abdicate them to human resources or accounting people. Predict the biggest crises that can beset your company. 85% of the time, you’ll prevent them from occurring. Challenge yourself to succeed by taking a Big Picture look…while others are still thinking and acting small-time. Your biggest resource is a wide scope…and the daring to visualize success and then all of its components.

An Institutional Review is a look at activities that contribute to an organization’s success and well-being. This transcends a traditional audit and identifies factors that already contribute well to the organization, rather than simply looking for ways to cut, curtail or penalize. It is more than just trimming the fat and criticizing incorrect activities in the organizational structure. This review is the basis for most elements that will appear in a strategic plan, including the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, actions, challenges, teamwork, change management, commitment, future trends and external forces.

Finely develop skills in every aspect of the organization, beyond the scope of professional training. Amplify upon philosophies of others. Mentoring, creating and leading have become the primary emphasis for your career. Never stop paying dues, learning and growing professionally. Develop and share own philosophies. Long-term track record, unlike anything accomplished by any other individual, all contributing toward organizational philosophy, purpose, vision, quality of life, ethics, long-term growth.

Niche consultants place emphasis in the areas where they have training, expertise and staff support for implementation…and will market their services accordingly. An accounting firm may suggest that an economic forecast is a full-scope business plan (which it is not). A trainer may recommend courses for human behavior, believing that these constitute a Visioning process (of which they are a small part). Marketers might contend that the latest advertising campaign is equivalent to re-engineering the client company (though the two concepts are light years apart). Niche consultants believe these things to be true, within their frames of reference. They sell what they need to sell, rather than what the client really needs. Let the buyer beware.

No entity can operate without affecting or being affected by its communities. Business must behave like a guest in its communities, never failing to give potlache or return courtesies. Community acceptance for one project does not mean than the job of community relations has been completed. It is not ‘insurance’ that can be bought overnight. It is tied to the bottom line and must be treated accordingly, with the resources and expertise to do it effectively. It is a bond of trust that, if violated, will haunt the business. If steadily built, the trust can be exponentially parlayed into successful long-term business relationships.

The hot new idea is to focus on depth-and-substance…not on flash-and-sizzle. Those who proclaim that hot ideas make good coaches, then they are vendors selling flavors of the month…not seasoned business advisors. If coaching is based only on hot ideas, it is nothing more than hucksterism. Coaching must be a thorough process of guiding the client through the levels of accomplishment.

Customer Focused Management is a concept that goes far beyond just smiling, answering queries and communicating with buyers. It transcends customer service training. In today’s highly competitive business environment, every dynamic of a successful organization must be toward ultimate customers. Companies must change their focus from products and processes toward the values which they share with customers. Customer Focused Management goes beyond just the dynamics of service and quality.

One learns three times more from failure than success. One learns three times more clearly when witnessing and analyzing the failures of others they know or have followed. History teaches us about cycles, trends, misapplications of resources, wrong approaches and vacuums of thought. People must apply history to their own lives-situations. If we document our own successes, then these case studies will make us more successful in the future.

There comes a point when the pieces fit. One becomes fully actualized and is able to approach their life’s Body of Work. That moment comes after years of trial and error, experiences, insights, successes and failures. As one matures, survives, life becomes a giant reflection. We appreciate the journey because we understand it much better. We know where we’ve gone because we know the twists and turns in the road there. Nobody, including ourselves, could have predicted every curve along the way.

Success and failure…it’s a matter of perspectives. Out of every 10 transactions in our lives, five will be unqualified successes. One will be a failure. Two will depend upon the circumstances. If approached responsibly, they will become successful. If approached irresponsibly, they will turn into failures. Two will either be successful or will fail, based strictly upon the person’s attitude. A 90% success rate for a person with a good attitude and responsible behavior is unbeatable. There is no such thing as perfection. Continuous quality improvement means that we benchmark accomplishments and set the next reach a little further.

Professionals who succeed the most are the products of mentoring. The mentor is a resource for business trends, societal issues and opportunities. The mentor becomes a role model, offering insights about their own life-career. This reflection shows the mentee levels of thinking and perception which were not previously available. The mentor is an advocate for progress and change. Such work empowers the mentee to hear, accept, believe and get results. The sharing of trust and ideas leads to developing business philosophies.

Visioning is the process where good ideas become something more. It is a catalyst toward long-term evaluation, planning and implementation. It is a vantage point by which forward-thinking organizations ask: What will we look like in the future? What do we want to become? How will we evolve? Vision is a realistic picture of what is possible.

About the Author

Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

The BIG Secrets of Enthusiastic Emotional Engagement.

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What is engagement?

Better stated, how can you engage other people to become interested in you and your product or service? Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends and Influence People) says by becoming interested in them. And he’s partially right.

The reality, and the secret of engagement is that BOTH people must be mutually engaged and mutually interested, and BOTH people must be intellectually stimulated and emotionally connected. Otherwise it’s just a conversation that will be forgotten, unless the salesperson is taking notes. #notlikely.

What is the secret ingredient of engagement?

The key to deepening a sales conversation, or any conversation for that matter, is to connect emotionally. Favorite teams, kids, college create emotion when spoken about, and the feelings and or situations are mutual.

The secret ingredient of engagement is emotion. Emotion is a key link to rapport, relaxation, and response. Emotion takes conversations deeper and becomes more open. The desire to talk and reveal becomes more intense. It pushes you to trade stories and discover similarities.

To help you get the picture of why engagement and emotional engagement are so important, and how to start the process, I am offering two examples and scenarios:

1. FIND THE LINK! What do you have in common with your prospect? That will build rapport and lead you to a sale faster than anything.

Contrary to popular belief, ‘Customer types’ don’t matter. That’s right, take your amiable, driver, tightwad analytic types and toss them in the trash. My favorite type of customer is one that has a wallet with a credit card in it. Oh wait, that’s everybody.

Here’s the challenge… If you spend 30 minutes trying to figure out what type of person you’re dealing with, and then all of a sudden discover you both like model trains – or your kids both play soccer in the same league – or you both went to the same college – or you both grew up in the same town – or you both like the same sports teams – you will most likely make the sale no matter what type of person he or she is.

Personal things ‘in common’ lead to a friendship, a relationship, and lots of sales.

2. FIND THE MEMORY! If you can find one thing about the other person, and do something creative and memorable about it – you can earn the appointment, build friendship, create smiles, and make a sale.

I was courting a big client in Milwaukee. Found out the guy liked chocolate and was a Green Bay Packer fan. The next day I sent him a Packer hat full of chocolate covered footballs. The next day I was hired. Coincidence or luck? I have no idea. I just continue to do the same type of thing as often as I can, and continue to make sales.

I was courting a big client in Seattle. Found out the guy liked baseball. Sent him a Louisville Slugger baseball bat with his name engraved on it. Needless to say I hit a home run (sorry for that).

INSIGHT: To establish the ultimate long-term relationship and to be memorable in the service you perform, you need personal information about your prospect or customer. Information that provides you with insight, understanding, and possible links. (And, oh yes, lots of sales.) The difference between making one sale and building a long-term relationship lies in your ability to get this information.

BIGGER INSIGHT: The more information you have, the better (and easier) it is to establish rapport, follow-up and have something to say, build the relationship, and gain enough comfort to make the first sale, and with consistent follow-through, many more.

BIGGEST INSIGHT: If given a choice, people will buy from those they can relate to. People they like. People they trust. This stems from things-in-common. If you have the right information, and use it to be memorable, you have a decided advantage. Or you can decide “It’s too much work, I can make the sale without it.”

This philosophy gives the advantage to someone else – your competitor.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

The Big Picture of Business- Professional Education Necessary for Company Success

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Professional education is an important ingredient in corporate development. Today’s workforce will need three times the amount of training that it now gets if the organization intends to stay in business, remain competitive and tackle the future successfully.

Training is rarely allowed to be extensive. It is usually technical or sales/marketing in nature. Employees and executives are rarely mentored on the people skills necessary to have a winning team. Thus, they fail to establish a company vision and miss their business mark.

Outside of ‘think tanks’ for company executive committees, full-scope education does not occur. This is primarily because niche trainers recommend what they have to sell, rather than what the company needs. Niche trainers impart their own perspectives out of context to the whole of the organization.

Team building must be part of the corporate Vision first, not as a series of exercises delegated to trainers. I conduct Executive Think Tanks for corporate management. The success of this enables trainers with the ‘rank and file employees’ to be optimally successful. Organizations of all sizes must have the Think Tank…which delineates future operations, including education and training.

Training is unfairly blamed and scapegoated for pieces of the organizational mosaic that Strategic Planning and cohesive corporate Vision should have addressed early-on. Trainers cannot reconstruct organizational structure, nor can other niche consultants.

7 Steps of Professional Development:

1. Teaching-Training. Conveying information, insights and intelligence from various sources. Categorized by subject, grade level and methods of delivery. Expert teachers (fountains of learning material) are the building block in the educational process, and the student must be an active participant (rather than a non-involved or combative roadblock).
2. Studying. One cannot learn just by listening to a teacher. Review of material, taking notes, seeking supplementary materials and questing to learn additionally must occur.
3. Learning. The teacher instructs, informs and attempts to enlighten. The student accepts, interprets and catalogs the material taught. Periodically, the material is reviewed.
4. Information. As one amasses years of learning, one builds a repository of information, augmented by experiences of putting this learning into practice.
5. Analysis. One sorts through all that has been learned, matched with applicabilities to daily life. One determines what additional learning is necessary and desired. From this point forward, education is an ongoing process beyond that of formal schooling. If committed, the person turns the quest for knowledge into a life priority.
6. Knowledge. A Body of Knowledge is derived from years of living, learning, working, caring, sharing, failing and succeeding. This step is detailed in my monograph, “The Learning Tree”: (1) Life. (2) Living Well. (3) Working Well. (4) Education. (5) Philosophy. (6) Self Fulfillment. (7) Purpose and Commitment.
7. Wisdom. This requires many years of commitment to learning, compounded by the continuous development of knowledge. Few people attempt to get this far in the educational process. Those who do so have encompassed profound wisdom. This step is detailed in my monograph, “7 Layers of Wisdom”: (1) Glimmer of An Idea. (2) Learning Curve. (3) Applications for Lessons Learned. (4) Trial and Error, Success and Failure. (5) Teaching, Mentoring. (6) Insights, Beliefs, Systems of Thought. (7) Profound Wisdom, Life Perspectives.

Categories of Professional Education:

There is a difference between how one is basically educated and the ingredients needed to succeed in the longterm. Many people never amass those ingredients because they stop learning or don’t see the need to go any further. Many people think they are ‘going further’ but otherwise spin their wheels.

There is a large disconnect between indoctrinating people to tools of the trade and the myriad of elements they will need to assimilate for their own futures. Neither teachers nor students have all the necessary ingredients. It is up to both to obtain skills, inspiration, mentoring, processes, accountability, creativity and other components from niche experts.

Therein lies the problem. Training vendors sell what they have to provide…not what the constituencies or workforces need. Emphasis must be placed upon properly diagnosing the organization as a whole and then prescribing treatments for the whole, as well as the parts.

Training should be conducted within a formal, planned program that addresses the majority of organizational aspects.

7 Biggest Misconceptions About Training:

  1. One Size Fits All. If it’s not customized, it’s not going to be effective.
  2. Trainers Are Business Experts. Generally, they are vendors who sell ‘off the shelf’ products that target small niches within the organization. Few are schooled in full-scope business culture and have not been previously engaged to advise organizations at the top.
  3. Human Resources Oversees Training. By their nature, HR departments are designed to uphold processes and systems. Training is about change, which contradicts the basic construction of HR. Not all HR people are versed in the subtle nuances of people skills and are, thus, not the best to supervise training. It really should not be under the thumb of HR.
  4. Trainers Write the Training Plans. All major departmental plans should be written objectively and in concert with the Strategic Plan…by qualified advisors. Training companies often give free assessments in order to sell their programs. Free surveys do not constitute a cohesive plan. Let trainers do what they do best: training. Let experienced planners design the training plan, with input from trainers included. Don’t let the plan evolve from a training company’s sales pitch.
  5. Only Industry Experts Can Train in Our Company. What companies need most is objective business savvy and sophisticated overviews. Core industry ‘experts’ only know core industry issues from their own experiences. Quality training must focus on dynamics outside the core business, yet should have relativity to the organization.
  6. One Course Will Fix the Problem. Training is not a punishment for having done something ‘wrong.’ It’s a privilege…a major benefit of employment. It unlocks doors to greater success, growth and profitability…for those trained and for the sponsoring organization. In order to be competitive in the future, today’s workers will need three times the training that they are now getting.
  7. That It’s Supposed to Be Popular. The biggest mistake that meeting planners make is determining the effectiveness of training and training professionals via audience survey. Most conference evaluation forms are lightweight and ask for surface rankings…rather than for nuggets of knowledge learned. Speakers and training budgets are therefore judged upon whimsical comments of individual audience participants…which get harsher when the training is for topics they need, rather than things they would ‘prefer’ to hear. Voices of reality are always criticized by people who really are not qualified to assess them.

7 Levels of Training:

  1. Mandated.
  2. Basic Education.
  3. Informational.
  4. Technical, Niche Skills.
  5. Procedural.
  6. Optional.
  7. Insightful-Deep-Rich-Meaningful.

Levels of Mandated Training:

  1. Fix Those People.
  2. Stay Where You Are.
  3. This Is the Way It Is.
  4. Accept Our Pet Project.
  5. Things ‘They’ Are Making Us Do.
  6. What We Want to Teach You.
  7. You’ll Do It, and You’ll Like It.

Levels of Optional Training:

  1. Micro-Niche.
  2. Things to Perform Tasks.
  3. Process Administration.
  4. Procedural Adherence.
  5. Hobby-Fun-Entertainment.
  6. Skills Enrichment.
  7. Personal Development.

Levels of Training That Are Rare But Truly Needed:

  1. Pride in Workmanship.
  2. Learning, Growing, Mentoring.
  3. Fully Actualized Professionalism.
  4. Amassing People Skills.
  5. Pursuing Excellence.
  6. Adding Value to the Organization.
  7. Developing a Body of Work-Knowledge.

These pointers are suggested in the selection of training providers:

  • Ask a senior business advisor to help determine which consultants are needed, write the
    training program, evaluate credentials and recommend contracting options.
  • Understand what your company really needs and why.
  • Don’t pit one consultant against another, just to get free ideas.
  • Don’t base the training decisions on ‘apples to oranges’ comparisons.
  • Ask for case studies which were directly supervised by the person who will handle your training…not stock narratives from affiliate offices or a supervisor.
  • Find out their expertise in creating and customizing for clients…rather than off-the-shelf programs which they simply implement.
  • Determine their abilities to collaborate and interrelate with other consultants.

These pointers are suggested in budgeting for and pricing services:

  • Budget for training at the start of the fiscal year, averaging 10% of gross sales.
  • See training as an investment (short-term and long-term), not to be short-changed.
  • Every size of business needs training.
  • The company which makes the small investment on the front end (training) saves higher costs. Research shows that training investments foregone are multiplied six-fold in opportunity costs each year that action is put off. (This is another of my trademarked concepts, known as The High Cost of Doing Nothing.)

Questions to consider in evaluating training providers include:

  • Would you feel comfortable if they ran your company?
  • What is their longevity? Were they consultants 10-20 years ago? Consultants must have at least a 10-year track record to be at all viable as a judgment resource.
  • What is their maturity level? Could they appear before a board of directors?
  • How do they meet deadlines, initiate projects and offer ideas beyond the obvious?
  • If one level of consultant sells the business, will this same professional service your account? Big firms usually bring in junior associates after the sale is made. Demand that consultants of seniority staff the project.
  • How consistent are they with specific industries, types of projects and clients?
  • How good a generalist are they? Trainers with too narrow a niche will not ultimately serve your best interests.

Professional status is important. Prospective clients should inquire about the consultant’s:

  • Respect among current and recent clients.
  • Reputation among affected constituencies within the business community.
  • Activity in professional development and business education. If they do not pursue ongoing knowledge progression, they are obsolete and not valuable to clients.
  • Track record at mentoring other business professionals. Check to see that they give beyond the scope of billable hours.
  • Pro-bono community involvement. If they have done little or none, they are not worth hiring. Top professionals know the value of giving back to the community that supports them, becoming better consultants as a result.

The ideal training provider:

  • Clearly differentiates what he/she does…and will not presume to ‘do it all.’
  • Is a tenured full-time consultant, not a recently down-sized corporate employee or somebody seeking your work to ‘tide themselves over.’
  • Has actually run a business.
  • Has consulted companies of comparable size and complexity as yours.
  • Has current references and case histories.
  • Gives ‘value-added’ insight…in contrast to simply performing tasks.
  • Sees the scope of work as a professional achievement…rather than just billable hours.
  • Pursues client relationship building…as opposed to just rendering a contract service.

7 Biggest Benefits of Training:

  1. Measurements. Test scores, grades, class rankings, GPA, SAT, professional certifications, licensing examinations, juried awards. Whether in school or business, we are all measured. Knowledge helps to make and predict society’s measurements which are expected.
  2. Thinking-Reasoning Skills. What we learn is important. Further, what we do with lessons, how facts are interpreted, how we approach problems and the faculties of common sense are vital to economic, social and self-betterment success.
  3. Socialization-People Skills. Through trial-and-error, success-and-failure and the observation of other people’s strengths-and-weaknesses, we learn how to live and work with others. Mastering people skills makes for win-win propositions.
  4. Professional Development. Education does not stop after the highest degree completed…it merely begins. Training, professional enrichment, membership in associations and constructive business interaction are vital for career longevity and economic independence.
  5. Mentorship. Learning from others takes a higher plateau when under the wings of experts. Mentorship (which has seven levels) is a stairstep process of bettering all participants. Meaningful lessons, paying dues and developing relationships empower those who make the effort “go the distance.” Learning from different, ususual and informed sources is the art of mentorship.
  6. Earning Power. Education (formal schooling, professional development and enhanced-relationship study) has a direct relationship to financial rewards. It begins with school but bears fruit in the willingness to learn, change and grow professionally.
  7. Future Life. A truly successful person commits to mentoring others, giving back, mastering change and never failing to learn. Education is more than confirming one’s held beliefs. It plants knowledge roots, which sprout in ideas, applicabilities and lifelong insights.

I recommend that team building training be conducted as part of a company Strategic Plan, with top management participating. Companies must plan…predicting (rather than reacting to) strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Professional development must be offered to every employee, including mentoring for top executives and up-and-coming young people. Education should show decision makers all phases of the organization and what it takes to succeed and grow, personally and as a team.

Topics recommended to be taught:

  • Marketplace factors outside your company, how they can hurt or help your business.
  • Generational work ethics and why young people need executive mentoring to ‘go the distance’ in their careers, offering value to the company and profession.
  • Understanding the value of conducting independent company assessments, other than the ‘bean counter’ approach.
  • Workplace literacy. Much of the work force does not have basic skills, nor reasoning abilities. They embrace technology, rather than ideas and concepts.
  • Understand and celebrate diversity. This is a blessing, not a mandate.
  • Accept and embrace change. Research shows change is 90% beneficial. So why do people fight what is best for them?
  • What business the company is really in…why…where they are headed…with what resources-knowledge-skills…on what timeline…who plays a part in growth…and how (the process known as Visioning).

About the Author

Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.