Your meetings are boring. They are. It’s not that you are boring. It’s that people get sick of hearing from the same person. People get sick of hearing me if I am the only one talking too. (Just ask my team; they will tell you.) After a while, we can all sound a little bit like Charlie Brown’s teacher: “Wah […]
After we had been coaching together for a few months, Ted (a managing director in the insurance business) told me: “Before working together, I was guilty of drive-by management.” Ted, like so many managers, would do his rounds in the morning. He would pop his head in the door and ask: “How are you? Anything I can help with?” That was […]
Sometimes people don’t do what they say they will do. Sometimes the people that we lead are clearly acting out of bounds. These are times when they need to be confronted. As leaders, we may want to run from these conversations, but we need to run face first into these situations. The longer we put off having these tough conversations, […]
Shadow your team members on a REGULAR basis. A day in the field is worth a hundred personal conferences or meetings. Today, the 10th income-producing activity is to shadow each of your team members in the field on a regular basis. At Southwestern Consulting we believe that spending some shoulder to shoulder quality time in the area with your team […]
God made us all capable, but are we really available? We were made to be ambassadors though service to His Kingdom and communication of His message. As such, we are all capable. I wonder though… where are the many who are called but do not answer? To be capable is the ability to achieve. It’s the competency and proficiency […]
Are you running specific contests for your team with incentives attached to them on a regular basis? As a sales manager, we always get what we promote. When you’re creating a contest, you want to think about what sort of activity or behavior do you want to promote? At Southwestern Consulting we teach our clients to structure contests around things […]
Does your team tend to interrupt you during the work day? The one thing I find critically important as I work with sales managers is helping them to set up weekly personal conferences or one-on-ones with their team members. These meetings will significantly cut down on your daily interruptions. If you have been following along in this series, the 12 […]
Let’s be honest. We occupy a whole lot of our time during the week at work. While sad to say, many of us in an office environment spend more time with co-workers than our own families. With this in mind, I wanted to share a few thoughts on creating a Spirit-filled environment at work. Research and studies show we will […]
Let’s talk about my second tip in cutting interruptions in half. It is about adding a SPEED BUMP in front of team member interruptions in your day. REQUIRING them to send a TEXT with what the challenge or issue is can teach CRITICAL THINKING and develop PROBLEM-SOLVING in your team. This can help prevent interruptions and prevent a drop in […]
Charge a price for ADMISSION into your office! Every time a team member walks through your door require that they have at least two viable ideas to solve the challenge in front of them. It will help to train your team members to be future leaders. In my first installment of this series targeted toward sales leaders, I talked about […]
