Posted: January 24, 2018 | Categories: Management, Sales, Team Building

OK.  I know you aren’t reading this because you want your business to fail.  You’re just curious.  What is the quickest way to get a business to fail?  Be rude!  With today’s unforgiving social media reviews, one or two poor customer interactions can do serious harm.

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Posted: December 1, 2017 | Categories: Leadership, Team Building

One of our favorite family traditions for the holiday is making and decorating Christmas cookies.  We like to make it a special event, and this past weekend we had our two adult sons and their wives join us in the project.  Our goal was to put our creativity into the cookie decorating and afterwards take pictures and make a Christmas card.  That was our objective.  We weren’t sure how we were going to get to it.  That is where team collaboration came in.

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Posted: October 5, 2017 | Categories: Leadership, Sales, Team Building

With online shopping steadily on the rise, retail chains nationwide are struggling.  As many face this issue, it is common that they turn to improving customer service.  I once heard someone say, “Success comes in what we do after we have done what we have been paid to do.”  In other words, go the extra mile.  Setting the bar high is one challenge. Keeping the bar high can be an even bigger challenge.Read More…

Posted: August 22, 2017 | Categories: Leadership, Management, Team Building

About 15 years ago, I was working in a key position for a worldwide training company. The owners decided to hire a new training director. She was from a large corporation and brought a new flavor to the team. The flavor she brought did not taste good. Sylvia was what is commonly referred to as a “body tripper”.

At first, Sylvia was friendly and gracious to everyone on the team. Then, once she got situated in her position, she began to change. She became aloof, ignored people, wouldn’t listen to anyone, and it wasn’t long before virtually everyone resented her. I said, “virtually”. There were a few people she was very nice too. They were all in top management. She had them snookered. Top management didn’t see what we saw.
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Posted: August 16, 2017 | Categories: Self-Improvement, Team Building

Many years ago I was talking with a client who owned a very successful bond trading business.  He was talking about how fast bond deals were processed.  He said, “In Italy, it can take as long as 30 days.  In France it would take several days.  London can turn a deal within 24 hours, but in the United States the average turnaround time is about an hour.”  I asked him why it is only an hour in the US.  He said, “Because in this country we want what we want fast and we want it now.“  So true.Read More…