New Year Resolutions for First-Time Managers

Posted on January 6, 2015 by David Shedd

Happy New Year!

For first time managers struggling to move their business units forward in 2015, now is the time to take a step back and focus unwaveringly on the fundamentals of managing and leading others.

As such, I offer up five New Year’s Resolution for these first – time leaders.

1. Be clear

The first task of any leader is to set clear goals and targets and make sure that they are understood by the team. Clear objectives need to be simple, few in number (3 – 5), and constantly repeated. Then, the manager needs to avoid distractions and trivial matters and remain focused on the goals and targets.

Effective leaders don’t have to be passionate. They don’t have to be charming. They don’t have to be brilliant…They don’t have to be great speakers. What they must be is clear. (Marcus Buckingham, Business consultant and author)

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Mistakes Will Be Made

Posted on December 2, 2014 by David Shedd

Four fundamentals to executing and getting things done are:

  1. Keep it simple
  2. Focus on the important
  3. Empower the team to make decisions at the lowest level possible
  4. Speed

In practice, we often ignore these straightforward guidelines due to one over-riding fear:

 

“But, what if I make a mistake?”

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Simple: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity

Posted on November 4, 2014 by David Shedd

Simple: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity, written by Alan Siegel and Irene Etzkorn, is an excellent reminder to all of us to rail against complexity and keep things simple. Even though I summarize some of the key points below, I still encourage you to pick up a copy and read this timely book.

The Crisis of Complexity

  • Complexity wreaks havoc on business, government and finance making life more difficult and confusing for everyone
  • Complexity is subtle; as Joseph Tainter suggests: “complexity creeps up on you.”
  • Complexity is counter-intuitive
    • More information, more “background”, or more explanation rarely lead to greater simplicity and clarity

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Go Where the Growth Is

Posted on October 7, 2014 by David Shedd

In today’s low growth world, B2B companies need to be looking for those market segments and niches that are growing faster than the overall economy.

‘Going where the growth is’ offers our companies the promise of increasing sales to growing customers that are usually less price focused than customers in low or no growth markets.

So, how do we find these market niches so that we can focus our sales and marketing resources on these higher potential customers and markets?
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Foster Fresh Perspectives

Posted on September 2, 2014 by David Shedd

As leaders, we can often get stuck in ruts, talking to the same people every day and thinking the same way as everyone else.

To breakthrough and come up with new and innovative ideas and approaches to problems and issues, we need to seek out and foster fresh and original perspectives.

But, how…

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Recap – One Key to Help Move Your Company Forward

Posted on August 5, 2014 by David Shedd

A customer interaction and a meeting are not truly finished until we take a moment to review and sum up what has just happened.

 

How do we recap?

1. In a customer interaction, we need to go over the pertinent details of the transaction and ensure that the customer understands exactly what he or she purchased and what will happen next.

2. In a business meeting, we need to summarize the 3 – 5 most important ideas and action items from the meeting, write them down, and assign these items to meeting attendees to complete.

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We Need to Spend “Alone Time” With Our Skip Levels

Posted on July 1, 2014 by David Shedd

As leaders, we need to spend time on a regular and consistent basis with our skip levels.

 

What is a Skip Level?

As we move up in our organizations, we become ‘managers of managers’ with both direct reports and skip levels. As an example, a Vice President may have 5 direct reports reporting to him or her and 25 employees reporting to the 5 different direct reports. These 25 employees are the skip levels of the Vice President.

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The Advice Not Taken

Posted on June 3, 2014 by David Shedd

Lose Weight…Eat More Fruits and Vegetables…Exercise More.

We all know what we have to do in order to improve our health. That is easy. The difficulty lies in taking this advice and actually following it.

Likewise in business, there is plenty of excellent and practical advice on how to be more effective in getting things done and driving a business to success.

Below, I offer a list of 10 pieces of advice that are rarely (if ever) taken and actually followed.

 

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Business Success by the Numbers

Posted on May 6, 2014 by David Shedd

What numbers lead to business success?

  • 0 – As in 0 /0 (zero injuries and zero accidents). In any company, the safety of employees and customers each and every day should be of highest concern.

     

  • 1 – As in one page. This should be the length of most documents and reports in any business. Kept to one page, summaries, plans and analyses are short, to the point, and laser focused on the essential issues.

     

  • 2 – As in two sides. Any time a manager has to mediate a dispute or decide an argument, it is essential for the manager to hear both sides of the argument before making the decision.

  • 3 – As in “Thinking in Threes.” This is the communication technique to analyze, organize, and summarize most concepts and actions in three points. As with a one pager…
    • Three points requires forced prioritization on the most important.
    • Three points can be remembered.
    • Three points can be communicated more easily.

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Empathy – A Crucial Leadership Skill

Posted on April 1, 2014 by David Shedd

Henry Ford said it well:

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.

This secret to success is empathy. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines empathy asthe ability to understand and share another person’s experiences, ideas, actions, and emotions.

Why Empathy?

As leaders we need to have empathy with nearly everyone we meet.  Empathy is a crucial business and leadership skill that allows us to see through the eyes of and put ourselves in the shoes of
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We Need to Deal with Our Non-Performers Today

Posted on March 4, 2014 by David Shedd

cartoonDealing with non-performers is likely the most uncomfortable (yet necessary) task in building a winning team.  Truth be told, few of us enjoy disciplining, remedial coaching, and terminating employees, especially those that we may work with on a daily basis.  To avoid this discomfort, we, all too often, tolerate poor performance from many of our employees.

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An Open Letter From Your B2B Customer

Posted on February 4, 2014 by David Shedd

Dear Mr. or Ms. Sales Manager,

I am writing to remind you that I need you. You and your salespeople provide products and services that I need to help me succeed in my business. Unfortunately, many of your salespeople do their best to make it difficult for me to trust them, like them and buy from them. To help you improve so that I can improve, I wanted to share with you these three pleas from this one customer. Continue reading →

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Building Accountability

Posted on January 7, 2014 by David Shedd

122613_1835_BuildingAcc1.pngA dirty little secret in business is that most organizations lack accountability at all levels from the leader to front-line management to individual employees:

  • Assignments are not completed as promised
  • Problems are left half resolved
  • Phone calls are not returned

As pointed out in the The Oz Principle (perhaps the most well-known book about accountability), employees in most organizations play the “Blame Game:”

  1. Wait and See
  2. Confusion / Tell Me What to Do
  3. It’s Not My Job
  4. Ignore / Deny
  5. Finger Pointing
  6. Cover Your Tail

Continue reading →

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Be Easy to Do Business With

Posted on December 3, 2013 by David Shedd

In a previous blog, Lessons from a Customer, I related my experience in dealing with 106 companies while I moved from Arizona to California. My conclusion was that most companies provide inadequate customer service and make it too difficult to buy from them.

These ideas ran through my head while reading The Effortless Experience: Conquering the New Battleground for Customer Loyalty.

Continue reading →

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Five Questions to Ensure a Successful Sales Call

Posted on November 5, 2013 by David Shedd

In his book, Spin Selling, Neil Rackham defines the four outcomes of any sales call:

  1. Win – the customer makes a firm commitment to buy
  2. Advance – the sales process moves forward towards a decision
  3. Continuation – the sales process continues, but does not move forward
  4. Loss – the customer actively refuses a commitment

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Getting Things Done

Posted on October 1, 2013 by David Shedd

tempA crucial success factor for business leaders is getting the right things done. Visionary leadership, brilliant strategy formation, and outstanding man-management are all for nothing if we cannot execute and get done what we need to get done.

I offer some thoughts and suggestions on getting things done: Continue reading →

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Do We Spend Enough Time Selling? – The Cost of Chaos

Posted on September 3, 2013 by David Shedd

We have and need salespeople in order to sell, that is, in order to move deals forward.

  • But, how much time do our salespeople really spend selling each week?

Rick McPartlin, the CEO of The Revenue Game (and someone with whom I have worked in the past), has researched this question. His provocative answer: Continue reading →

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To Sell More, Sell Less

Posted on August 6, 2013 by David Shedd

Today’s customer is overwhelmed with too much information and not enough time and attention span to digest it all. As such, the best salespeople have evolved and simplified their sales approach to be more responsive to over-burdened and over-saturated customers.

Today, in order to sell more, we need to be hyper-focused on what is of most importance to the customer. As such, the three keys of sales today are: Continue reading →

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3 Fundamentals of a Customer Service Culture

Posted on July 2, 2013 by David Shedd

Having a true customer service culture depends on each individual employee.

  • Each employee is focused on solving the customer’s problems
  • Each employee strives to help the customer succeed in their business
  • Each employee supports and helps their fellow employees

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Leadership Restraint

Posted on June 4, 2013 by David Shedd

Contrary to popular opinion, a successful business leader does not need to:

  1. Have all the right answers and be the smartest person in the room
  2. Be involved in every matter and make every decision
  3. Overwhelm his or her subordinates with work

Continue reading →

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