How To Build Trust in Organizations with Peers Colleagues and Bosses

In your communications be specific and direct. Don’t avoid the “elephant in the room”, bring issues it to the fore early and often. If problems are occurring or others are not performing as you wish let them know with tact and in private. Use a calm and logical approach to your communication and avoid abruptness.

Share credit with those that assisted in wins you have had, even go to the point of slightly overstating their contribution or as someone said “when in doubt, share”.

Resolve issues or solve problems through direct communication at with person causing the difficulty, don’t bring in the boss or others. One to one is best.

If you are doubtful about your role in a project or proposed work related activity, tell other stakeholders of your concerns upfront. If other duties and work issues overtake you when engaged on an ongoing commitment, advise of the difficulties you are having, or going to have as soon as you believe problems will occur.

Spend non-work time networking with your colleagues, don’t just wander off alone during breaks and always be involved in any volunteer activities your organisation sees as worthwhile.

Don’t ask loaded or rhetorical questions, ask only “non-assumptive” questions with couching them in any “spin” or as a way to push some secret agenda.

Make only promises you can keep and if events overtake you admit it don’t avoid the issues.

If your organization has a formal lines of authority responsible for particular tasks or to resolve issues don’t step outside the existing system and practice full disclosure of facts and potentially useful information.

Admit to your mistakes and never rope others into your problems, don’t try to share the blame by pushing your real difficulties onto, or by finding fault in others. NEVER discuss (read gossip) about another employee or department particularly if they are having difficulties… NEVER gloat or demonstrate that you are enjoying the demise of others.

Be on time, make decisions, don’t procrastinate and show the strength of your self-belief and character by being willing to be wrong and live with the consequences. 

Don’t scoff at another’s opinions or efforts and add support to those in difficulty. Always look at the positive intent of risky approaches to new ways of doing things and if asked honest opinions or advice with support for the fact that others are willing to try a new approach.

Have enough self-control (and demonstrate it) to overcome immediate or short-term feelings in the interests of maintaining ongoing and long term associations.

Public communication and behaviour are a small tip of a very large personal iceberg of values and belief, be willing to question your belief system and grow as a person. Don’t dogmatically stick to what you were indoctrinated with as a youngster, be will to change your perspective.

TRUST IS ESSENTIAL FOR LEADERS

The following is a list of words that others need to be using when they describe you if you are to gain and maintain their trust; 

committed, confident, fearless, communicative, predictable, reliable, correct, forgiving, clear, factual, unbiased, respectful, reasonable, confidential, contributing, even, defining, accountable, interested, calm, resolute, tactful, sincere, frank, listener, patient, answering, sharing, fair, timely, honest, decisive, neutral, competent, consistent, explicit, responsible, transparent, close (near), willing, collaborative, accurate, graceful, helpful

A final thought on trust… always seek win/win solutions. Understanding the elements of trust and being able to sincerely build trust is essential for effective leadership. Trust me!?

Sales and Marketing Are Different

Sales

Sales is about face to face personal contact with new and existing customers to present the buying proposition. 

Sales implements strategies for overcoming resistance to your product or service and provides feedback to marketing and operations. Critical functions are networking and building long term relationships. Sales is primarily about closing the deal and completing the paperwork. The personal attributes of a sales professional are quite different to that of a marketing professional. Successful sales people must be great with human relationships, have strong personalities, high levels of emotion and drive and be highly motivated and able to handle getting a "no". Sales people need to be mentally tough.

Marketing

Marketing is responsible for defining the target market preparing and analysing statistics to define potential and is responsible qualifying prospects. 

While marketing concentrates on who to call on sales concentrates on executing the call. Marketing also looks at customer touch points and develops strategies to improve the customer experience. Marketing is about arming sales reps with the collateral, web presence and promotional programs needed to make a compelling case for doing business with you.

Marketing is about by researching and reviewing customer wants and needs, along with analysing sales successes and failures in order to reshape product/service offering to meet customer demands. Marketing assists in developing meaningful loyalty programs, reviewing customer experiences and crafting entirely new product and service offerings.

A typical marketer will be able to sit and do analysis for long periods of time and be able to test sales activity and  suggestions against statistical evidence to assess risks and/or opportunities. Personally traits of marketing professionals differ dramatically from that of sales professionals. 

references: http://blog.straightnorth.com/difference-sales-marketing/

http://www.orglearn.org

Functional or Chronological Resume, Which is Best?

I recently read an article that advocated having a functional resume rather than the  traditional chronological resume. The reasons given were particularly in relation to  those that are "in a career transition", have employment gaps or suffer from "little experience". The points were well made and the arguments presented were, from my point of view, quite sound. What really got my attention was the large numbers of comments that disagreed with the writers suggestion.

Typical of the comments were: "…recruiters dislike functional resumes and you need to get through the recruiter's screen first. I strongly recommend a chronological resume…" and "… I'd be really careful about this. Most hiring managers hate functional resumes, because they immediately make us wondering what the person is trying to hide; they look shady."

I decided to conduct a resume preference survey and my findings are below. I will admit the samples are small however no less than the number of commenters on the original blog post.

Now I'm not sure whether this adds to the difficulty of choosing which style is best however it is worth further discussion and perhaps yip need to send of both formats if you are unable to "suss out" which style is preferred by the recruiter you are approaching.

I would like some comments and the style I prefer is here: resume example.

Sales: The Number One Top Tip

Prospective buyers are unlikely to come straight out and tell you what they want from your product or service. If we are going to sell, or help a prospect with their buying decision, we need use an effective 'technique' to uncover their real reasons for buying.

There is only one way to effectively find out what is going on in our prospects head… ASK QUESTIONS!

As I have said before… "Good questioning technique is the most important (and powerful), competence that salespeople can develop. FACT: People are usually SKEPTICAL ABOUT WHAT THEY ARE TOLD however, they generally BELIEVE WHAT THEY SAY. "

So…. If salespeople ask the right questions they increase their chances of uncovering the prospect's real desires or wants. The additional benefit is they usually end a with the prospect believing that they are credible and that the salesperson's product information or ‘sales’ claims are truthful.

Remember before you start asking a prospect questions you should ask for permission to do so. A good basic start is, "In order to help you find what is best for you do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions". It's all about good communication and human relation skills.

More sales stuff on: http://www.orglearn.org.

Entrepreneurial Business Checklist

Today more than ever business success depends on two distinct and inherently different issues, those of efficiency and effectiveness. 

"Efficiency is concerned with product and service delivery, quality improvement and cost control, while effectiveness is more concerned with opportunity recognition, knowledge acquisition and creativity. The need to be more entrepreneurial cannot be argued however, what are the real differences between old style organisations and truly entrepreneurial organisations." orglearn

Quote: “doing things better V’s doing better things”. (unknown)

So is your organisation entrepreneurial by nature? The following table should provide some insights:

So how does your organisation rate? Is it set up to take advantage of an entrepreneurial future or is it locked in the past and strangled by a bureaucracy just struggling to maintain the status quo?