Where is your business not reaching its full potential, and what can you do about it?
In what area is your business not reaching its full potential? The first step to changing anything is to acknowledge it. Once you acknowledge it, it is time to act. The top areas that businesses don’t reach their full potential in, is summarised below, with some practical recommendations.
• Leaders don’t lead
Sometimes, the person who ends up in the Management or Supervisory role, is the most senior team member, not necessarily the best Leader. There are a few ways to tackle this.
The first is that they could be trained on leadership skills, through accredited or unaccredited training. The second is to have an honest conversation with them and match them with a mentor who can guide them in their leadership skills. Finally, it may be necessary to implement a change model; in which case people may be re-assigned into roles that they are more suited to.
• High team turnover
Often when team members leave organisations, exit interviews are conducted. I am not a fan of exit interviews, because I feel that people aren’t honest enough in them, and there is also no follow up or further questioning once someone has left. If you are going to survey your team on issues in the workplace that may be contributing to team turnover, a great way to do this is while people are employed, and as a whole team, anonymous survey.
Another way to understand team turnover is to create a focus group and allow people to speak freely. Once the issues are understood, as to why people are leaving, you can act. The action taken, will depend on the reason for high team turnover.
• Poor sales conversion
Poor sales conversion generally happens when the Salesperson has not connected well enough with the prospective customer. They may have not built a strong enough relationship, or perhaps the prospective customer doesn’t “gel” with the Salesperson.
We like people who are like us. For someone to want to buy from you they need to know, like and trust you. So, how do we do this? And in some cases, quickly, as some sales need to happen in one client appointment. Matching and mirroring is a great way to build rapport very quickly. We can match and mirror the prospective clients pitch, tone, body language, speed of speech, communication style and behavioural style.
• Lack of teamwork
Lack of teamwork can happen for several reasons, including; the team don’t like each other, they don’t trust each other, there is competitiveness, people aren’t contributing to their share of the work, and on and on it goes. Combatting this, depends upon the reason why it’s happening in the first place. People are fundamentally different – so whatever you do, don’t ignore the problem – address it.
• Team not being on board with change
People fear the unknown, and with change, comes the unknown. If there are big changes taking place at work, communicate them early and transparently, include the team where you can, listen to the opinions of others, set clear expectations and timeframes and be firm, but compassionate and fair.
If I can support you and your team to overcome some of the above-mentioned challenges, visit www.uniqueteamtraining.com.au/signature-programs. Each of our signature programs focuses on overcoming the specifics of each of these challenges.
