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Producing Premium Performance
One of the major issues that arises in managing a small or medium size business is in the area of employee performance. Many business owners are frustrated with the poor performance of their team or some individuals within their team. No matter how hard they try, they don't seem to be able to create a sustainable improvement in performance. The tendency is to blame the employees for poor performance. However, more often than not, the problem stems from not establishing an effective performance management framework. There are a number of elements that create a framework for producing premium performance. The most important element is to establish a clear description of the required outcome of the job. This may be in terms of a position description if the job is broad and covers a number of responsibilities. Or it may simply be providing a sample or a picture of an article that should be produced by the work. When there is a clear understanding of the output required, it is much more likely that result will be produced. The second element requires establishing a best practice approach to doing the work. Often there are many ways a job can be done, but usually only one way is the most efficient. A best practice approach involves determining the best way to do the job and then requiring everyone to do the job the same way to maximise efficiency. The third element is to establish a timeframe or deadline for the completion of the work. The employee will know if they are on track if they know how long the job should take. When you use a best practice approach and establish a timeframe for the work, you can also provide a target for output over time. In other words, if you work so many hours you should produce x amount of product. This allows us to establish a productivity target. When an employee starts a new job, it is best to teach or train the person in how to do the work. This may involve showing the new employee what is done for the first time or two and then watching while the employee tries it a time or two, or until you are satisfied they can do it without help. This is one of the most frustrating parts of the delegation process. The time it takes to complete this element puts a lot of people off. They need to realise that some short term pain leads to much long term gain, rather than allow the loss of some short term productivity to keep them from ever delegating their difficult tasks. A very important element that many forget in the delegation process is to establish a process to measure and monitor results. One of the greatest dangers in business growth is that of losing control because growth means we can no longer physically see everything that goes on. Losing control leads to poor productivity and quality and escalating costs, all of which will destroy your business if left unchecked. Control comes from knowing the results of particular actions and being able to provide feedback or make changes if the results are outside the parameters required. The results achieved in a job over an extended period of time can be influenced positively by developing an appraisal process. The appraisal process should provide feedback to the employee about how they are performing in the job relative to expectations, how their performance affects the success of the organisation and how they interact with the components of the organisation around them. The appraisal approach that gets best results is to adopt a coaching role with your employees, rather than an examiner role. Too often, performance appraisal meetings are set up for failure because the two parties come to the meeting with different objectives. The manager wants to highlight areas of poor performance and take steps to improve these areas, but the employee wants to be told how well they have done. This often occurs when appraisals are held annually or six monthly and conflict is created when the judgments are subjective. The result usually is disappointment and demotivation on the part of the employee and frustration from the manager. Both people hate the process and no effective outcome is achieved. It is much better to conduct appraisal meetings frequently, to compare actual results with targets, using objective rather than subjective measures. The coaching meetings then can be used as a discussion focused on performance improvement, instead of a confrontation about how the employee felt they had performed. The final element of the performance management framework is the reward process. Every positive outcome should result in a reward for the employee. This can be tangible or intangible and dependent on the level of maturity and experience of the employee. For some positions, it is appropriate for rewards to be small, frequent and immediate, where for other positions, more long term and cumulative rewards are appropriate. However, this element is often a neglected or an ill thought out part of the process and as such, has the potential to undermine results. A good reward process supports and enhances the management process and increases motivation for achieving premium performance. The important lesson to learn is that results can be influenced through establishing an effective performance management framework which requires all elements to work together effectively. Poor performance often results if any elements are either missing from the process or are poorly designed and become a negative influence on performance. But a well designed and coordinated framework means that all elements work together systematically to produce premium performance. © 2004 Greg Roworth Greg Roworth is a business consultant and author of "The 7 Keys to Unlock Your Business Profit Potential." With over 25 years practical experience in business ownership and management, Greg has, over the last 12 years, worked with hundreds of small and medium size enterprises, assisting the owners to grow their business profitably and at the same time reduce their stress levels. His successful business development program results in development of a business that works so well that the owner doesn't have to. Discover more business success tips at http://www.progressivebusinesssolutions.co.nz
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Careers and Employment To Increase Your Sales and Revenue Make Sure To Add Value What are you and your company's services and products worth to customers? What is the value you and your company bring to your customers? When working with customers and organizations, it is important to distinguish the difference between worth and value and to set a baseline value for the contributions you bring to the table. To illustrate, following is a simple example based on a company that provides training to other companies: How to Improve Your Management Procedures Usability Are your people consistently following your procedures? Each year, organizations lose thousands of dollars through common mistakes and lapses in usability. But what does that mean for business owners and executives? 14 Top Lead Generation Tactics According to former Harvard Business School professor David Maister, typical marketing practices are not only inapplicable for professional service firms, but they may be dangerously wrong. 3 Ways to Increase Your Sales Last week I got a call from Jose, who was looking for help improving his ads. He'd been running the same ad in four local papers for two months and only gotten one response. He was understandably frustrated. With more than a dozen very satisfied clients, he knows that the residential property management services he and his brother provide should interest more people, but he wasn't having any success getting attention or generating leads. How to Increase The Sales Of Promotional Products I have searched for a new way to increase the sales of my promotional products. A good way is to start an affiliate-program with a commision for every customer who buy an product and who came to your page from a webpage of one of your affiliate-partners. How to Sharpen Your Sales Message with Do-it-Yourself Focus Groups - Small Business Power Tools You've probably heard of focus groups. It's a tool that the big guys use to quickly test a new product or service or to get fast feedback from potential customers. Focus groups do not provide real, actionable information but are great for what I call "clue hunting." For example, I once sat through a series of focus groups on a new camera-related product. After three focus groups, we were able to pretty well conclude there wouldn't be much of a market for this particular product, and the idea was dropped. The three focus groups probably cost this advertiser around $5000 vs. the hundreds of thousands of dollars that would have been wasted had they put the product into manufacturing. 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Admittedly, the first few times, your comments may have missed the mark because you gave her only some casual feedback. But about a month ago, you held a formal coaching meeting with Chris, in which you discussed the situation in depth and came away thinking that she understood the need to change her behavior. In fact, she did change. But after a week or so, she was back to her old behavior. Online Sales: Secret To Increase Your Sales By Bundling Your Products Microsoft has used this online sales secret to become a giant, and the greatest software company in the world. How to Write a Business Plan Sales Section for a Mobile Service We all agree one of the most important parts of any business is Sales. We also know that to get sales we must advertise to let potential customers know of our offerings. When writing a business plan you must have a clear and concise picture of how you will generate sales for your business if you are to attract favorable loans and proper capital to succeed. I cannot impress upon you enough of the importance of these sections in your business plan. So much so that I want to offer you this sample to assist you in writing your business plan for your next most important entrepreneurial endeavor. The Nine Warning Signs that You Need a Sales Video Corporate videos are an important sales tool that can often be overlooked in marketing budgets. 4 Marketing Myths Threaten Your Sales These 4 marketing myths can cause you to lose sales if you base your marketing decisions on them. But the related marketing tips I included with each myth will boost your sales if you act on them instead. Sex, Drugs, & Rock-n-Roll: Trade Show Traps and Tips Sex, Drugs & Rock-n-Roll SEZ WHO? Tips About Recommendations, Sales Cycles, and Trade Shows Here's the scene. You're at the trade show, having a discrete "Sales Call" conversation with a visitor. Things are going well until he says something like... Increasing Business Through Distributors You're a small company with a good product. You are confident that the product can sell, but you don't have the financial resources to hire a team of fifty salespeople to market and sell the product for you. You also don't have the staff resources to support those that purchase the product. How do you make your good idea and good product create success for you? The Art of Sales (And Tips On How To Manage Your Sales Team) Selling. Cold calls, introductions, interviews, appointments, proposals, referrals, call cycles, building rapport, listening, asking for the order, overcoming objections, closing the sale, and rejection. There's a lot to know about the business of selling. No wonder many people are a bit overwhelmed when they are asked to do it. Whats a Professional Sales Manager? I was in the depths of a major depression. As a third year salesperson with a good company, I was doing well, and was on my way to becoming the top salesperson in the nation for that company. But business had slowed down a little, and I did not have my usual number of proposals out for consideration. So, I wasn't as busy as usual. As my activity slowed, I began to worry. My doubts increased to the point where I had thought myself into a real depression, stuck on the question of "What's the use of trying?" The more negative my thoughts became, the less energy I had. My lack of energy led to fewer and fewer sales calls, which of course, led to less activity. And that led to more depressing thoughts. I was caught in a powerful downward spiral. The Effective Executive What does it mean to be an "effective executive"? Well very simply it means achieving the goals you set out to achieve in an efficient, creative and effortless manner. Some of the benefits that ensue from this self efficacy are: feelings of self confidence, self esteem, self worth, a sense of personal empowerment, feeling invigorated and passionate about everything you choose to do, a sense of resilience, more energy, personal emotional and physical health and for some a great sense of purpose. It's Time For A Sales Management Revolution Are you dog tired because of the way you manage your sales team? Many managers tell me that they cannot see a way out of traditional sales management methods that keep them working like dogs, including focusing strictly on revenue goals, staying late, traveling up to three weeks a month, tightly controlling teams, and constantly reacting to emergencies. There has to be a better way. Not Enough Fresh Sales Leads? Marketing is the New Sales Your sales are down and leads are rare. The phone's not ringing. Let's blame marketing!
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