TrueStar Thoughts

Here are 14 guidelines to sharpen your listening skills, increase your productivity, reduce errors, gain customer satisfaction, and help you become more successful…

1. Don’t interrupt. (But…but…but…)
2. Ask questions.  Then be quiet.  Concentrate on really listening
3. Prejudice will distort what you hear.  Listen without prejudging
4. Use eye contact and listening noise (um, gee, I see, oh) to show the other person you’re listening
5. Don’t jump to an answer before you hear the ENTIRE situation
6. Listen for purpose, details, and conclusions
7. Active listening involves interpreting.  Interpret quietly
8. Listen to what is not said.  Implied is often more important than spoken.
9. Think between sentences
10. Digest what is said (and not said) before engaging your mouth
11. Ask questions to be sure you understood what was said or meant
12. Ask questions to be sure the speaker said all he/she wanted to say
13. Demonstrate you are listening by taking action
14. If you’re thinking during speaking, think solution.  Don’t embellish the problem

I’m not sure where I got this list, I think it is a subset of a longer list.  Forgive my lack of reference as this is just a document I created and had to share with my direct reports at one time.  All of that said, it is a great list to improve your listening skills.

admin Uncategorized

• Just give me the facts
• Tell me the truth, and don’t use the word “honestly.”  It makes me nervous
• I want an ethical Salesperson, Project Manager, Business Analyst, CEO…
• Give me a good reason why this product/service/process is perfect for me
• Don’t argue with me
• Don’t confuse me
• Don’t talk down to me
• Listen to me when I talk
• Make me feel special
• Make me laugh
• Be sincere

admin Uncategorized

While compensation gets all of the visibility, statistics show that most people joining a Direct Selling company don’t do it for the money. In fact, the Direct Selling Associations reports that money is number 4 on the top 5 reasons to join.  I’m not saying compensation is not important, it is.  I am suggesting that are additional factors that will motivate your sales force and cost to implement these is minor compared to traditional forms of compensation.

Think back throughout the year, where did your paychecks go?  I can’t remember.  Let’s see, there were house, car, utilities, fast food, and I hope there is some in the bank.  How did you do?  Hopefully better than I.

Now think back to the last vacation, last time your spouse praised you (I mean really praised you, not just acknowledge), recognition from the boss.  How did that make you feel? Do you remember the details?

Many people in your company want to belong to something that is good and personally rewarding.  Money helps with the spouse and friends, but recognition and positive experience help to build the person.  There are lots people hurting and they want to belong to something good.  Is your company addressing the personal side of business?

admin Direct Selling

In the world of direct selling, everyone is always trying to build a better mousetrap. A faster way to recruit, an even better compensation plan, hot-fast-best-uber leads, and on we go. In reality, the core values and principles of direct selling have not changed in 100 years. The technology and business processes continue to evolve in order to better support these core values.

There are many people hurting in the world and they want to belong to something that is good. Belong to something that recognizes them for their effort. To praise them when they do well and to pick them up and encourage them when they are down. And yes, to pay them for their efforts.

This has been, and continues to be, at the core for all successful direct selling companies.

What has changed?

Technology and business processes continue to change in order to make it easier to provide a high level of service to your people. This should be the only role of technology for a company. Make it easier to do business.

How do you make sure you are providing the best service?

Build trust with your sales people, especially your leaders, and listen to them. The people working the business will usually give you the best ideas. If the biggest problem is late deliveries, fix that problem first. Don’t give them another exciting toy that IT or marketing came up with when they are saying the biggest challenge is your shipping process.

Be careful on what you wish for

When you engage your sales people and ask them what can we do to help, often times the response will be “Get this tool”, “Work like this company”, “Have these bonuses”, etc. It is important to work through these replies to get a better understanding of what the real problems are. Otherwise, you run the risk of causing more damage by offering the wrong solutions.

Here are some examples:

I love the party plan business model because it blends social activity with the purchase of products and opportunities for additional parties. The beginning consultant is faced with numerous challenges when they have their first parties including:

Problem
Hostess only wanting to invite a small number of people because she is concerned that there will be too many people at her house.

Result
2 out of the 5-7 people that were invited show up and the party does not produce hostess rewards or compensate the consultant for the time she spent. One or two of these and the consultant will most likely quit the business before she had a chance for success.

Potential Solution

• Have a simple training program (process) that explains the problem and how to coach the hostess for success.
• Have a simple application (technology) that allows the hostess to quickly add people to a list and have the consultant follow-up to make sure she has enough materials for the party.

Problem

Administration time needed to enter and submit orders from a party.

Result
The consultants hourly earnings is reduced because of the time it takes to enter a party order. This causes a level of disappointment and time away from their personal life (this was one of the benefits of being your consultant , right?)

Potential Solutions
Have a simple order entry process that allows her to enter the information quickly. Emphasis here is simple and not a solution designed by technology people just because they want to use the latest and greatest widgets.

Maybe they value speed of entry over look and feel. The real solution is most likely in the middle somewhere. The key is listening to them. If you are trying to establish a $25/hour opportunity for the new consultant then saving them time on the administration part of the business is much less expensive then changing your compensation structure.

In Summary

These are pretty straight forward potential solutions to common problems that you may have.  The reality is life isn’t usually as simple, but hey, this is just a blog right?

The key is to understand the core values of the direct selling industry and make sure your company is aligned with them as well. Once this is done, then start to build trust with your field by starting with your leaders. Ask questions and listen to understand, not to confirm what you think you know. Make sure the new consultants are factored into your solution and then prioritize the issues and knock them out.

admin Direct Selling

Scrum makes sense on paper.  It seems easy.  There are few rules for Scrum.  Transparency must make it easier for everyone to know what is being done.  Right??

Scrum, like everything, takes dedicated work in order to continually improve and reap the benefits.  I think one of the biggest challenges most companies face, is how Scrum is implemented and the focus for continuous improvement in each role.

Scrum is typically implemented by a champion within the company.  Sometimes this is one or two people, usually in the development team.  There are several articles on Scrum and also many courses on Scrum Master Certification.

As I began to learn more about Scrum and eventually implementing it at a company I worked for, I knew I needed executive support.  Someone who would help to protect the framework and let us have the chance to succeed.

We both became Scrum Certified and we even had a couple of other people get certified.  The role of Scrum Master was implemented pretty well.  The roles of the Developers were implemented well.  The importance of the role of Product Owner was not fully appreciated.

The Product Owner has to be involved in the Scrum process.  While their roles are pretty well defined; prioritize the backlog and accept the stories when ‘done’.  They also have to be available throughout the sprint in order to define the acceptance criteria, and answer questions during the sprint.  This usually takes more time than people think.  How much time will depend on the projects, people, and technology.

A company I recently worked with needed the Scrum Master about 20% of the time and the Product Owner about 60% of the time.  The challenge is the Product Owner was only available for about 20%, which required the Scrum Master to increase their time to about 30%.  This increase of time was mostly solving blockers because the Product Owner was not available.  Unfortunately, the Scrum Master cannot assume the Product Owner responsibilities and even with the additional time, the success of the sprints suffered.

Is this a problem with Scrum or is this the power of Scrum giving transparency to the real problems?  In this case, a resource constraint by the Product Owner.  Scrum does not promise miracles, but it does shine the light on problem areas.  Companies need to acknowledge and address the problem areas as they are discovered.  Failure to do this will prevent the company from receiving many of the efficiencies that Scrum was implemented for in the first place.

Change is difficult and getting everyone to really buy-in to the changes needed for Scrum to work can be too difficult.

If you are struggling with implementing Scrum, make sure you have the right people doing the right roles and that everyone is empowered to do their job.  This means they have the authority, knowledge, and time.

admin Agile, Scrum