Terrific Trading

Dare to be Daft

Richard Branson said it and Robert Stephens epitomised it.  They were two of the stand out presenters at the 2008 European Customer World Conference in London.

Richard Branson you know, but who is Robert Stephens?  He founded the Geek Squad in 1994 in Minnesota, USA employing a small team of computer geeks to fix home computers.  This developed into a 24-hour computer support team, and in 2002 he sold to Best Buy the USA’s biggest electrical goods retailer which allowed him to expand across North America and since 2007 he has had an alliance with Carphone Warehouse in the UK.

The 3 Dimensions of Job Satisfaction Part 1

by Jurek Leon

If you want passion, enthusiasm, energy, caring and concern from your employees towards your customers, what do you need to do? 

You need to exhibit passion, enthusiasm, energy, caring and concern towards your employees and to everything that you do.

If you want your employees to show respect to you, your company and everything you stand for, what do you need to do?

S_ _ _  them  r_ _ _ _ _ t.

Your getting the hang of this now, aren’t you?  So, let’s take this a little further.

From the evidence that we have gathered in working with people and organisations across a range of industries, it is clear that you cannot expect a sustained emotional return from your employees if you don't look after their emotional needs.  Yet most employers expect to get this sustained emotional return by looking after their employees physical needs such as pay and conditions.  This causes frustration for both employers and employees with both parties feeling let down.

When you praise me I feel angry

by Jurek Leon

The best way to motivate people is to catch them doing things right and praise them for it.

This isn’t something that comes easily to a lot of managers.  Even those who do praise regularly need some guidance on how to do it effectively.  For example, I often caution business owners and managers attending presentations not to stride back into work and say, “I just want you all to know I think you’re doing a fabulous job.”

The staff will soon work out that their manager has just been on a course or at a conference, and they’ll say to one another, “This won’t last. Give it two days/hours/minutes and things will be back to normal!”

Even the most intelligent of people can get praising wrong.  Let me illustrate this by sharing an example from my colleague, Jan Collins.  She was running a leadership program for nursing supervisors and managers at a hospital.  The importance of praise in creating an effective team and a positive workplace was discussed.

That’s when a nurse turned to her boss and said, “One thing that really gets on my nerves is the way you say ‘Thanks’ at the end of every shift. 

Tax & Tea at the B&B

by Jurek Leon

One of the things I love to do at workshops and seminars for owner/operators of tourism-based businesses is to ask them what they did in their previous life.  Invariably the answer involves little that would prepare them for life in the tourism sector but it does make for fascinating conversations and I’m sure their guests find this interesting too.

These people usually prefer to leave their past corporate, professional or public sector lives well behind them but often I encourage them to build it into a point of interest, even a point of difference for their business.