If your team is at max capacity, feeling overwhelmed, or struggling to keep up, they’re doing whatever they can to keep their heads above water.
Unfortunately, the ways they choose to cope might be costing you a lot of money.
Teams that feel stretched too far
- don't spend more time talking with clients than they have to
- limit the choices they offer customers, avoiding opportunities to upsell or increase orders
- keep new ideas to themselves
- focus on getting work done not improving efficiency
- make decisions from a scarcity mindset
- focus on reducing risk rather than creating opportunity
- resist any changes to their routine
- struggle to collaborate with others
As one client’s account executive said, “I know production is stretched so why would I offer the client more design options. They know what they want so I stick to helping them make that happen.”
While you want your employees to use discretion when doing their jobs, you also have to make expectations clear about how you want them to make decisions and give them a framework that can inform their decision making process.
If you’re doing everything you can to drive more qualified leads into your sales pipeline, the last thing you need is someone deciding to avoid the upsell with new and existing clients as a way of limiting capacity constraints and personal feelings of overwhelm.
In some cases, you're probably completely unaware that there are subtle choices your employees are making everyday that impact your top and bottom lines.
Or perhaps you assume they think the way you do or you lack trust in their decision making skills which results in things like work-arounds, micromanagement or lack of delegation.
Growth and consistent profitability can't happen under those circumstances.
Need better insight into how your people are leading from where they are?
- Ask open ended questions that require employees to describe their work experience including their thoughts and feelings
- Ask follow up questions like
- Help me understand.
- Please say more about that.
- Why do you think that is?
- Can you give me an example?
- When did this problem start?
- What concerns can we address immediately?
- Can you be more specific?
- Explain your sales goals and strategy, and set clear expectations about how they specifically contribute to achieving those goals
- Do regular debriefs to understand workload, customer interactions and concerns
- Give and receive regular feedback
- Role play so employees can practice ways of responding that prioritize your sales goals while managing client expectations regarding timeframes and deadlines
- Use an outside facilitator to improve communication skills
- Give your team specific instructions on how to make real-time decisions based on company values and goals (if/then)
- Ask them what challenges to increasing sales they see and strategize on how to solve them in ways that allow them to feel confident that adding more volume (sales) into the system won’t contribute to further burnout
Struggling to keep up with the resources needed for growth?
- Map out hiring priorities for the next 12 to 18 months
- Scope out talent before you need it
- Use tech and automation when you can
- Refine and standardize processes to create efficiency and reduce waste
- Use financial forecasts to hit revenue goals to fund growth
- Build banking relationships to access growth capital
- Update contract and payment terms as part of a comprehensive cash flow management strategy
- Invest in improving your team's communication, accountability and conflict resolution skills
- Set clear expectations and provide regular coaching
- Have a process for identifying and resolving issues
- Make whatever hard decisions need to be made to make the hard work of your team more profitable
Purpose First Advisors specializes in helping business owners level-up their approach to business growth and profitability. Let us help you build, grow and exit your business on purpose, with purpose.
