Great Sales and Service People: Nature or Nurture? | Business Tips

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imagesWhen I encounter abominable customer service I can’t help thinking, How did this person ever get hired for this job, let alone pass their sales/service training course?

And that gets me thinking about something our clients often ask us: “If we want our people to have great sales and service skills, should we just search for “naturals” – people born with the disposition and ability to sell and serve skillfully?”  It’s the old “Nature or Nurture?” question.

Yes, you should keep a sharp eye out for naturals.  But I would add, “Good luck with that!”  Experience says you’re going to stumble across that miracle type only once or twice in your whole career.  Because think what it means to be a “natural.”  Courageous, or perhaps fearless.  Personable.  Persistent.  Attentive.  Thoughtful.  Conversational.  Positive.  Logical. And on and on.  Really, what are the odds?

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Amazon Echo: This is what a smart home should feel like [REVIEW] | Mashable

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The Echo is Amazon’s latest futuristic gadget experiment. It’s one part Bluetooth speaker and one part personal voice assistant. And it blew my mind.

You control the Echo with your voice; you can tell it to do things like play music, read news briefs aloud, add items to your to-do and shopping lists, and tell you the weather. In other words, the Echo is like the realization of HAL 9000 in a black canister, only without the frightening pulsating red camera eye, and not nearly as intelligent.

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How India Is Ahead Of The Game In TV Unbundling | Forbes

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While U.S. cable television customers are longing to finally be able to pay for just the channels they actually watch, others have begrudgingly accepted that bundled television is still the way to go for getting their money’s worth. Companies like DISH, Verizon, and Sony have only announced in the last year their own plans for stand-alone streaming services. With a few clicks, $8 for Netflix NFLX +0.75%, $15 for HBO, $20 for ESPN could easily add up to a higher total than what customers currently pay for only a few channels they actually watch in a bundle. What’s more, it doesn’t look like companies will use the same set-top box, if they use set-top boxes at all (Sony and Verizon are looking to offer services completely on the cloud).

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The disappeared: Chicago police detain Americans at abuse-laden ‘black site’ | US news | The Guardian

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black siteAlleged police practices at Homan Square, according to those familiar with the facility who spoke out to the Guardian after its investigation into Chicago police abuse, include:

  • Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases.
  • Beating by police, resulting in head wounds.
  • Shackling for prolonged periods.
  • Denying attorneys access to the “secure” facility.
  • Holding people without legal counsel for between 12 and 24 hours, including people as young as 15.

At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square “interview room” and later pronounced dead.

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This isn’t like the secret police, this IS the secret police.  You should be pissed and complaining about this to anyone who will listen.  Note that this is a BRITISH newspaper exposing this travesty.  – Ed

Top bosses reveal their secrets for getting things done | BBC News

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Getting things done can be hard for anyone.

However, when you’re at the very top of an organisation and juggling multiple demands it’s even tougher.

To drive their organisations to success, chief executives need to be crystal clear about their goals.

They also need to not get distracted when carrying them out.

The key to keeping on top of your workload and not getting overwhelmed includes:

Delegating work, keeping meetings fairly short and working intensely in only short bursts.

You should also remember to stay focussed, and keep a decent work-life balance otherwise you will risk burning out.

Here some of the world’s top business leaders share their secrets to not getting bogged down by the details.

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The Category for Your Business Doesn’t Exist Yet? Create a New One | Inc.com

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gt-dave-kombucha_50888When GT Dave commercialized kombucha, he didn’t just bring a new product to consumers. He also invented a wholly new market segment. (Think Starbucks and premium coffee, or Sam Adams and microbrews.) Eddie Yoon, principal at the strategy consultancy Cambridge Group, considers category creation the most powerful and overlooked growth strategy any company can use. “Category creators experience much faster growth and receive much higher valuations than companies bringing only incremental innovations to market,” says Yoon. It’s not easy, but the following ground rules can help.

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Why The Way We Work Is Broken and How to Fix It | Blinkist

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From the hours of 4 or 5 a.m. to 8 or 9 at night, man, woman and child could be found behind closed – often locked – factory doors. They went to work before sunup and trailed home in the dark. The longest break, a half hour for tea, was the best respite most people could expect, which likely felt as ghastly as it sounds.

Although things have changed for the more humane since then, if reading the above gave you an unsettling prickle of familiarity, you wouldn’t be alone. This system of management, called command and control, is still widely used today.

Command and control might be “historically proven,” but it only makes sense if the person running the show is a complete genius, and the employees, mental midgets incapable of independent thought. These days though, organizations tend not to be this stratified: smart, educated people can be found at all levels of a company, and as you’ve probably already realized if you’ve ever held a job, that someone holds a senior position doesn’t always indicate smarts.

So what do you think happens when you try to force people of equal intelligence into a strict hierarchy as in the command and control system?

71% of people wind up hating their jobs, that’s what.

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What the Declining Number of Employer Startups Means | Small Biz Trends

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Since 2008, the number of employer businesses going under has exceeded the number of employer businesses being founded, driving down the stock of American employers. Combined with the 49 percent decline in the per capita rate of formation of new employees that occurred between 1977 and 2012, this trend has some observers worried.

Jim Clifton, the CEO of Gallup, argued in a recent article that the recent pattern is America’s “single most serious economic problem” and that “economy is never truly coming back unless we reverse the birth and death trends.”

While I agree with Mr. Clifton and others that the three-decade long decline in the new employer creation rate is distressing, I believe that the problem it reveals is more subtle than his article lets on. Taken in conjunction with other data, the decline in the rate of employer firm formation indicates primarily that American business owners are becoming less willing to hire others.

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Four Ways Millennials Are Still Scarred From the Recession | Bloomberg Business

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With the U.S. economy gaining steam, employers are finally hiring — and those benefits have spread to most corners of the job market.  Even America’s young adults, who bore the brunt of the downturn, are starting to regain their economic footing.

That doesn’t mean all is well for millennials, especially those who entered the workforce when things were at their worst. Improvements in the headline statistics mask some of the longer-lasting effects of the recession.  Here are some of the scars that recession graduates may bear for a long time to come.

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