Don't Be Cruel

"Good judgment comes from experience. And a lot of that comes from bad judgment.”  Will Rogers

We're cruel to employees in an inadvertent way.  We send them out into key sales or service situations without arming them with the lessons we've already learned.  In a sense, that's like sending your child to play in traffic, reasoning "It's the only way she'll learn!"  or "Experience is the best teacher!"  

Well, that might be overstating it a bit, but you get the idea. 

Experience is the best teacher.  No doubt about it.   But, when it comes to key sales and customer encounters, organizations have already "been taught" in that respect.  For any given encounter, there are scores of people who've already been through that situation.  They've seen what happens, what works, and what doesn't.   For any given client scenario, there's someone who's grooved an effective strategy and effective points of messaging.   Why make each employee re-concoct each of these strategies again and again, and ultimately reinvent an inferior wheel?

Moreover, such situations are highly predictable.  For instance, with just a quick description of a given sales scenario, a decent sales manager could tell you--down to the facial expression--what the client concerns will be. (If they can't, I'd argue they're in the wrong job.)  The situations are predictable and we have the residual know-how to arm employees to succeed.    

If you're looking for a fast way to drive business results, check the quality of these key interactions. Sales calls, sensitive customer encounters, presentations, staff meetings, basic elevator speeches, and so on. Typically performance comes down to just a few “moments of truth.” Business success hinges on executing in these critical moments. Imagine the impact if you could execute with even 5-10% more efficiency.   Odds are, the opportunity within your current model is enormous.  Keep your team out of traffic!