Happy Monday! I received the following question over the weekend from Eileen Herberger, the President of Ben Shaffer Associates, New Jersey's One-Stop Source for Park, Playground and Streetscape Solutions. Thanks for the question, Eileen!"Coach Grev, How can we inspire and motivate our top producers to stay focused in this current economy with rising costs and increased competition?"
The answer starts with your strategy. What’s the vision of Ben Shaffer Associates? No, I don’t mean your vision statement; I mean where do you want the business to be in 1-5 years? Where do you see your business in the marketplace? What do you want your revenue to be? Your profit? How many employees will you have? What new lines will you sell, or what lines will you eliminate? How will you align your business to achieve that vision? Do you have a core competency – the one or two things that you do better than all your competitors – or do you have several niches where you always compete well? Are you demonstrating to your potential customers that you are the leader in the market? Are you the leader in your market? Is your strategy documented in an annually-revised business plan? Do your employees know that strategy, and have they provided you any feedback on it? Have they bought off on it?
I could ask you many more questions about this, but the bottom line here is that you – as President – need to be crystal clear about where you want to take the business, and you need to be dead serious about achieving that vision. Your top producers need to believe in that vision (so it shouldn’t’ be delusional) and you should have that vision broken down into objectives, then measurable goals that demonstrate the achievement of those objectives, and finally incentivized initiatives that drive the performance of your team to achieve your vision. You also need a marketing plan designed to help you grow your business and enable your salespeople to sell.
So, here are some things I would suggest:
1) Get crystal clear about your business strategy. “Make more money” is not good enough; you need to understand where you want your company to be in the future and then execute a strategy that will take you there.
2) Assign your strategic initiatives to members of your team and then reward them financially for achieving your strategic goals.
3) Be generous to your sales team. The more sales your team makes, the more money you make. So, reward them appropriately.
4) Consider giving your employees skin in the game – an equity stake in your business. This will take some work, but this is – in my opinion – the best way to get employees to care about your company the way you do. If you are not willing to take this step, then increase the component of their compensation tied to corporate performance.
5) Develop and document a strategic marketing plan (see my “Chalk Talk” from Friday, March 27).
I hope that helps!
Ingar Grev
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