HR Consulting

Why are Position Descriptions A Lot Like Politicians?

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Q. WHY ARE POSITION DESCRIPTIONS A LOT LIKE POLITICIANS?

A. THEY ARE BOTH BORING BUT NECESSARY!

I probably don’t need to spend too much time convincing you that they are both pretty boring as far as topics of conversation go, but you may need a little more convincing that they (position descriptions at least), are necessary.

Put simply, a position description is a document which outlines the key purpose, relationships and responsibilities of an individual role within the business. In most cases it also details the skills and experience that would be required of a person in order to competently perform the role.

So just what goes into a well-written position description and why are they important for your business?

In terms of their benefits, position descriptions (or job descriptions as they are sometimes referred to) provide:

  • an opportunity to consider and ultimately be clear about important aspects of all positions within the business, including reporting relationships, key task requirements and expectations relating to behaviour/attitude;
  • a good safeguard for you and your business in the event of grievances, disputes, claims of unfair dismissal etc…;
  • clarity for staff and supervisors around just who does what within your business, therein reducing confusion and also providing opportunity for greater efficiency and ultimately profit;
  • opportunity to reduce the risk of non-compliance with employment-related legislation including Work Health and Safety;
  • a sound basis for recruitment and selection, ensuring you get the right person for the job based on their mix of skills, qualifications, experience and demonstrated behaviours/attitudes, and;
  • a sound basis for effective performance review and training and development.

Read more →

Wayne Moloney

The meaning of the word ‘Waste’ as it applies to the ‘Lean Selling’ Model

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In this 3 minute video John Smibert talks with Wayne Moloney about the meaning of the word ‘Waste’ as it applies the ‘Lean Selling’ model.

Wayne explains that there is significant waste in most sales organisation. Recent research indicates that salespeople spend 60% of their time on non-selling activities.

He suggests that the sales process must address a number of questions to determine if we are adding value to the relationship we have with the customer and presenting something that is specific to the customer’s needs. If not by definition the activity will be wasted. Wayne details what some of these questions are and how they should be applied.
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This is one for sales professionals, sales leaders, CSO’s, CEO’s and CFO’s who are striving to improve sales productivity, reduce waste and grow profitable revenue.

Wayne Moloney is a leading business strategist specialising in sales and business development. Wayne has a very specific specialisation in ‘lean selling’.

See more of the Talking Sales series here

Leads are the Raw Materials of Selling – Manage Them!

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There is a quote in business that has been attributed to many people over the years…“Nothing happens until someone sells something” But from a sales perspective, the reality is..

“Nothing happens until you generate a lead!”

And this is just the start of the sales process and in turn, lead management process. Leads are the essence to generating revenue in business and for as long as I, and many older than me can recall, the responsibility for lead generation has always been clouded. Marketing is traditionally seen as ‘selling to the masses’ and therefore bringing opportunities to the door. Sales is seen as ‘selling to individuals’ (persons or businesses) but still with a need to generate opportunities through various means such as traditional cold calling and these days through social engagement. Regardless of where this responsibility lies (and there is a valid argument that the most successful businesses have strong collaboration between sales and marketing), the fact remains that at some point early in the sales process, a lead must be generated. However, generating leads is only the first step – to have any value to the business the leads must be appropriate and they must be managed. Leads need to be contacted, qualified and depending on the result of the qualification they then need to be removed or put into your sales process to convert them into customers. Further, once converted they need to be managed to ensure opportunities for further engagement are maximised. So, while it can be said that ‘nothing happens until you have a lead’, any lead is only of value if qualified and managed into and through your sales process. Throughout my career, as a salesman, a sales manager and consultant on sales development, this is where I see most businesses getting the sales process wrong. All too often businesses look to generate as many leads as possible and then waste time on those that are unlikely to deliver a positive return on further investment. Read more →

The A-B-C of Selling

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In the 1992 film, Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin put the ‘A-B-C of Selling’ into folklore, ‘Always Be Closing’.

In the movie, Blake (played by Baldwin), an aggressive ‘son of a bitch’ trouble-shooter from head office, is sent to an under-performing real estate office to motivate the sales team. His motivational approach was based on ‘fail and you’re fired’. This threat together with his ‘Always Be Closing’ approach pushed the team to questionable and unethical sales behaviour to avoid the chop.

This is how many salespeople are seen by those not familiar with ‘good selling’ and sadly, it is also an approach adopted by those in the business who don’t treat the role of sales as a career and are looking for the ‘fast-money’. The ‘Always Be Closing’ approach requires the salesperson to be unrelenting in their efforts to close the deal.

Fortunately those who are professional in their approach to sales understand what good selling is about and do not adopt this definition of the ‘A-B-C of Selling’. To be successful in sales, we need to be professional. We need to treat our customers with the respect they deserve and we expect. We need to develop a level of trust. To achieve these things we need to be good communicators.

So let’s redefine the ‘A-B-C of Selling’ to ‘Always Be Communicating’. Read more →

7 Deadly Sins of Sales

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To be successful, salespeople need a healthy dose of both ego and empathy. Ego to pick yourself up after the inevitable falls and move onto the next opportunity believing in yourself. Empathy to take a walk in your clients shoes and understand what real value means to them and how it can be delivered. These traits, possibly contradictory and ego being offensive to some peoples minds, are generally accepted as being essential human tendencies in those carving a successful career in sales.

But what about our own human frailties, the one’s defined in ancient Christianity as the 7 Deadly Sins. Dating back at least 1500 years, these sins were those transgressions against the Church which were seen as fatal to one’s spiritual progress.

In this post I’ll explore the 7 Deadly Sins of Sales, the actions and errors that are a result of our own inclinations and can derail the best sales process and the bring the even experienced salespeople undone.

1. Sloth

You’ve just won that big deal you’ve been working on all year. You’ve got a ‘golden egg’ client who you can rely on to meet or exceed target. You believe you have a USP so unique you will not come under significant pressure on your bid. Such situations have led to the downfall of many a salesperson, and for that matter businesses. Slothful salespeople take things for granted. Resting on your laurels will see you failing to do the things you should be doing; failing to continue developing and and failing to keep up with the latest in your market, your industry and sales techniques. You will not be using and challenging your skills and talents leading to physical and mental laziness. This leaves the door open for competitors and missed opportunities. And regardless of your level of success, you must continue to develop your skills, build your internal and external networks and deliver superior support to your customers. Read more →

LEAN Misconceptions – Only for ‘Big’ Organisations

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LEAN Misconceptions – Part 5

The Lean Philosophy has been around for many years, but unfortunately it is not always understood, predominantly because Lean is thought to be:

  1. A cost reduction exercise
  2. A process to reduce the number of employees
  3. Only applicable to ‘manufacturing’ organisations
  4. An ‘operational’ issue that can be solved by the ‘operations people’
  5. Only for ‘big’ organisations.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

In this series of articles, I will discuss each of these misconceptions and demonstrate that Lean is about business; any and every business. A Lean business strives to understand what the customer really values, and then maximises customer value. Lean is not a short-term fad, but a long-term commitment towards continual improvement that involves every system, every process, every department and every employee within the organisation, irrespective of it’s size.

Misconception # 5: Lean is only for ‘big’ organisations

Lean is applicable in EVERY organisation as long as there is an understanding that every function or service provided by any person, department or organisation is a process that can be documented, standardised, and most importantly, improved. Improving any process necessitates the identification of waste within the process, where waste is defined as any activity that adds no value as seen from the customer’s perspective, i.e. the extra (wasted) time, labour and materials spent producing the product or service. Using the above premise and the fact that no business process is waste-free, Lean can be implemented in any environment, as every business process can be analysed and improved. Read more →

Business Process Improvement

LEAN Misconceptions – Operational Issues

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LEAN Misconceptions – Part 4

The Lean Philosophy has been around for many years, but unfortunately it is not always understood, predominantly because Lean is thought to be:

  1. A cost reduction exercise
  2. A process to reduce the number of employees
  3. Only applicable to ‘manufacturing’ organisations
  4. An ‘operational’ issue that can be solved by the ‘operations people’
  5. Only for ‘big’ organisations.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

In this series of articles, I will discuss each of these misconceptions and demonstrate that Lean is about business; any and every business. A Lean business strives to understand what the customer really values, and then maximises customer value. Lean is not a short-term fad, but a long-term commitment towards continual improvement that involves every system, every process, every department and every employee within the organisation, irrespective of it’s size.

Misconception # 4: Lean is an ‘operational’ issue that can be solved by ‘operations people’

Largely due to the fact that Lean “grew up” in the manufacturing industry (see Lean Misconception #3), there is still a strong belief by many managers and business owners that Lean is an ‘operational’ issue that can be solved by the ‘operations people’…..nothing could be further from the truth.

In very broad terms, Lean consists of two components….. technical and strategic, often referred to as the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ sides of Lean. Firstly the technical side.

Read more →

Here’s an I.D.E.A. – Provide Effective Feedback!

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A common challenge for many supervisors and managers when it comes to managing people is providing effective feedback. This is particularly the case where they need to give feedback to a team member who is presently not meeting expectations and/or where they have done something wrong.

Some supervisors and managers become paralysed by fear that the recipient of the feedback may not take it well – they might be upset, your current good relationship might be damaged or, even worse, they might argue against the feedback and become openly hostile toward you. Other supervisors and managers have no trouble telling people exactly what they have done wrong and what they need to do to improve, but they deliver the news in a way that causes people to react negatively, with the result that their efforts to improve the situation result in the recipient becoming angry and/or disengaged. Read more →

Delivering ‘Value’ through Lean Selling

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In this 3 minute video, Inform partner Wayne Moloney talks with Sales Mastermind John Smibert about the meaning of the word ‘Value’ in the ‘Lean Selling’ model.

Wayne explains that ‘value’ is by definition is “anything the customer is willing to pay for”. He goes on to say that it is vital that we need to assess everything we do in the sales process to ensure it is creating value for the customer – by doing this, and ensuring we are not doing anything that the customer does not value, we will maximise the return from our selling activities. In doing so we also reduce cost by avoiding wasteful activities.

In this interview Wayne tells us a story about a company who achieved outstanding results by applying these principles

This is one for sales leaders, CSO’s, CEO’s and CFO’s who are striving to improve sales productivity and grow profitable revenue.

See more of the Talking Sales series here

Stocktake

Doing A Stocktake Is In Your Interest!

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The end of Financial Year approaches and most businesses would typically be planning and organising their annual stocktake. Other companies may do one or several interim stocktakes during the year in order to better monitor their inventory and/or minimise the disruption of a full stocktake.

A stocktake is the verification of the items physically held in inventory (also called stock). Both the quantity and the condition of each item are checked. The purpose of a stocktake is to confirm that the real physical inventory of a company reconciles with the theoretical inventory held in the accounts.

The objectives of a stocktake are multiple:

  • To remove the items that are broken, damaged or that have become obsolete;
  • To learn of items that are no longer there;
  • To provide valuable information on slow moving items;
  • Last but not least, to reduce your taxable profit via inventory write-offs.

You would not want to pay taxes on a profit you did not make, would you?

Inevitably, a stocktake will end up with a list of discrepancies: Items unaccounted for, missing or that reduced in volume, density, quality, etc. Even the best companies with well implemented inventory procedures will have discrepancies: It is human nature or should I say it is “business nature”. Read more →