our blog - trebuchet group

Friday

Jul232010

Make you and your company faster

Friday, July 23, 2010 at 06:19AM

Like you, I get bogged down with so much to do that it can be challenging to learn about new possibilities and ways of doing things to make my life better.

I'm not talking about atomic hairdryers here - I'm talking about real, simple, concrete things you can do to make a difference for yourself and others.

(If you are a regular subscriber to our newsletter, you may recall our "Things you can do today" portion in just about every issue. Our goal is to inform people that, for many situations in business, there is hope - and then provide one or two things you could do to get going in 15 minutes or less.)

I'd like to share a source of great information and inspiration along these lines - Fast Company.

You may or may not know of the magazine, which is a bit trendy and edgy. I read it for years before I really started diving into their online resources - and that's where the real treasure lies.

Two great sources

First, Gina Trapani has a series of short, entertaining videos with great ideas for implementation called Work Smart. These tips are presented well, they are practical and make sense, and the style helps them memorable. Here's just one example: How to Remember Endless Passwords with a Simple Trick.

Second, there's a series called The 30-Second MBA - which is about timely questions posed to business leaders the best 4 answers are posted. It takes all of 3 minutes to explore others' thinking about important issues affecting businesses like yours. The archive is pretty decent as the project has been going on for a while.

I'd love to know if you have any places you go for great information and inspiration. Comments, anyone?

Chris Hutchinson |

1 Comment |

Change Management,

Self leadership

Friday

Jul162010

Follow on - Is your company's DNA tied in knots?

Friday, July 16, 2010 at 02:56PM

I've been working in and on this company for the past 8 years, starting with its formation. So I feel pretty confident that I would know what the Trebuchet Group DNA was all about.

Did I find out that I had a lot to learn!

Part of every incoming Advisor's responsibilities here at Trebuchet Group is for the Advisor to pretend we're a client company and put us through whatever best stuff that Advisor has to offer. It's a real win-win situation - as a company we benefit from the experience and skills of the Advisor, and the Advisor benefits because everyone in the company not only knows about but has actually experienced his or her best stuff.

Jerry Touslee is our newest Advisor, and while he'd probably downplay his part in it, he blew my socks off when he put us through his Business DNA program. Again, I figured that his half-day workshop would mostly be about educating others - yet I was surprised to discover quite a bit about the company alongside my colleagues.

I was drawn in by the simplicity of the process - just a few simple questions that allowed everyone in the room to share their perspectives in a way that wasn't hokey or contrived. The entire team - me as leader included - offered real insights into who we are and why we're different.

Here is just a tiny sample of the results we achieved - for example, here are the most powerful rewards we believe we provide our clients:

Confidence - the deep down knowledge our clients have that they are on the right track with the right people doing the right things
Better Future - not a rosy view but an actual improved future that everyone in the client organization can look forward to every day
Capability - our clients have an increased ability to do what needs to be done through being more effective and more efficient with the resources and people they have

You can't sense this, yet I am completely jazzed even writing this to you because it is so deep inside what I believe our company is truly about. And I know our team aligns around this just as strongly because of how Jerry helped us create this together.

So if sounds interesting, or you just want to find out more, send Jerry an email at jerry@trebuchetgroup.com. He'd love to share and help you get the kind of passionate connection with who you really are that I'm feeling right now.

Chris Hutchinson |

Additional tips re: Going for everything can get you nothing

Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 12:30PM

When systems and people are overloaded, results are dismal at best. Here are some specific tips on how to make the actions, you as a leader need to have happen, actually occur. As mentioned in our recent newsletter two actions leaders can take are:

Get clear. Help everyone in the organization really understands success. Pick the top 3 things that need to happen. Make sure they are measurable and doable. Write them on a wall, and stick to them. Bonus points if you see or hear other people using those objectives to figure out together what they should do next.
Unite departments. Help teams understand they should focus on organizational success first, and their success second. Look for a goal that will require their cooperation to achieve, and make it the goal for all teams involved. Bonus points if the teams come back with a better goal than the one you picked.

Here are a couple of specific ways to make the above actions happen in your organization.

· Over communicate. Help everyone focus on key results by over-communicating what the results are for the organization. Once you have the top 3 things, share then continuously. Post them on the wall (or discuss them) at the beginning of each meeting. Ask “So how does what we’re working on right now connect with our top 3 goals?” During discussions ask people how well we’re doing at reaching our goals. You get the idea.
· Listen actively. Help teams by listening first to concerns to understand issues from their perspectives. Whenever you think you need to drive home a point – stop. This is the exact place to ask a question since you are probably assuming something that’s making you want to push harder. Think about what you’re assuming, and then ask a question to find out what other people’s perspectives are on the issue. You might just get surprised – and you get bonus points because people know that you care about what they think more than pushing your own agenda.

A quick question for you:

What have you done (or seen done by others) that helped an organization get clear and unite around the most important goals?

Let us, and everyone else reading this blog, benefit from your experience – comment below! (And yes, it’s ok to obscure the participants to protect the guilty ;o)

Chris Hutchinson |

2 Comments |

Monday

Jun072010

Be Careful Who You Dis...

Monday, June 7, 2010 at 01:08PM

you never know who your next referral will come from (or not)

The hard way to build your business base is to crab your way through one sales call after another hoping that your pitch, your skillful handling of objections, and your super duper closing skills will make some sales and help you reach your goals.

That’s traditional sales. Purely transactional. I’m the seller, you’re the buyer, let’s do business.

If you believe that’s working for you these days, you’re either extremely lucky or, well, delusional.

If everybody sells (yes, I assert it's true) it stands to reason then everybody can unsell. Your receptionist can unsell, your accounting department can unsell, your CEO can unsell, et cetera, et cetera.

What does it mean to unsell?

One of the things it means is to sabotage your brand promise. What is your unique value proposition? Is it your fabulous customer service? If so, how do you treat people trying to do business with you? Do you answer all phone calls promptly? Does your accounting department have a proactive, win-win attitude in all internal and external communications? Does your CEO think of herself as the company’s Number One customer service agent?

Another thing unselling means is to ignore the fact that we live in an extremely connected world. An environment of social networking, influentials, and dynamic interdependence. Your success or failure can depend on “ratings” created by people you barely know.

Has your inconsistency, inadvertent rudeness, failure to live up to your promise damaged your potential business relationships?

Referrals are based on positive experience, positive brand awareness, and positive relationships you’ve created with folks that you know and folks you may not know so well. You may not know the influentials in your community who have the ability to help or harm your business prospects, but their impression of you counts.

If you’re building your business (and who isn’t?), the most important single thing you can do is to identify the folks whose sneezes will spread the virus you want spread. If you dis the wrong person, no antibiotic in the world will save you.

Lee Porter |

Follow up to "Don't fool around. Hire well for sales and your business will thrive."

Wednesday, May 12, 2010 at 02:48PM

Top sales performers and bottom sales performers have remarkably similar characteristics according to research collected by Profiles International, the sales assessment tool we use at Trebuchet Group.

The top and bottom groups are nearly identical in Thinking Styles; they are similar on the Assertiveness, Manageability, Accommodation, Independence and Objective Judgment scales.

Most striking however, is the difference in their patterns on the Energy and the Decisiveness scales.

The most successful salespeople have very high Energy scales (in the upper 16% of the working population). Top performers also rank very high in Decisiveness, averaging 10 out of 10 on decisiveness!

You can screen for these "top seller" characteristics either before or after hire. Call Trebuchet Group for more information.

Lee Porter |

1 Comment |