Sneha Mittal — November 9, 2018 — November 9, 2018
As a business owner, the success of your business depends on your ability to train and motivate your people. Ask yourself 3 questions:
- Do you want your team to perform at a higher level?
- Do you want to improve their customer service skills?
- Do you want your business overall to run more efficiently?
If you answered yes to any of the above, then start by finding the right people, training them well and equipping them with tools for success.
Without the right guidance, your team cannot perform at the level you expect. So let’s explore some quick tips to ensure the right training and motivational tools are set in motion.
1. Hire for attitude and train for skill
Your teaching methods and training tools will dictate the success of your employee training efforts. But it also hinges on the attitudes of your team members. You can hire people with the right attitude and train them to become more effective.
As Maren Hogan, CEO and Founder of Red Branch Media, explains, “One hire will affect the entire department, or company depending on your size. When you identify the right attitude for your next hire, you’re identifying what your company needs to grow.”
2. Document each job description
Document each job description so you clearly understand what qualities you’re searching for in a candidate. Describe details including daily responsibilities, key personality traits, physical requirements, and qualifications or the experience level required to be successful in the role. When you document a job description you set the right expectations for you and the employee.
3. Role play real-world scenarios
Roleplaying is a common and effective sales training tool. The best part is that it works well across industries and can adapt to any business scenario. The goal is to help employees learn how to deal with different situations and prepare them to respond well (even in the worst conditions) in a fun and effective way.
Roleplaying builds confidence. It helps people identify how to use their skills in varied conditions. You can also encourage creative problem-solving in a controlled environment. As your team participates it builds listening skills and their ability to recognize body language and non-verbal clues. All of these skill sets can play an important role in any customer-facing situation.
4. Empower your team to work autonomously
When you provide stable work schedules, sales and productivity go up. Conventional wisdom says that lean and unstable scheduling is inevitable in today’s fast-paced world, but it isn’t! When you create a consistent and predictable schedule for your employees, they feel more empowered.
Using online appointment scheduling systems can assist with this task.
5. Adopt modular training systems
It’s not always beneficial to spend a lot of time training people. It can become a costly and time-consuming endeavor. A great way to train is to use modular training – short and flexible training sessions scheduled over a longer period of time. This is a great alternative to long and exhausting sessions. Create a 30, 60 or 90-day plan with different checkpoints. This will allow your team to implement lessons in real-time.
6. Get to know your employees
Spend time with your employees to learn more about them and encourage peer connection. Identify what motivates them and learn about their strengths so you can leverage their talents in the right roles.
Some of your employees will be team players while others prefer to work individually. Meanwhile, some people learn quickly while others take more time to learn basic concepts. When you understand who performs well under varied conditions and motivating factors, you will be able to guide them better in their roles.
7. Create a learning culture
Most organizations focus on initial training sessions for employees, which usually turns out to be boring, short-term and ineffective. Rather, instill the habit of learning and support an open mindset. This approach encourages shared learning that aims to achieve the mission of the business.
Reward your team with recognition when they take the effort to improve their business-related skills. Share meaningful feedback with those who actively establish your company culture in their DNA.
There are plenty of things you can do to improve your business, but unless you incorporate important aspects of your culture, your efforts will not yield the desired results.
This article was originally published on YFS Magazine.
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