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Lucky's Blog

Thursday, March 22, 2018

The Voodoo That We Do


It is never more than a few days between each time I am asked how does your team do what they do? From the outside looking in, I understand it might seem complicated to others. However, the truth is the only real trick to running a world-class organization with a passion for customer service is hiring the right people, providing them with the right training, giving them the proper tools to succeed, giving them the proper support, and then watching them flourish.

Now don’t get me wrong, it took a lot of hard work and heavy lifting to get to where we are today, and we still have a lot to do since every day new processes and technologies are changing our industry, and we need to stay ahead of what the future brings. However, as long as the leaders continue to follow the processes built, support their team, and continue to breed the proper culture, their team will start to gain a synergy and their business will start to become its own living organism. THAT IS WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS!

Yesterday I was reminded of this and felt I just had to share. We have a young and eager new manager (we will call him Joe to avoid his embarrassment) who started his career seeded in our culture. Joe was never allowed to be influenced by others, so he only knows our way, and flourishes in this environment. As a manager in our group, part of your responsibilities include business development. As I have said many times, everyone shares business development responsibilities in our business. Joe seems to have a natural ability in sales that I would put up against some of the most seasoned salespeople I have met in my career.

One day while doing some cold calling, one of the worst and least effective ways to build a business, Joe reached out to a local facility manager. This wasn’t the local A&P manager, but this was someone who is well known in the industry for having some of the largest, highest profile facilities in the city. By sheer luck, he reached this manager at the perfect time, when he was extremely frustrated with their current service provider. The FM said he would be happy to talk with Joe about what we could do to support their company. After a couple more phone calls, Joe set up a lunch with this FM and his entire team.

Now let’s take a quick sidebar to discuss what happened here. A brand spanking new manager, whose secondary responsibility is to build a business, reached out to the most notable FM in the city. He didn’t start crawling; he came out of the gates at full speed and hit a home run while doing it. These actions truly speak to his character, but it doesn’t end here.
I was fully expecting to pay for a big lunch for several people that would listen to us talk, and then the lunch would end with “thanks we will be in touch.” However, my manager was very excited about this and needed my support, so without a thought I made my arrangements and flew into town to help him, knowing that it would be a good learning experience for him no matter what the outcome of the meeting.

THAT’S WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENED!

We arrived a little early to discuss strategy, but all in all felt confident in our ability as a company and our brand “The Ultimate Customer Experience”™. When the FM and his team arrived, we had quick introductions and went inside the restaurant.

I have to say I have never felt more comfortable with a potential customer in my 30+ years of meetings, we were a perfect cultural fit for each other. The FM and his team were interested in relationships, level of service, quality, and their internal culture was an exact parallel to ours. It was the perfect match. In fact, the Operations Manager said to us “this feels like going to a singles bar and meeting your soul mate!” While you can rarely determine that level of culture match, it was truly refreshing to be a part of it and to know that this was a huge boost for Joe. Joe went back and forth with them for the entire lunch. He knew everything there was to know about them, their company, the company’s owner, etc. If I had an earpiece in Joe’s ear and was telling him what to say I couldn’t have given him better words to say or information to use. In fact, I can honestly say I couldn’t have done better myself. Joe was a natural. I heard the words I have been speaking for decades coming out of his mouth! At a few points, he humbled me by telling them the reason for our success and brand was because of me, my support, training, and processes built. However, I know that the actual reason we are successful is that we have built a group of amazing team members. As I sat through the lunch, listening to the conversations, I knew this was going to be a huge win for our team and the FM team. But more importantly, this would be a long-term relationship between two great companies.

And it all started with a young man who sat across from me when he was first hired and told me, “I will be your best team member and make no mistake I want to be in management!”


AND THAT’S WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENED!

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