The Quiet Revolution in Business

The media has done an incredible job of painting a negative view of business based upon the unethical actions of a small percentage of companies and executives. At the same time, I am witnessing a diverse and growing, positive revolution that is quietly taking place behind the scenes. The seeds of this revolution were laid out in a book entitled, “Global Mind Change” by Willis Harman written back in the mid 1980s. It is a natural progression that fosters empowerment, freedom, self actualization and yes even enhanced productivity and profitability.

As an example, For the last several months, I have been part of a project to interview leaders about their visions for a better world. The project is called Business as an Agent of World Benefit. Thousands of interviews have been conducted with very interesting results. I am certain we will all hear more about this in the days to come.

Case Western Reserve University is sponsoring a program in October entitled, “Building a Better World is the Next Business Frontier.” The World Business Academy is promoting the triple bottom line: people, profits and planet. A popular business book that I would recommend is “Jesus, CEO” by Laurie Beth Jones. The Chaordic Commons is devoted to helping People around the world pioneering new ways to organize that liberate the human spirit, advance deeply shared purposes, foster the common good, and nourish all life. The Appreciative Inquiry Commons is a place where positive change research and organizational leadership connect for world benefit. These are all unique endeavors, but they are all pointing in a similar direction. It is exciting and it is international in scope. Occasionally we get a small glimpse of this movement in a small business article, but I don’t think it will be long before it becomes widely recognized as the Chaordic Revolution.

Corruption

Recently it struck me how serious our moral decline has become and how it may be the biggest reason holding back our economy and the stock market. We have corrupt politicians being exposed on a daily basis at virtually every level of government. We have corrupt stockbrokers who sell us overpriced equities in return for large financial deals with the issuers of the stock. We have corrupt businessmen who have robbed their stockholders and walk away with fortunes. We have corrupt lawyers who are more concerned about their fees than they are about justice. It is enough to make us all very cynical.

In my mind there has never been a more important time to tout the moral many as opposed to the immoral few. We should recognize good character and praise it whenever we can while we vigorously prosecute those who break the law and destroy our trust. We can no longer dismiss corrupt behavior as “everyone does it”, for if we do, everyone will do it and our world will be worse off because of our inactivity. We must re-establish our own values, we must instill those values in our children and we must not tolerate those who ignore the values that have made this country great.

How to Motivate Your Sales Force

I have been fortunate to work with hundreds of salespeople. Each one was different and developed a unique selling style. Maximizing their performance was always more a matter of coaching to help them achieve more than they could achieve on their own.

Here are some basic guidelines that I have followed to help motivate sales folks and increase sales:

1. Keep It Simple! Sales people are busy - they make multiple sales calls each day and constantly answer questions from customers and the factory. Make your message stand out from other messages. It must be both clear and concise.

2. Limit Your Messages! Never try to give multiple inputs at one time. Always space new information so it can be absorbed and acted on before providing more input.

3. Create Recognition! Sales advisory councils are excellent ways to recognize outstanding effort and gain terrific input at the same time. Arrange a meeting with a select group of representatives from the sales group to discuss issues that affect them. Publicize the results.

4. Create Competition! Develop an awards program to generate interest. Establish multiple criteria. Announce monthly progress. Create a visible presentation. Establish a trophy and a list of past recipients.

5. Incentivize! The bigger the results you want, the bigger the incentives should be. At one company, we doubled sales in just two years through sales incentives.


However you motivate your sales force, always remember the goal is to better serve the customer.