May 20th, 2010
Really Find Out What’s on Their Minds – The Benefits of Qualitative Interviewing
Many firms hold meeting after meeting discussing among themselves the need to discern what improvements they must make to better serve their clients. What often happens is internal folks talk about what clients probably like and dislike. In other words, there’s much conjecture, but few hard facts. We have a novel recommendation—go to your clients and “ask ‘em!” The art of qualitative interviewing can uncover excellent insight into what’s working and what’s not. It’s also a very productive approach when a firm is trying to determine its positioning and sales message.
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May 20th, 2010
Are Your Emails Hurting Sales—Externally and Internally?
Ever experience any of these situations? In the home stretch of a sale, and frustrated with the lack of response to your phone calls or inability to get past the assistant “gatekeeper”, you send emails about next steps. You get a confusing response—or none at all. Or, you’re putting together the proposal and lining up internal resources to help close the deal. Your email issuing instructions gets response from one person, is ignored by two, and acerbically by a fourth. With such a huge amount of our business lives dictated by email, how can you improve the odds of successful communication?
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May 20th, 2010
Weathering the Downturn—with good Communication
Yes, it seems we are officially in a recession. Portfolios are shrinking—and fast. One never knows what the next day will bring in terms of rate cuts, market performance or the political climate. What’s a financial firm to do? Most people think they need to “batten down the hatches” right now. They hunker down and wish and wait for things to change. They worry about getting client calls. They worry about cutting the budget and they worry about shrinking fees tied to portfolio assets.
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April 20th, 2010
Managing Conflict in the Workplace
We are in the business of revenue generating activities – helping our clients grow their sales. Why then do we even discuss a topic like conflict management?
In numerous engagements and client interactions we’ve continued to have employees come to us requesting help in dealing with difficult co-worker situations. We talk about behavioral style and the implicit communication issues frequently. This is at the root of many troubling relationships; however, there is another area that we haven’t addressed but which we recognize as a real source of concern in most organizations.
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