Three tips to build staff motivation

Companies that want to get the best out of their staff need to think about how to build and maintain motivation and momentum.

Here are three examples of how to do this:

The 3 things I’ve learnt about conducting effective pitches

Over the years I have seen many different approaches to  meetings where people are pitching for business. Some people go for the traditional PowerPoint approach, with a detailed presentation of their offering and why the client should use them. This kind of method usually involves discussing at length a great many features of the product or service on offer and seems to me to be a scattergun approach; “tell the client everything and hopefully something will stick!”.

At the other extreme some sales people go for a pure information gathering technique, where they have a long list of exact predetermined information they are looking for. This style is characterised by a lot of specific questions and some fairly unsubtle, further probing questions. The client can see the “sell” a mile off, although ironically many sales people using this technique don’t get round to actually selling anything and closing at the end of the meeting. Instead they rely on having made a favourable enough impression through NOT appearing too “salesy”.

Neither of these two approaches are consistently that successful. Don’t get me wrong here; they’re not bad – it’s just that they’re not that good either. The problem is that they are both hampered by being dominated by the sales persons agenda, rather than the clients.

The most consistently successful technique that I have seen, is one that flips the meeting on it’s head and approaches the whole thing from the client’s viewpoint.

The 3 mistakes NOT to make at networking events!

We’ve had a busy couple of months of networking here at Lander Associates (see the pictures at our Facebook page) and even with the increase in virtual networking, attending relevant, (physical) business networking events still remains invaluable for meeting new potential customers. We’ve been to some fantastic events recently and it has given us the opportunity to meet contacts old and new. That being said one of my pet hates is when someone is talking to you but is looking over your shoulder for their next target. You know they are not really listening to you and are just looking for an opportunity to move on.

Here are three major mistakes often made at networking events and how to avoid them, if you want your investment of your time to really pay dividend.

The three things I’ve learnt about relieving stress

Sometimes life throws you a few curve balls that knock your routine and plans completely out. Suddenly you find yourself running around like a headless chicken just to find out you are still behind and the backlog of things to do just kept getting bigger.

We all face these challenges every now and again but when you find yourself overstretched give these three things a try:

The three things I’ve learnt from the recession

I have been through three recessions in my recruitment career and each time I learn a little more about how to survive and even thrive!  Like most things in recruitment, it’s not rocket science, more an unequivocal and unswerving belief that just as it started, it will end.  The trick of course is to be able to see the end goal and focus on it. 

These are the top three lessons I have learned from working in a recession:

If I’ve learnt 3 things in recruitment…

 

With an extensive career in the recruitment industry I have learnt a thing or two. But what are the top three? After much deliberation I decided that these were the three most important lessons I have learnt from my recruitment career:

1. Stay positive: In recruitment I have seen people that have remained enthused and kept a positive mental attitude, no matter what the industry throws at them. They always see the silver lining and believe in positive outcomes. It’s those people who have taught me that I need to stay positive and driven in order to succeed
2. Look after your people: My first boss in recruitment really treated everyone in the company well, despite the fact that the organisation was a large one. Everyone felt special. It taught me that this is really important – no matter what you have to do, even if it’s laying people off, make sure you look after your team
3.  The power of networking: I have never known an industry in which it is so important – in recruitment, networking is everything. Building a network of contacts and meeting interesting and informed people can make all the difference to your success

 Do you agree? What has the recruitment industry taught you?

Posted by: Fiona Lander