All of these require an attitude that focuses on being of service to others, of Connecting, Engaging and Sharing with them. And it starts with the words you use. Do your words build up others, or do they knock them down?

A simple coaching tip: think of someone who you like to gossip about behind their back. Commit yourself to saying whatever it is to their face, as feedback, from a position of love.

Another coaching tip: be careful how you sue the word “but” when linking phrases. The parent who says to a child, or the adult who says to a partner: “I love you very dearly but…”. The child or partner soon learns that as the Americans say, it’s all bull***t before the but! If you don’t believe me, what do you know is going to happen if a friend starts a sentence with “I don’t mean to be personal but…”!

As soon as I use the word “love” in a business context, people’s reactions vary from mild surprise to questioning the appropriateness of using it. The thing is, I don’t mean love in a hearts and flowers, Mills and Boon sense.

Look at this definition of love”

I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Isn’t that what building deep relationships is about? OK, depending on your beliefs you may ignore the line about God but to me, the rest of it is how I want to live my life.

How about you? Do your words build or knock down?

Coaching Tips From The Driving Range.

I was at a golf driving range, trying to hit the ball consistently. I was getting frustrated because in the past I used to play to a low-mid handicap but haven’t played for about 6 years due to work. I just wanted confidence about where the ball was going.

I took a break and went to get a drink of water. I started chatting to a young man, Sam, who it turned out specialised in golf coaching. He’d had a client not turn up. He offered to give me a session and I gratefully accepted.

Coaching Tip 1: Identify Existing Levels of Skill and Understanding.

Sam took a video of me hitting a few balls and we went back inside to have a look. His approach to coaching was both subtle and excellent. He asked me to analyse what I saw. We quickly identified the two key problems, neither of which were major issues.

On a different level, from what I said and what he’d seen on the video he realised that I understood what I was trying to do but need help finding some fixes. Sam also understood that I was getting in the way of any improvement because I’d confused myself with so many remembered drills and solutions.

Coaching Tip 2: Offer Ways to Improve Performance

So, back out we went and within half an hour, he’d given me some practices to solve the two problems and the ball was flying sweetly again. My mind felt clear and I was at peace.

What was the reminder? Too often, as business or life-coaches, we believe we have to be non-directive. I think this stems from many coaching methods being based on counselling models, where it is important not to impose your worldview on the client. In counselling, it’s important to empower the client, to let them understand that that they are not “broken” and that they already have all of the resources they need inside them.

However, there are times in business, executive and life coaching, where the client has a legitimate expectation that the coach is an expert and has answers for them. If I had told Sam about my frustrations, that I had no idea why I was getting the results and I was getting and he had responded with “well, what do you think you should do about it?” it would only have added to my frustrations. (And he might have had a golf club wrapped around his head for his inappropriate “coaching” style!

Coaching Tip 3: Elite Performers Enjoy a More Hands Off Approach – Sometimes!

Think of coaching as being on a continuum, with “tell” at one end and “ask” at the other. After all, we have taken the word “coach” from sport, where this is exactly what the coach does. (S)He moves along that continuum as appropriate. With an elite performer, who operates at the level of unconscious competence, the coach can often act from the “Ask” end of the continuum. Even so, if an error begins to creep into the elite performer’s game, and time is short, the coach can and should be directive, telling their client what to do.

Coaching Tip 4: Sometimes, It’s OK to Be Directive!

Yet all too often we shy away from doing this in business, executive or life coaching. It’s seen by many to be a “sin” to intervene from the directive, “Tell” end of the continuum. But I maintain that when time is short, when the client has no idea why things are going wrong, when it’s a matter of safety or security and when you’ve tried a facilitative approach and things still aren’t working – and probably on other occasions too, we are doing our client a disservice by remaining at the “Ask” end.

Coaching Tip 5: If You Are Always Non-Directive When Coaching, You Are Short-Changing Your Clients.

Furthermore, based on some coaching I’ve observed, I think that they stay at the “Ask” end, refusing to be directive, to hide their lack of knowledge/skills. Operating at the “Tell” end means you have to have some answers, staying at the “Ask” end means you don’t!

It’s time we embraced both ends of the continuum and if that requires additional training for many coaches, then so be it! At the moment, many coaches are in danger of cheating their clients. They may be very skilled in listening, in asking questions, in helping the client to feel good about themselves in their problem-state. That’s not the same as helping them solve their problems! Coaching requires a wide variety of approaches.

A one-size-fits-all non-directive approach to coaching means the coach often can’t help and the person being coached ends up feeling frustrated.

This is the essence of sales and providing outstanding customer service.  It’s also the basis for building a great company and attracting all-star talent.

Think about when you were provided a service or sold something.  Didn’t it feel good when the service was provided in a quick, timely, efficient, and friendly manner?  It felt so good that you will go back and buy more (even if you don’t need anything) because you want to be around that feeling.

The following illustrates what I’m talking about:

Jenny had two wrist watches that needed to be fixed.  Walking into the jewelry store she remember thinking and assuming that something will get accomplished but probably only half way, and this would most likely be a process where she would have to keep calling or coming back.

To her amazement she was greeted with a smile and open arms, and the owner immediately confirmed that both watches would be ready within a week and that she would call her personally when ready.  Jen noticed in those few minutes that the owner was able to identify immediately what needed to be done.  The owner even went as far to call the manufacturer directly to confirm that she could get from them what was needed.

Jenny remembered how she felt as she left.  She felt like skipping!  She was astonished that this kind of service still existed.  It completely changed her attitude and her day.  She was now smiling, and she felt fulfilled and also felt important!  All this happened in a matter of minutes.

This experience completely changed Jenny’s attitude and demeanor for the day.

-    She felt valued!
-    She was recognized from a previous visit.
-    She sensed immediate hope.
-    She was understood.
-    She certainly felt important.
-    She felt powerful because the process unexpectedly met her expectations in minimal time.

The above mentioned are  people’s universal needs.  This is what professional selling and customer service is.  You are meeting people’s universal needs.  It’s so simple, but often overlooked.   Try it for a day – to everyone you come across – try making them feel important and see what happens!

I’ve noticed on sales training courses that people new to selling always want to practice techniques for cold-calling. for opening the conversation, for closing the transaction and so on. Their more experienced colleagues want to practice relationship-building and communication skills. The latter have learned that selling is not about sales techniques, as I wrote earlier this week – it’s about treating people as people!

Three Ways to Increase Turnover

There are three key statistics you should know if you want to increase turnover and grow any business -

1. How many clients do you have at present?
2. What is their average spend per sale?
3. How many times do they buy from you per year?

Increase any of these while keeping the others at their current level will increase turnover. Increase all of these while keeping costs.

So many of the books mentioned above focus on increasing profit by reducing costs – it’s much more rare to find books that focus on how to increase turnover while keeping costs at a constant level. While in theory, reducing costs is an option, in practice, most businesses have already cut costs to the bone. In  addition, cutting costs often leads to compromising on quality. It’s saner to keep costs steady and increase turnover.

Another way to increase turnover but keep sane is to categorise your clients. In many industries, clients can be segmented as follows:

4 Client Types to Consider when you want to Increase Turnover

1. Don’t understand or want added the value. they buy on price and if you’re the cheapest today, they’ll buy from you. Tomorrow, they’ll buy from someone else. This is inevitable but you won’t increase turnover by trying to prevent this churn from happening.

2. Prepared to pay for some added value. These are the people you want to spend more time with if you want to increase turnover, building their perception of the value you provide, getting them to accept your expertise and trying to move them to…

3. Preferred supplier. You are on a list of their preferred suppliers and they will include you in any buying decision.

4. Sole supplier. Can be a goldmine but can equally be a huge headache; resource intensive for both sided and from your side, fear of losing them can be a huge monkey on your back and lead you to do the opposite of what is required to increase turnover. You can be manipulated into “doing just one more favour for free”. Be careful, you can end up throwing away a lot of income that way!

You’ll waste your time trying to avoid the high turnover of customers in group 1 and you’ll waste money trying to tempt them with added value. That’s not what they’re looking for.What you can do to increase turnover is to have a “pile em high and sell em cheap” offer targetting these customers but be careful that you don’t cheapen your brand image along the way.

Group 4 customers are initially attractive but you can only cope with a very few such relationships at any one time and they are extremely resource intensive. If you want to increase turnover, focus on group 2 and group 3 customers.

In a recession, it’s important to focus on ways to increase turnover. You can’t stand still!

In conclusion, the above are just a few things to think about. What tips would you give an organisation that wishes to increase turnover?

1. That they free their minds of any attachment to their own needs and agenda

2. That they accept everything that the client says as information, without making any judgement about it being good or bad, desirable or undesirable, right ot wrong.

3. All of the input comes from the client, not from the coach; the coach can offer feedback and ask questions to help the client gain insights, but should not lead or control the client.

The question then comes up about what to do if the client asks directly for advice or help.  At this point, the coach needs to have a conversation with the client and perhaps change the nature of the relationship.