Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 22, 2021

As I talk to many of you in my role as business advisor, I still often hear the concern for maximum return to the business and stakeholders, more than a passion for sustainably enriching the lives of your customers and team. This applies to your own team, as well as customers. Make every customer experience memorable.

Customer 114

Customer Custom Metrics Satisfaction 114

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 8, 2021

Most leaders agree that poor customer service is a business killer today, in terms of lost customers, reduced profits, and low morale. Yet the average perception of customer experience has not improved. You have to start with hiring only people who are willing and able to make serious customer service happen.

Startup 154

Startup Training Customer Custom 154

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

As a CEO you never stop needing to go on sales calls (or to work the phones in telesales or customer support) and ceasing to do this as your company grows because you’re focusing on investors, recruiting, PR or whatever is a mistake. It might tell you that you need better sales training or to hone your key selling messages.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 21, 2013

Most leaders agree that poor customer service is a business killer today, in terms of lost customers, reduced profits, and low morale. Yet the average perception of customer experience continues to decline. You have to start with hiring only people who are willing and able to make serious customer service happen.

Customer 92

Customer Custom Startup Services 92

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 12, 2021

Even the simplest of new technologies, such as Zoom for remote meetings, can be a detriment to work satisfaction if workers are not trained on how to use it effectively, causing video and sound problems, as well as background distractions. Spend more time mentoring and coaching your team. Giving orders and assignments is not coaching.

Tips 159

Tips Satisfaction Coach Mentor 159

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2017

In reality, business success and satisfaction is about doing the right things at the right time, which requires leadership and coaching. But coaching doesn’t always work the way you expect. Trevor is a veteran coach who has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs, organizations, and business families across the country.

Coach 57

Coach Training Summary Tool 57

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 25, 2022

There is more and more evidence that a more human-centered or heart-centered leadership yields the best results with your team and with customers in the long run. Demand for coaching, counseling, and discipline training is high. The most-used workplace training programs are really about matters of the heart.

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Training Coach Startup Entrepreneur 142

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 2, 2021

Perhaps you need to do more to be a role model for accountability , and provide more coaching on exactly what it means. He later closed more than 8,000 of his stores for a day to provide employee racial-bias training. They provide ongoing motivation by recognizing and rewarding effort, and the training to do the job right.

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Training Examples Startup Social Media 173

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 25, 2020

It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Innovative technologies have no value until they are turned into solutions to real customer problems. Training and coaching. Set milestones and meet them. Ownership.

Coach 144

Coach Metrics Social Network Competition 144

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 21, 2023

It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Innovative technologies have no value until they are turned into solutions to real customer problems. Training and coaching. Set milestones and meet them. Ownership.

Coach 137

Coach Metrics Competition Ideas 137

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2017

We all know some peers in business who could use some coaching to unleash their potential and optimize performance, but would you know how to do the job if they asked you for help? In an effort to help myself, I read a new book on this topic, “ The Master Coach ,” by Gregg Thompson. Self-centered members need coaching.

Coach 54

Coach Satisfaction Organization Guide 54

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 21, 2019

There is more and more evidence that a more human-centered or heart-centered leadership yields the best results with your team and with customers in the long run. Demand for coaching, counseling, and discipline training is high. The most-used workplace training programs are really about matters of the heart.

Training 123

Training Coach Startup Entrepreneur 123

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 9, 2020

By hiring contract experts, less oversight and coaching is needed. Freelancers and consultants have to demonstrate results, without training and mentoring, so they can help you more quickly and probably at a lower total cost. You can advertise your “greener” strategy, which today will get you greater customer loyalty and advocacy.

Competition 168

Competition Startup Demand Training 168

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2014

Objection Handling training. Your job is to challenge his thinking because you’ve been spending the last few years in front of customers, competitors, partners and investors and you should have a more intuitive sense of the future. You’re the coach, mentor, cheerleader. And then there is the C round.

Startup 381

Startup Resource Venture Capital Activity 381

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 18, 2023

Customer service has traditionally been focused on the resolution of complaints , primarily after a transaction. My recommendations always include adopting a customer mindset, as well as the following steps: Accept today’s definition of relevant customer support. Treat every customer exceptionally before they complain.

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Competition Services Customer Custom 109

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 11, 2021

Authors Adrian Gostick and Chestor Elton, with their deep backgrounds as executive coaches and organizational consultants, recommend some simple methods, consistent with my own beliefs, to reduce the pain of uncertainty, and increase productivity, in your teams and employees: Make it okay for them to not have all the answers.

Marketing 148

Marketing Coach Startup Product 148

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2023

Most leaders agree that poor customer service is a business killer today, in terms of lost customers, reduced profits, and low morale. Yet the average perception of customer experience has not improved. You have to start with hiring only people who are willing and able to make serious customer service happen.

Competition 99

Competition Services Startup Training 99

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 29, 2021

Here are the key reasons that I recommend that aspiring leaders focus on people before process: Customers judge the business by the people quality. Whether it be in person, on the phone, or implied in your marketing, your people and their engagement level is the key driver of customer loyalty, advocacy, and sales growth.

Satisfaction 154

Satisfaction Demand Resource Competition 154

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

In my experience of many years as a business founder, consultant, and executive, I offer the following list of situations that always imply a real need for people and business leadership, and have the potential for long-term positive impact to your bottom line and business success: Your business image is slipping in the eyes of customers.

Coach 120

Coach Satisfaction Customer Custom 120

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 26, 2021

The best of you train yourselves to show emotions sparingly and strategically, while the rest are convinced that emotions cannot be controlled , and are a function of culture and genetics. Since business is generally not rocket science, relationships with peers, partners, and customers are often more important than skills.

Coach 137

Coach Training Satisfaction Mentor 137

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 23, 2022

In addition, today’s customers judge a company by perceived people relationships through social media, phone conversations, and sales experiences. Customers demand more engagement and flexibility. People-centric leaders drive ownership and engagement down to their customer-facing team members.

Coach 128

Coach Organization Mentor Social Media 128

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2009

hiring / training / motivating staff, setting up sales compensation programs, implement ing and enforcing a sales policy) are not consistent with the skills you need in your company at this stage. He felt that we didn’t price correctly and he didn’t want to see customers until he had a grip on it. WTF!! ?? !!

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Startup Sales Class CIO 327

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2022

If you aren’t yet adapting to the market and your customers, you are falling behind. I define business agility for my consulting clients as the ability to change your business rapidly to meet customer and environmental changes, with minimal organizational disruption and cost. Be proactive rather than reactive to market change.

Competition 148

Competition Metrics Demand Customer 148

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 4, 2012

Mission statements tend to be narrow, business oriented statements such as “Be the leader in customer satisfaction.” The best way to be clear about them is to regularly engage team members, customers, and suppliers. A good team will step up to the challenge, and your customers will notice and respond to the culture of excellence.

Training 109

Training Startup Study Customer 109

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 25, 2016

If you can’t provide a memorable customer experience, your startup won’t survive very long these days. You now need more than loyalty from your customers -- they need to be your best advocates. The days of pushing new and marginal performers into customer service are gone. Every job on your team drives your customer experience.

Customer 55

Customer Custom Startup Coach 55

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

In all cases, don’t skip the basic training. Any startup coach or business advisor will tell you that, on your way to being a great chef, you don't start your journey by inventing the ultimate entre. If you can’t identify customer interest, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. Make them “feel the love.”

Startup 156

Startup Coach Metrics Marketing 156

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 7, 2020

Every business wants and needs top performers, but most entrepreneurs and executives assume that if they hire and train the smartest and most experienced people, they will get exceptional performance. I saw the key ones outlined well in the classic book, “ Creating High Performers ,” by William Dann, a leading coach to experienced CEOs.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Coach Satisfaction Resource 120

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 10, 2021

He closed stores for a day to update employee racial-bias training. Delegating control means having the right information, the right tools, and the right training to make the right decisions. Unfortunately, I often see goal misalignments with teams, such as marketing measured on sales volume, or sales measured on customer retention.

Startup 132

Startup Training Metrics Examples 132

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 14, 2020

I recall a good summary of how to motivate and train a team to accomplish this in the classic book, “ The Business of Creativity: How to Build the Right Team for Success ,” by Keith Granet. A single marketing coordinator can accelerate your efforts by being the coach and mentoring key members of the team on soft marketing.

Marketing 130

Marketing Develop Development Startup 130

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2010

Understand Personality Types – One of the benefits of working for a big company (Accenture) was that we had lots of speakers come in and train us in topics like leadership, creativity, presentations, strategy, etc. We had a training session from somebody who put up the four-quadrant graph you see above. Most of them sucked.

Slides 358

Slides Venture Capital Startup Summary 358

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

It is never as rewarding when you’re the coach (but coaching has many other benefits. Ask your customer why you lost. They had a team trained up in Documentum and we certainly had enemies from the inside. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not a sore loser. Make sure you learn your lessons from losses.

Outsource Development 333

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 333

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 15, 2015

There is more and more evidence that a more human-centered or heart-centered leadership yields the best results with your team and with customers in the long run. Demand for coaching, counseling, and discipline training is high. The most-used workplace training programs are really about matters of the heart.

Startup 103

Startup Training Coach Entrepreneur 103

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 25, 2010

It is never as rewarding when you’re the coach (but coaching has many other benefits. Ask your customer why you lost. They had a team trained up in Documentum and we certainly had enemies from the inside. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not a sore loser. Make sure you learn your lessons from losses.

Outsource Development 328

Outsource Development Software Review Technical Review News 328

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 12, 2015

It starts with a vision, but benefits quickly from a structured process of idea generation, evaluation, prototyping, customer feedback, and success metrics. Innovative technologies have no value until they are turned into solutions to real customer problems. Training and coaching. Set milestones and meet them. Ownership.

Entrepreneur 101

Entrepreneur Startup Coach Metrics 101

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 8, 2013

Mission statements tend to be narrow, business oriented statements such as “Be the leader in customer satisfaction.” The best way to be clear about them is to regularly engage team members, customers, and suppliers. A good team will step up to the challenge, and your customers will notice and respond to the culture of excellence.

Startup 101

Startup Training Study Customer 101

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 16, 2022

by Donna Cutting, who is a globally-recognized guru on employee culture and optimizing customer service. In my experience, a healthy team is a prerequisite for a thriving business, innovation to meet market needs, and high customer loyalty. Emotional stability. Other studies have shown a return of up to 400 percent for this approach.

Technical Review 141

Technical Review Mentor Social Media Customer 141

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 15, 2012

Also don’t confuse a business mentor with a business coach. A mentor’s aim is to teach you what to do and how, in specific situations, unlike a coach who helps you develop your generic skills for deciding what to do and how. The mentor helps the entrepreneur fill an experience gap, and a coach helps fill a skill gap.

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Mentor Coach Startup Ideas 95