• Learn something every day. Never stop learning.

  • Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. Winston Churchill

  • Companies Don’t Solve Problems.
    People Do.

  • Leadership IQ being equal, it is believed emotional intelligence – how we manage ourselves, our emotions and the emotions of others – accounts for 85 – 90% of what separates the most outstanding leaders from their peers.

  • No one of us is as smart as all of us – when teams function well, miracles happen.

  • The key to keeping customers satisfied and loyal is to value and train employees while making them an integral part of corporate success.

  • People are the core strategic asset. To be successful, a company must listen, involve, encourage, nurture, support, empower, and reward all its constituencies.

  • Employee loyalty builds customer loyalty, which builds brand loyalty. It’s as simple - and as difficult - as that.

  • The key to building a culture based on Trust and Personal Responsibility is getting all employees to be committed to the organization’s Vision and the Values That Build Trust.

  • The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving. Oliver Wendell Holmes

  • The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor. Vince Lombardi

  • 85% of business leaders agree that traditional differentiators alone are no longer a sustainable business strategy.

  • 50 – 70% of how employees perceive their organization can be traced back to the actions of one person – the leader.

  • The brighter you are, the more you have to learn.

  • 70% of organizational changes fail and these failures can be traced to ineffective leadership.

  • Corporations can work five times harder and spend five times more money to gain new customers, or they can keep the ones they have.

  • The number one fear in the world is public speaking. “You” vs. “I” messages are powerful tools for capturing your audience’s attention.

  • It costs 10 times more to gain a new customer than it does to keep an existing customer.

  • Effective coaching is a key method for increasing productivity and profitability in an organization. Recent studies have shown that 85% of the workforce wants holistic coaching so that they can continually improve and grow.

  • A survey of 350 executives across 14 industries, 68% confirmed their companies experienced unanticipated problems in their change process. – International Consortium of Executive Development Research.

  • 25 of every 27 customers who have a bad experience fail to report it because they don’t believe anything will change.

  • "High performing organizations are constantly focusing on improving their capabilities through learning systems, building knowledge capital and transformational learning throughout the organization.” - Ken Blanchard

  • Leadership is being the best you can be, and helping others be the best they can be.

  • 78% of consumers say their most satisfying experience occurred because of a capable and competent customer service representative.

  • First, people don’t grow and change much unless they’re in a supportive environment where people know what they want to do and encourage them to do it.

  • It is estimated that 80% of mergers and acquisitions that occur today fail to meet initial expectations.

  • If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow rice. If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people. – Chinese Proverb

  • Change is constant. To implement change you must listen, engage, and empower individuals in the change process.

Sales & Marketing Management - Healthy Competition - Reward your staffers for being physically fit

April, 2006

Sales & Marketing Management

By Julia Chang

A salesperson's life isn't very conducive to good health. Poor diet and lack of exercise come with frequent business travel, fatigue comes from working late, and wining and dining is needed to entertain clients. While these may seem like necessary sacrifices, the truth is that they can lead to poor employee health. And that is bad for business. According to CCH Inc., a provider of employment-law information based in Riverwoods, Illinois, last-minute absences due in part to illness and stress cost companies about $660 per employee last year.

"If you are physically fit, then you are more likely to be mentally fit," says Dianne Durkin, president of Loyalty Factor, a training and consulting firm specializing in worker and customer loyalty, based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. "You are likely to project positive feedback to customers. And customers want to do business with positive people."

It's no wonder, then, that 62 percent of companies offered wellness programs or resources in 2005, according to the Society for Human Resource Management, based in Alexandria, Virginia. And some forward-thinking employers are even offering incentives to promote good health—a tactic that may especially appeal to a salesperson's competitive spirit.

At Polar, a manufacturer of heart-rate monitors and sports instruments, a fitness challenge it offered to employees served a dual purpose: to encourage good health and to educate workers on its technology, says Marcelo Aller, a training resource specialist in Polar's office in Lake Success, New York, who trains internal salespeople and outside channels on Polar's products.

Last year, around 40 employees competed to see if they could lower their "BodyAge," a Polar health assessment that accounts for such factors as cardiovascular health, flexibility, strength, and nutrition, all in order to come up with a person's biological (as opposed to chronological) age.

Each quarter, the top three employees with the best health-assessment results were given such incentives as gift cards and iPod Shuffles. The grand-prize winner was a salesperson who received a three-day, all-expenses-paid trip to a Las Vegas spa for showing the greatest percentage of change in BodyAge.

"Memorizing what our product does is one thing, but feeling and understanding it is a whole other aspect," Aller says, of Polar's level of internalizing the health message.

Offering incentives can also help ease resistant employees into making healthy choices. When Dole Food Company, the produce firm based in Westlake Village, California, instituted a company-wide wellness initiative—it included eliminating the unhealthiest cafeteria foods—there was some employee grumbling. But Dole offered discounts for healthier menu items, and awarded "Dole Dollars" for participating in activities such as yoga classes, health seminars, and cooking classes. These dollars could be redeemed for exercise equipment, yoga mats, and gift certificates at organic food stores.

But perhaps the best reward was improved health. A group of 50 volunteers were monitored, and in six months they saw positive changes in body fat, and levels of good and bad cholesterol. "People were very attached to their bacon cheeseburgers, so there was some whining in the beginning," says Jennifer Grossman, director of the Dole Nutrition Institute, the company's nutrition advocacy arm. "But now people have changed their lifestyles, and you can see the difference." —Julia Chang

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