Kerala Click Articles & Blogs |
|
| Team Building Information |
|
|
|
|
Communication between franchisees in a franchise system
If you own a franchise you would be wise to stay in constant communication with your fellow and local franchisee counterparts. You should call up once a week and simply say; Hi. It is important to call up and just say hi to your fellow franchisees because it will remind them that you are always near by. You will get something positive out of the phone call such as: A good lead A streamlining technique A way to handle a new employee Someone who will listen A time efficient way to attract new customers A mistake which was made, that you can avoid You can also talk about the worst customer of the week, The most ridiculous complaint of the year. Your fellow franchisee who normally cannot talk about such things will be glad to have someone listen to his story. The fellow franchisee might laugh and call her "the customer from hell." Business owners when they get in the room with other business owners often tell the stories like this at meetings. In franchising you have a built in group of folks who know exactly how you feel and what you are talking about. Customer from hell stories always get a laugh with the new franchisees. It is important to know what the other franchisees in your system, especially those in the region are doing. You should keep abreast of what your other franchisees are doing. For instance: What major corporations are their customers What government accounts do they service How many employees are they running per shift Who are their crew leaders What kind of volume are they doing When are they planning on going on vacation Who are their family members; Etc. These are very important because customers will come up to you and ask you questions about them. They might also make statements about the other franchisees. It's always nice when you know what they are talking about. You can also use their major accounts for name dropping. It will help you in your sales. If you know how busy they are, you will also know if they can handle any more work or if they will be able to help you on a joint account. By knowing their names and family, you won't look uninformed when a customer engages you in conversation about them. Think about franchise team building, because in franchising it is about more than just a brand name, it is about team work. "Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Feedback - Confirming the Good News The feedback I'm talking about here isn't some sort of formalised appraisal that takes place with your team members every month, or every six months or once a year. This feedback happens continually and it happens when you see or hear something you want to give feedback on. The trick is - keep it simple. Team Work There's nothing that matches the power of teamwork to accomplish amazing results beyond your wildest goals and aspirations. Teamwork evokes unflagging spirit, selflessness and dedication. If any one watched one of the CBC reality shows series of "Survivor" you could viscerally feel the power of teamwork in action. This particular show was set with all the "superstar" survivors. They were single, powerful players with well honed survivor skills. The game changed when two players formed a much deeper alliance becoming a couple. As their bond grew the caring, support, and selflessness heightened their senses as they strategized to win. The other 'trojans" became almost laughable, as mere pawns of the couples' strategies. The couples results were stunning. They won almost every "challenge" they faced. Business Team Building Strategy In The Jungle "Tak kenak! Tak kenak!" "Adak Orang sanak!????" Mastermind Team: Do You Have One? The key to life is to be around the people who will empower you to reach the next level in life! In order to exceed your present reach, you need to be around people who will help you stretch a little farther. The secret to a productive mastermind team is for you to surround yourself with people who you can always learn from. A sign of a very intelligent person is to be smart enough to realize that you need to learn from others who can contribute to your WHY in life. Seven Keys to More Effectively Leading Teams Maybe you find yourself in a new team environment and leading a team for the first time, or maybe you have been working with and leading teams forever. Either way, the keys in this article ? whether as new information or a fresh reminder ? can make a world of difference in morale, productivity and results from teams. Conflict Is Cool Having experienced more than my fair share of conflict over the years, from street fighting to more sophisticated law cases, I have become an avid student of the subject of Conflict Resolution. My bookshelves are full of literature on the topic and the public library is thinking of charging me for overuse. Downsizing Your Team Team Building Question: Motivate People with Feedback Someone once said - "Feedback is the breakfast of champions." Personally, I think that pancakes, crispy bacon and maple syrup are the breakfast of champions. However there's no doubt that giving people feedback is absolutely vital to ensure a motivated team who'll deliver results. Your Administration Team - Look After Them In most organisations the administration/support team, although they can be acknowledged as being important to the business, they are treated as if they're not. Collaboration Software - Building an Office Without Walls The rise of the internet has given businesses a new way to think and function on both the individual level and as a whole. Today if you are in a business that doesn't have or use the internet, then you are giving up valuable advertising and productivity. Whether or not your company uses the internet we are all aware, to some degree, the effect the internet has on advertising and promoting businesses on a global scale. However, we may not fully understand what else the internet can do. We may not realize that using the internet to our advantage can also include increased productivity by building a virtual office; one without walls. Okay, so how do we build an office without walls then? In this article I will be discussing how to basically build this kind of office and how it can help you be more productive and organized. Raising Issues In Your Group or Offline In a recent group coaching session, a client mentioned that he thought his monthly meetings with his peers were dysfunctional. He felt they achieved "false closure" on key decisions - they'd discuss an issue, not make a clear decision, and move on, all acting as if they were clear. He felt one person took too much airtime on a regular basis, that the agendas weren't focused. On top of all this, people would come to him individually after these meetings to complain to him about them - and said they wanted their concerns kept confidential, and that they weren't willing to raise them in the group. They had formal time set aside for discussing how the meetings went and he couldn't remember the last time they had actually done this. No one raised this, either. How the P.R.I.D.E. Team Changed my Call Center Several years ago I took an assignment as a Manager in an outsourcing Call Center. Shortly after I started it became clear that several areas within the department needed improvement; absenteeism was high (19%), call takers lacked the enthusiasm about the programs to deliver quality customer service and seemed unconnected to the goals and metrics. � With the overall morale of the center in a less than pleasant state the management team weighed our options. We determined that any new rules rolled out by management may be perceived as "us vs. them" by the call taking teams. Rather than try to manage down with force we decided to get the people who were doing the work involved in the improvements. � It was clear, in order to make positive changes the call takers had to embrace the existing goals and embrace any changes we tried to make. What better way to do that then to include them in the process of making the changes. From this idea the P.R.I.D.E. team was formed. � People Really Involved in Developing Excellence � The first step was to roll out the concept of the P.R.I.D.E. team to the supervisors. I explained how the team would work and what we hoped to accomplish with it. The supervisors then rolled out the concept in their team meetings. � Basic Roll out: � Each team on the floor votes for a representative from their team to attend the P.R.I.D.E. meetings. P.R.I.D.E representatives gather issues, concerns and ideas from their teams and present them at the P.R.I.D.E meetings. The P.R.ID.E. Team will take action for improvement based on the ideas and discussions from each meeting. Meeting minutes will be distributed to the floor. � Once the roll out was complete and the teams elected representatives, the first meeting was called to order. We congratulated the new P.R.I.D.E. team representatives for being voted in by their teams and broke the ice by getting to know each other. � The group agreed on some ground rules and established time limits for discussion. I reiterated that the meetings will not be a gripe session; we will focus on improvement. We began discussing the issues challenging the center. � The high rate of Absenteeism (19%) was the issue we chose to bring to the table first. We asked the group why absenteeism was so high and asked what we as the management team could do to help. The representative's answers provided insight and ideas to improve attendance. �Suggestions ranged from things as simple as being welcomed to work in the morning, to more challenging tasks such as supervisors building better relationships with their team members. � The ideas and thoughts we tapped into gave us direction to improve this metric. Instead of pushing an elephant up the stairs, we were following the lead to reach our destination. � After listening to and acting on the P.R.I.D.E. Team's suggestions we started to see some very impressive changes. Over a three month period Absenteeism dropped to 3%! People were more excited about doing their jobs and finding ways to improve. There was a general buzz around the center. � Communication was one of the keys to our success. In addition to the P.R.I.D.E. Team members discussing the meetings with their team members and other co-workers, we documented the conversations from the meeting then distributed them to the floor to ensure no "behind closed door" perceptions. If time allowed supervisors would bring the P.R.I.D.E meeting notes to team meetings for discussions as well. � The meetings evolved. The more meetings we ran the more root causes we discovered. We listened to every issue big and small. We created subgroups to focus on large issues. Sometimes there were issues we could not do anything about, but we always provided an explanation on why action could not be taken. Listening to the representatives' ideas and making changes based on them created buy in for change. The call takers were more apt to make the ideas work because they came from them. � After the P.R.I.D.E. program was well in place, I turned it over to the senior supervisors to run. It was a great development opportunity and helped build relationships throughout the group. � Overall the P.R.I.D.E Team created a paradigm shift in the center. The existence and actions of the team sent a message that everyone in the center was part of the same team. The representatives realized their importance. There was only "us" instead of "us and them". The program created involvement, strengthened commitment to the company and opened communication gateways. Secrets of Successful Teams To be a success is not always to be a success individually. In fact, most of the time we achieve our successes as part of a team. That is why I want to devote this issue to the secrets of successful team. Why People Dont Listen... and Some Fun Things You Can Do About It It's frustrating when your co-workers, audience members, teenager or even your dog (!) won't listen. While you can't control how they receive what you say, you can control how you send it. Here are a few tips on why people don't listen and what you can do to change it. Team Member Feedback: A Priceless Communication Tool Feedback is such an important communication tool. Openness, honesty, candor, trust -- all of these are hallmarks of high performance teams and organizations. Good feedback skills are essential to any relationship. Listening Between the Lines Have you seen the tee-shirt with the slogan, "Talk to the hand 'cos the face ain't listening?" Do you feel it's like this sometimes when you are trying to get through to people? But just how good a listener are you? Do you actually "listen between the lines?" Discovering the Truth on MLM Truth on mlm Story Telling With a Purpose For a brief time, I tried to sell life insurance. And, the operative word was 'tried' I can assure you. Although I thought I did a good job on the presentations and scripts provided by trainers, I did not make a single sale. Brainstorm Ever lost for ideas while working in a group? One of the most often-used technique for generating many ideas is Brainstorming. Alex Osborn, a partner in an advertising agency, developed brainstorming techniques years ago in 1941 to help his employees to come up with many, many ideas for their advertising business. What?s Wrong With You, Why Don?t You Understand Me? Recently while waiting for our lunch to be served in a nearby restaurant, my husband Michael and I were discussing our son's upcoming science fair project. Michael was describing the steps that my son should follow to complete the assignment. While Michael was going through this elaborate process, I diligently tried to follow what he was saying, but I sat there completely clueless. As I struggled to gain a better understanding of what he was talking about, my normally affable husband started to show distinct sings of irritation. His unspoken message was 'what's wrong with you, why don't you understand me?" He then proceeded to draw his plan on a napkin in an effort to get his brilliant idea into my dense head. It worked. When Michael started to show me what he was describing, I was able to easily understand his ideas.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2005 |