By Terrel Transtrum, Co-founder, LaunchSmart™
Your staff is the lifeblood of the operation, even if you start with a few select, trusted individuals. Select wisely and then commit to a long-term training and development plan to ensure depth and breadth of skills demanded by fast growth. Systems and processes are the foundation of an effective enterprise, with exceptional people to use and manage those systems. Let’s make something very clear: Even if you created the most sophisticated systems in the world, you still need qualified, committed people, not only to use those systems and processes, but to improve them.
Systems are not designed to remove the humanity from your company. Instead, they free you and your people from daily concerns such as, “How do we get orders coming in today? How do we answer commission questions? How do we train new field reps?” Your systems tell you how. With systems in place, everyone can focus their creative energies on “How can we do it better?” rather than, “How do we do it?”
Of course, one of the most important areas requiring your attention is on selecting the right people and creating a work environment where your people can grow with you as they help your business grow.
Here’s an important truth: you cannot motivate your people to do anything. If you want it done, you’re going to have to create an environment in which “doing it” is more important to your people than “not doing it,” where “doing it” well becomes a way of life for them.
People development has everything to do with creating a workplace where people motivate themselves to do it well, where they feel valued for doing it well, and where they’re constantly looking for ways to move beyond their limitations to do it better.
Systems development is really the easier part of building a successful enterprise. When it comes to people development, the challenges are exciting. This section will give you the checklist for setting up your staff training and development plan.
Staff Training & Development Checklist & Key Considerations
- Have we put into motion our staffing plan?
- CEO
- Operations
- Technology
- Finance & Accounting
- Sales / Marketing
- Customer Service
- Do we have a staff training plan?
- Policy Administration
- Compensation Plan
- Field Policies
- Internal Systems
- Customer Service
- Staff selection criteria
- Job descriptions, internal grades
- CSR training, development, advancement, certification
- Staff compensation
- Employment policies, employee handbook
ServiceSmarts™
Direct selling is a relationship business. And to make sure that your staff is unified in building a successful field organization, the three-fold purpose of customer service is the foundation of the ServiceSmarts™ staff training system. The three-fold purpose of customer service is (1) delight the field, (2) improve the company, and (3) develop service professionals at the office. ServiceSmarts™ is an Internet-based training system, giving each employee her / his own training account with access to specialized interactive lessons on topics such as the following:
- Handling Cancellation Requests
- Increasing Average Order Size
- Consistent Policy Administration
- . . . 25 Web-based Interactive Lessons!
Terrel Transtrum is the founder of ServiceQuest® and co-founder of LaunchSmart™. As a network marketing consultant he also specializes in startup consulting for party plan companies, multilevel marketing, MLM and network marketing. He is an experienced advisor in MLM software, network marketing legal, party plan business, distributor recruiting and retention, operations and fulfillment and MLM legal.
(The content of this article is extracted from ServiceQuest® RetentionSmarts™ Modules. For more information on RetentionSmarts™ training and mentoring systems, contact a member of the LaunchSmart Team.)