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Our business is always on the lookout for talented people. It constantly amazes me though how some people quite quickly establish themselves in influential positions of responsibility within short periods of time. What is it that distinguishes them from their work peers. What are the traits that make the difference, the must-have qualities of high performers? Obviously motivation, resourcefulness, knowledge and time management are critical… but how few people ultimately become real high performers?
Perhaps you can identify with this list below, and would rate yourself well against the criteria… and perhaps there is greater room for improvement that you might have previously considered.
- High Performers believe in doing, not trying – so they are motivated by embracing work challenges head on.
- High Performers take the initiative in assessing return on investment and risk vs. reward, and provide an actionable plan as a result.
- High Performers pursue a greater understanding of the broader aspects within their organisation and industry, rather than just doing their job.
- High Performers recognise potential opportunities that can help their business grow.
- High Performers proactively review the likelihood of project issues and initiate changes before trouble arises.
- High Performers understand what is needed to be done now, as well as the big-picture strategies, and require minimal to no supervision to drive positive outcomes.
- High Performers are driven by an inherent motivation that never diminishes.
- High Performers don’t brag. They put their status and ego aside because they’re comfortable letting their work speak for itself.
- High Performers realise all the intelligence and degrees in the world don’t count for anything if you can’t get things done when they need to be done!
So, how would you rate yourself against this criteria? Are there any areas you need to develop? Also, consider those around you that may be already displaying evidence of a high performing employee, and find ways to assist them in reaching their potential!
A great way to assist you reaching your full potential is to help others reach their full potential.
Whatever our position within a business, we are all counted upon to contribute towards organisational success. While some employees clearly have greater influence and impact than others, we can all work towards greater productivity within the sphere of influence we do have. Although activity is important, too many of us seem to place it above effectiveness… completed to-do lists, responses to emails, long hours, and packed diaries aren’t necessarily hallmarks of highly productive people.
Increase your productivity by focusing on the following:
Start each day in your direction. Beginning your morning by checking your email is the easiest way to lose control of your direction, and be led by someone else’s. Starting with emails ensures others dictate what you accomplish. Start each day in the direction you want to go by ignoring your emails and taking those morning moments to focus on yourself. Eat a good breakfast, reflect, or read the news.
Follow the 80/20 rule. It is the few things in each day done well that account for the vast majority of our results. 20% of your overall activities will produce 80% of your results. That suggests there is a lot of ‘filler’ in each day that needs to be delegated or deferred. To have the greatest effect, concentrate on the few key activities that will produce the highest overall productivity.
Harder activities earlier. Tackle the most challenging work in the morning, when your brain is clear and refreshed. Save your busy, less complex work for later in the day. Brian Tracey wrote a great book ‘Eat that frog’ in which he shares great ways to stop procrastinating and get more done in less time. Let’s not forget, procrastination, by doing lots of meaningless things, is the greatest killer of real productivity.
Isolate distractions. If there are certain things that pepper your daily productivity with distractions, endeavour to isolate them to better manage them. For example, if you are pulled into too many meetings, or find yourself checking emails throughout the day, take action to isolate activities. Plan to use morning, afternoon, and evening time slots for managing such activities. Even consider closing your email until those timeslots. Minimising your distractions in this way will allow you to accomplish more important goals throughout the day.
Take breaks. Ultradian rhythms refer to 1.5 – 2 hour cycles during which our bodies slowly move from a high–energy state into a physiological trough. Towards the end of each cycle, the body begins to crave a period of recovery. The signs can include restlessness, yawning, hunger and difficult in concentrating – but how often do you ignore them, and in the name of ‘productivity’? Take a walk, eat something, exercise, or meditate – give your brain some resting time. You’ll come back recharged and ready to achieve greater productivity.
Enjoy the satisfaction of achieving more through less and developing greater levels of productivity.
Too often amongst the clutter of activity to get things done, effectiveness suffers in the pursuit of efficiency. How often do you see lots of doing and too little thinking? Managers who would much rather reaction than a moment of reflection?
In such cases where leaders lack clarity and the ability to create focus, teams are left aimless and disunified. In these environments teams can only resort to ‘getting things done’ rather than ‘getting things right’. All because of too much doing and not enough thinking.
“Strategy without tactics is the slowest path to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat” – Sun Tzu
How long has it been since you or your team dedicated time to think about how and why you’re doing what you’re doing? Taking the time to stop and reflect is a critical leadership practice.
- Unless we pause and think, we can forget why we’re here and what we stand for;
- Unless we pause and think, we can lose perspective of life and work;
- Unless we pause and think, we can overlook what matters;
- Unless we pause and think, we can fail to learn from our mistakes;
- Unless we pause and think, we remain reactive, and unable to overcome the unexpected.
Leadership requires deep thinking. Our behaviour, action and results are the products of our thinking. If we are not happy with the results we are getting we need to stop and think about what needs to change.
As we take time to pause and think about what is important, we develop clarity. When we have clarity about where we need to go, and can pause to adjust our decisions and actions accordingly, we create effectiveness. To ask “What needs to be done right now? This week? This month? This year?” can bring focus back to our work. It can help free us from our need for ‘action’.
The reality is that we cannot be successful unless our actions are focused on that which matters most.
Are you clear as to what’s the most important thing right now?
Many of us start each day ready to hit the ‘to-do’ list, or clear out the in-box or complete a lingering project. All this activity certainly can make you feel important, and can even look impressive, however does it really make a difference to the results?
Peter Drucker, in his book ‘The effective executive’, advises that effective people focus on outward contribution. They gear their efforts to results rather than to work. They start out with the question, ‘What results are expected of me?’
Do you start each day asking, ‘What results are expected of me?’ Effective people focus on results, not activities and effort. How often do we find ourselves bogged down with the daily flurry of activities that we forgot why we are doing what we’re doing? Effective people ask what their contribution and results should be. Effective people have clarity and focus concerning their contribution and the results they intend to achieve.
When you are clear on what is expected of you, you can focus on those few things that produce the greatest results. You don’t need to react to the mountain of work in front of you, you don’t allow the flow of events to determine your agenda, instead you set priorities and do first things first and second things not at all. Effective people focus on what’s really important, that is their contribution and they will have their results.
To be effective is to get the things done that really matter. Effectiveness is about prioritising so that you accomplish those things that are most important.
Do you manage your day or does someone else? Peter Drucker in his book, the effective executive explains that leaders know where their time goes. They work systematically at managing the little of their time that can be brought under their control.
To become effective, we must first know how we spend our time. How we value and manage our time will determine our level of effectiveness. Time is our most valuable resource, not money, people, intellectual property, but time. We can choose to spend our time in a manner that gets results or we can waste it away.
“Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.“ – Peter Drucker
Effective leaders understand their time allocation, and therefore don’t commit to anything without first clarifying and appreciating how their time will be spent. Understanding how we spend time helps us to know where to reduce the amount of unproductive activities. This frees us up to create blocks of discretionary time for focused work on the most important matters.
For me this really came home the day I prepared a paper diary and listed each and every activity I completed throughout the day for two entire working weeks. This included lunches, meetings, emails, walks, teas, discussions at the printer, phone calls, the internet etc. What was concerning was not the number of activities I could complete in a day, but how a large proportion of them that were insignificant towards reaching my long term goals.
Effective leaders carefully and continuously analyse and manage how they use their time.
To become more effective, consider the following four steps:
1. Record how you actually spend your time. In whichever way you decide to do this, the important issue is in understanding how and where your time is being invested. Nobody really knows where their time goes until they write it down. So, what is it that consumes your time without producing results? Time can often be wasted in the following ways:
a) Poor planning
b) Excessive meetings and unnecessary discussions
c) Limited information or information in the wrong format
d) Poor systems that deal with reoccurring issues
2. Remove the activities that are not driving results, those things that do not need to be done and are merely wasting time.
3. Delegate the activities that can be done better by someone else, or that create a better return on investment if done by someone else.
4. Optimise time by creating blocks of uninterrupted time to work on important matters that cannot be done by anyone else.
Effective leaders know where there time is spent, and intentionally work to ensure their time is used in alignment with their highest priorities.
Effective leaders work with time, not for it!
It often comes as a great surprise when I advise my customers for the first time, ‘We are non-commission’….. As they gasp for air wondering how then am I motivated, I like to say, ‘Don’t be surprised 1, 2, or 5 years from now when it’s still you and I partnering together to meet human resource needs….. Well the years have now passed since I first started saying that, and the proof is truly in the pudding.
There is nothing more rewarding to a sales consultant than a long term trusted business relationship. Where experiences and successes have forged the both of you together despite the various roles you have played, and locations you have worked.
To start the commission analysis, it is important to understand what non-commission is not:
It is not a salary and bonuses paid to consultants quarterly based on personal sales….. that is still commission
It is not a salary and bonuses paid to consultants quarterly based on team sales …. That too is commission
Just because a commission is not calculated and paid monthly, doesn’t make it exempt from being a commission.
Commissions are fees of which a salesperson will receive upon the closing of sales….
It is understandable that customers always wonder when dealing with commission consultants…. Am I being sold what is best for me, or best for you? All sales consultants want to make sales, and recruiters are no different. Commission rewards placing a person, but non-commission rewards placing the right person – a different driver, a different result.
So what is the mindset for a commission based sales consultant:
‘I have a financial target that I want to meet by this time, so I need to sell Y amount to get $Z.’
The resulting mindset of the customer with a commission based sales consultant is:
‘Tell me about your product, give me your lowest price and go away.’
The final folly of all this is in the time management waste figuring out who and what to pay; with the sales people spending their time calculating their commissions, plotting how to glean extra credit, and checking with head office to ensure they get everything they are entitled to…….
So what is the mindset for a non-commission based sales consultant:
‘I have financial consistency, so I can focus on my customer and meeting their needs’
Therefore the mindset of the customer with a non-commission based sales consultant is:
‘You have stayed with us through thick and thin, what is your advice on this, share your expertise on that.’
Instead of excessive scheming and calculating, time can be better spent discovering improved solutions for their customers, establishing loyalty, and embedding their services….. not chasing another sale.
With that said, not everyone is best suited for non-commission. If you are only in sales because of the money, then non-commission will never work for you. If you are only in sales as a means to pay the bills, again non-commission won’t work for you. You need to find intrinsic value in what you do and actually like it to really thrive in a non-commission environment. Only then can you maintain the motivation and enjoy the rewards of your efforts. Interestingly, the statistics are very clear on this, non-commission sales teams have lower employee turnover and longer term customer relationships. My personal experience has also been that non-commission recruitment teams have higher placement stay rates, greater repeat business opportunities, and ultimately higher sustainable salary packages.
“Put not your trust in money; put your money in trust.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
How valuable is your time? How valuable is your customer’s time? What is it that you do that makes your time so valuable? What is it that your customer does that makes their time so valuable? Understanding what you do and why you do it will help you appreciate your value to your customers and why you charge what you do. Knowing this will allow you to combat the price objection “you’re too expensive”.
Knowing your price that runs your business or desk is critical for success and longevity and is fundamental to your understanding of why you do what you do. Once costs and competency are understood, you will be far better equipped to deal with any price objections.
To overcome any price objections you also need know what your customer wants. As ever customer is different, you need to consider and know where you stand on the following:
- Are you offering a service or a product? The answer to this question is very important and sets the framework for your entire business solution.
- Do you charge a fee for your service or your product? The answer to this determines if your terms are best structured with a retained model or contingent model. Your return on investment is far greater under a retained model and therefore your fee structure should be adjusted accordingly. However if a contingent model is accepted, your fees should rise to reflect the uncertainty of success.
- Does your guarantee cover the quality of your service or the quality of your product? What are the criteria upon which your offer a guarantee and how will it be measured?
- Do you differ from your competitors? Why? How? Although it might be common place for you to carry out face to face interviews, reference checks, WPA’s, OH&S training, skills tests etc, it is not so common for a majority of your competition. A competitors rate might be cheaper than yours, however it is for something far less than what you are offering.
- How do you compare on price to your competitors? Where do you sit in the scheme of things… are you uptown or are your low town? Why are you there? Is it speed over service, is it unique over numbers, is it sponsored over local? How you address these questions should then determine who you are targeting.
Once you are settled on these questions, you are in a much better position to counter a customer’s price objection.
As a consultant, how do you value your time and service offering? Do you provide consulting services that really do add value and give you a return, or do you often find yourself chasing dreams without any certainty of reward? When deciding where to focus your time and services, ensure that you can confidently answer the following questions about your next potential assignment:
1. Has a detailed job order been taken – preferably in writing?
2. Are terms of business agreed and signed?
3. Will you get a reasonable reward for the time and effort required?
4. Does the position exist and has it been approved?
5. Is the position URGENT?
6. Do candidates exist – are the client’s expectations realistic?
7. Is the client co-operative – your calls are returned, feedback is provided, candidates are being interviewed, etc?
8. Are you in contact with a genuine decision-maker?
9. Is the client committed to you. This might involve limiting the competition, e.g. exclusivity, retained, head starts on the competition.
10.Do you have mutual trust and respect?
If you can’t resolve these points to your satisfaction, you need to ask yourself, ‘is this assignment worth working on?’. Your time may be better spent finding another opportunity that will provide a return.
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