IN THIS ISSUE...
"The road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find what interests you
and
that you
can do well,
and put your whole soul into it." ~ John D. Rockefeller, III
COMPLACENCY IN EMPLOYEE RISKS-WHY WE DON’T DO MORE?
Sometimes, our natural tendencies to believe in people, to wish for the best, and to minimize the negatives in our own businesses can combine to make us complacent, especially regarding risks associated with our employees. After all, we believe we’ve done a good job in hiring, we have good people in place, and most people won’t do bad things. The following collection of popular myths and corresponding realities may make you uncomfortable—and that might be a good thing!
Myth 1: We are careful in the selection of our employees!
Naturally you are, but the majority of employees who steal are ‘first time offenders.’ Myth 2: We have our own security department!
Last year, a western regional bank suffered a number of “ski-mask” robberies. When the robber was finally caught, he turned out to be the bank’s Director of Security! Myth 3: Our computer systems have the latest in anti-hacking systems.
That’s fine, but more than 65 percent of IT crime is traceable to insiders. Myth 4: Our cameras and undercover agents catch most shoplifters.
According to the National Retail Security Survey, 48 percent of merchandise losses are attributable to employees. Myth 5: Our procedures are foolproof.
Famous last words. Many of the largest frauds occur in companies who say precisely this. However effective the internal control and accounting system, it is not unbeatable. Myth 6: We would not want to offend staff who have been with us for many years.
Thoughtful and considerate, but employees rarely object. Myth 7: We won’t be badly hurt by isolated incidents.
Perhaps not. But most large losses are caused by long-term, ongoing schemes that are cleverly hidden for years. Myth 8: We have never suffered a theft by an employee.
That may be true, but the fact that you may never have had a fire or a vehicle involved in an accident, does not prevent you taking out property insurance. The first loss really hurts! Myth 8a:We have never suffered a theft by an employee.
Maybe you have, but you don’t know it yet. U.S. businesses lose as much as $110M dollars a day due to employee-related crimes. However, most employee theft goes undetected. Even though it goes against the grain and may be painful—you owe it to yourself, your employees, and anyone who relies on your business to acknowledge you are at risk and do what you can to minimize that risk. An audit of your risks and vulnerabilities may be your best guarantee of survival. [Back to Top]
EFFECTS OF CHANGES IN HIRING PRACTICES—ASSESSMENT AND HUMAN In 2002, a manufacturer conducted a study of the effects of using the Step One Survey™ (SOS) on its hiring practices. A summary of this study is included in the table below and serves as a baseline for evaluation of subsequent changes in hiring practices.
In fall of 2003, and continuing through the summer of 2004, the company experienced explosive growth in demand for their products. From September of 2003 to September of 2004, total headcount increased by approximately 75 percent. This hiring program necessitated a major recruiting effort, and a consequent relaxation of the criteria previously applied to the Step One Survey™ scores. At the same time, supervisors were probably more reluctant to terminate an employee for cause, as they were often operating with a labor shortage.
Another variable was introduced to the hiring process in early May of 2004, when a professional recruiter was added to the HR staff, to conduct hiring interviews. She made hire/no hire recommendations to managers after her interview was completed. Two major questions were considered in analyzing these data:
- Did the relaxation of Step One Survey™ score criteria affect early failure?
- Did the addition of the professional recruiter impact early failure?
Effects of relaxation of SOS criteria:
For the purpose of this analysis, it is important to note that the effects of the criterion change are probably partially masked by the labor shortage effects mentioned earlier. For example, if the effect of the change was to permit the hiring of candidates with somewhat lower reliability, it is also likely that supervisors faced with a critical labor shortage and a pressing production goal would be more tolerant of lower reliability in a given worker, as the alternative would have been an even greater labor shortage. The standard of comparison in both studies was “early failure,” defined as failure of a hired worker to remain employed with the company for six calendar months. Overall, the six-month failure rate in the previous study had been 51 percent before use of the SOS (baseline), and reduced to 29 percent with adoption of SOS criteria, eliminating from consideration any candidate with two or more scale scores of three or less. This process resulted in a hiring percentage of 53 percent of all applicants. In the current study period, with more relaxed use of the SOS scores, 78 percent of all applicants were hired. The six-month failure rate rose to 49 percent, near the rate of failure when the SOS was not in use. This is a blended rate, including applicants hired both before and after the addition of the recruiter interview to the process. Within the current study, differences in failure rates were observed before and after the change in the hiring process. Of the 411 applicants hired before the change, 208, or 51 percent, were early hiring failures. Of the 174 hired after the change, 76 were early failures, a reduction to 44 percent. It should be noted, the failure rate dropped by seven percent, even though the total percentage of applicants hired only dropped by two percent. Apparently, some benefit was achieved independent of a reduction in percent hired, perhaps through better placement. It seemed likely, if the recruiter’s efforts were improving hiring success, additional improvement might be apparent after she had become more familiar with the company and the task at hand. Analysis of hires completed after she had been on the job nearly a month, confirmed this hypothesis. Of those hires, only 38 percent experienced early failure, even though the percentage hired went up to 81 percent. Summary of findings:
The data, now spanning three different calendar years and three different levels of use of the SOS (none / strict criterion / relaxed criterion), indicate a consistent relationship between systematic use of SOS scores and successful hiring. While the recruiter, after gaining experience, positively impacted hiring, the simple use of an empirically derived SOS criterion was nearly twice as effective. 
Read more about the Step One Survey™ and other hiring tools.
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TOP 10 PRINCIPLES OF GREAT SALES MESSAGING
by Michael Cannon
Sales Messaging – the stated reasons you give prospects to buy and to buy from your firm – is the foundation on which all your sales and marketing efforts rest. Sadly, most companies do not have a definition for their sales messaging, let alone a methodology for how to develop and deploy it. The results are millions of dollars in lost revenue, higher sales costs and missed bonuses.
Sales messaging is the foundation for all your sales and marketing efforts
Here is your chance to break from the pack and enhance your competitive advantage. Use these top 10 principles to create a definition for great sales messaging that will enable your company win more orders, increase market share and improve margins.
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Specific to One Offering. Sales messaging is about selling one offering --a complete product or service. If you sell a number of products and services bundled together, then you can think of this as one offering. If the products or services are sold on a standalone basis, then you must have separate sales messaging for each offering.
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Target Each Buyer. There are a number of buyer types to consider, including Prospect, Customer, Channel Partner, Industry Analyst and Investor. There are also buyer sub-types like User, Technical and Financial. It’s important to identify buyers by offering, by title and by role so that the sales messaging resonates with each buyer’s interests and perspective.
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Answer Buyer’s Primary Buying Questions. Each buyer has different buying questions. For example: Prospects are asking, “Why should I buy your solution rather than a competitive option?” Customers are asking, “Why should I keep buying from you?” Channel Partners are asking, “Why should I distribute your product or service?” Each buyer’s questions are different and thus require tailored answers.
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Support the Product and Sales Cycle. In the early stages of a product life cycle, the most important buyer question to answer is “Why should I change what I currently do and buy a product or service like this?” The question has nothing to do with your company. It’s about educating the buyer on why they should make a change. The primary goal is to create a buying event.
In the later stages of the product life cycle, when market demand is established, the primary buying question shifts to “Why should I buy your solution rather than a competitive option?” It’s about competitive differentiation and educating the buyer on why they should buy your offering. The primary goal is to create an order for your company.
Great sales messaging supports each phase of the sales cycle
Like the product life cycle, the sales cycle has distinct phases. For example, let’s say you’re selling an early stage product. At the beginning of the sales cycle, the primary buying question to answer is “Why should I meet with you?” Once you have a meeting, the next phase in the sales cycle is answering, “Why should I change what I currently do and buy a product or service like this?” The final phase of the sales cycle is then answering, “Why should I buy your solution rather than a competitive option?” Great sales messaging supports each phase in both the product life cycle and sales cycle.
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Determine the Differentiation Factors. There are 5 important differentiation points including Time, Money, Risk, Strategic, and Personal. The more of these differentiation points you appeal to, the more likely you are to attract and create buyers.
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Apply the Black and White Factor. Numerous studies conclude that the brain comprehends best when presented with clear contrast between opposites. Statements like “We are one of the leading…” is not as compelling as “We are the leader in…” Use lots of sharply contrasting adjectives like Only, Fastest, Easiest, Best, etc. to create powerful sales messaging.
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Test Against the Me Too Factor. In order to have truly effective sales messaging, especially for competitive differentiation, no other company should be able to make the same claims. The buyer must perceive that your company is different from all the other competitive options and vendors.
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Organize into Three Points. People remember things best when they are presented in groups of three. The brain works this way, so optimize your sales messaging for maximum effectiveness by incorporating this important principle. For an example of these principles, go to: www.silverbulletgroup.com/whybuycompsumm.shtml.
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Summarize on One Page. The answer to each buying question must be simplified to a one-page format for a few of reasons. Your sales reps cannot remember and articulate more than this and your buyers surely will not. Sales messaging must be delivered to the buyer in a digestible amount in order to be effective.
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Provide Proof Points. Most buyers consider your sales messaging to be claims. To add more credibility to your key points, you must provide lots of evidence that your claims are true. The more evidence you have, the more believable your claims. The best way to validate that your claims and evidence are true is to use proof points. The best proof points are customer testimonials, case studies, etc. The second best proof points are independent 3rd party organizations like ISO, Better Business Bureau, etc. The next best proof points are a demonstration or proof-of-concept. |
Great sales messaging gives your company the foundation on which to create more meetings, buying events and orders for each of the products and services that you offer. Since most companies do not know what sales messaging is, and you do, you have a tremendous opportunity right now to gain a competitive advantage. This advantage has been proven to increase sales, reduce costs and improve margins. If you would like to receive a free eBrief on how to develop and deploy great sales messaging go to: www.silverbulletgroup.com/white_paper_request.shtml.
About the Author
Michael Cannon is an internationally renowned sales expert, best selling author and a dynamic speaker. He is CEO of the Silver Bullet Group and creator of the hugely successful BuyerCentric Sales Messaging System. For more information, visit www.silverbulletgroup.com or call (925) 930-9436.
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DO YOU USE TEMPORARY EMPLOYEES?
WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THEM?
Use of temporary, leased, and contract employees is a growing part of daily life in many North American businesses. In fact, according to the American Staffing Association, 90 percent of companies use contract staffing services!
In 2002, 2.1 million people worked as temporary employees each day.
Unfortunately, despite the many advantages claimed for this practice, it holds substantial risks to employers. They may feel overly secure with their staffing provider, not realizing they probably share joint liability with the agency for the behaviors of temporary workers. In Utah, for example, the State Supreme Court ruled, “even temporary workers have an agency relationship with both the temporary agency that initially employed them and the company that uses their services under arrangements with the agencies. ”[Kunz v. Beneficial Temporaries, 921 P. 2d 456 (Utah 1996).]
Special risks associated with temporary workers have been recognized by sources as diverse as the New Hampshire Society of CPA’s (“...employers have a similar obligation to make sure the temporary agencies from whom they are seeking workers are exercising this “reasonable care” in hiring workers …”), Britain’s famous MI5 intelligence agency (“...You should have procedures for assessing the reliability and integrity of those [temporary employees] you wish to employ…”), and insurers, concerned about safety risks (“A higher accident rate is documented for temporary agency work. “)
So, you are committed to using temporary workers. How do you protect yourself? Here is a brief outline of some suggestions from a variety of professional sources:
Conduct a procedures review with your staffing agency, and document it. Look at application forms, reference checking, assessments used, background checking, and interviewing procedures.
Check the agency’s own references—past and current clients can shed light on how their placements work out.
Insist they use professionally developed, valid, reliable assessments in the screening process.
Do you think the last point might be going too far? Consider this: The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac, to most) relies on nearly 40 temporary-staffing agencies to fill a wide range of positions in their organization. In order to become a provider, an agency must agree, in writing, to subject each temporary worker placed within Freddie Mac to a rigorous background check. Moreover, the temp agency must agree to pay for the background check!
As Cindy Waxer concluded in "Workforce Management," June 2004, “Detailed background checks, computer security measures and relationship-building exercises might seem drastic given that the majority of today’s temporary workers complete their assignments without incident. But according to Monica Barron, who recently left her position as research director at AMR Research, the risk of property and identity theft have raised the stakes. ‘I don’t think you can be too careful about really knowing who’s coming into your facilities and what they are doing,” she says.
It is your money, your business, and your future at risk; what do you know about the temporary workers who come and go from your business each day?
Take control of their (your) selection process and procedures.
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THE ELEMENTS OF GREATNESS
Excerpts from Al Rainaldi’s opening speech underscoring the theme “Go For Greatness” at the Profiles 2005 Annual Conference.
Today, it is not enough to be the best in your field or to be number one in your industry. In both of these instances, your performance is judged against what is currently considered "the best".
Being great involves more than aspiring to a currently held level of "best". Greatness requires a different level of thinking that moves you beyond what currently exists. How can we accomplish goals, provide service or create in a manner that astonishes...not just satisfies? What, then, is greatness? For each of us, greatness has its own definition as it relates to our lives and experiences. Regardless of how we define it, greatness has certain key elements. These are: Vision, Belief, Desire, Courage, Perseverance, Execution and Passion. Elements of Greatness
- Vision
Can you see, touch and taste your dreams?
Your vision should be crystal clear. You should be able to describe it in precise terms. It should transcend the obvious and look into the future.
Take a minute and remove the self-imposed shackles that limit how far you really see. Take time to dream, imagine and pretend.
- Belief
This is belief that is beyond “hope”…an absolute faith in your vision, in yourself and in the outcome. You have to believe that you are worthy to achieve your vision.
- Desire
What gives depth and meaning to your life? To achieve your vision, you’ve “got to want it - really want it!” This is not “I’d like” or ”I want”…this is a BURNING DESIRE.
- Courage
Courage is the ability to place your dreams above your fears. Often, to achieve greatness, you must get out of your comfort zone into the pain zone. People will challenge you when you attempt to be different – when you attempt to be great. No one will care if you do less – but when you excel, you become a target.
Great work is done by people who are not afraid to be great.
- Perseverance
In the face of disappointment, setbacks and barriers...perseverance is the strength to take one step…and then another...and then another. Greatness is more about perseverance than strength. Many fortunes, relationships and competitions are lost because people quit too soon.
- Execution
At what level will you execute your vision? Create; handle the details; finish what you started; refine and improve.
“If your chosen maximum is the required minimum, the sum total of your life will be mediocrity.”
- Passion
What spark lights your soul? What drives you?
Without passion, life is a series of chores. It is the passion in your life….that makes life worth living. If you’re not passionate about the process be passionate about the result. If you are not passionate about the result…change your focus.
Never – never confuse survival with success.
Conclusion
Many of us live day to day with unused potential. We experience greatness in only small, peripheral ways in our lives. But in order to experience greatness regularly, consistently, almost daily in each of our lives, it requires enormous personal security, openness, creativity and a spirit of adventure. It is not enough to aspire to greatness in only one area of your life. When you truly aspire to greatness, it gives more depth and meaning to all aspects of your existence...in your career, in your relationships and in your dreams. But there is a caveat. Perhaps Winston Churchill said it best, “The price of Greatness is Responsibility.” To be truly GREAT - live like you’ll never die and work like there’s no tomorrow. [Back to Top]
HOW WELL ARE YOU EXECUTING YOUR 2005 PLAN?  Are you having a difficult time getting 360° accountability of your managers? Every manager's objectives are succinct and vital to the company's objectives and every manager has direct ownership of their plan. From the first day of the plan year, every manager knows for what they are accountable. The progress reporting for every planned action is built into The One Page Plan and gives you updated periodic reports that allow you to quickly monitor their progress. This system clearly identifies excellent and poor performers.
"70% of strategy failure is because of bad execution. Bad execution results from managers not being aligned to the corporate strategies and goals." -David W. Light, CEO & Executive Coach, Business Builders LLC. [Back to Top]
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