Management Secrets by Mary Elston

Two Minute Management Video Tip — Thresholds for Thriving Managers
WATCH IT NOW! Click on above link to my Two Minute Management Video Tip for Managers who Strive to Thrive!

I had coffee a few weeks ago with a friend who had recently landed a wonderful new job. She was delighted for familiar reasons like great pay and benefits but she was also pleased she was working for a super manager. According to Right Management, a division of Manpower, Inc., 60% of today’s workers are unhappy in their jobs. Hands down, my friend was the exception to this statistic and extolled the positive attributes of her new boss.

Have you ever been fortunate enough to work for a boss who epitomizes the manager employees love to report to? We all want to know who these managers are and try to find them with the same tenacity used when searching for hidden treasure. Yeah, you know what I mean — how do you luck your way into reporting to a terrific manager? What’s more, how did these managers become so good at what they do? During a recent management seminar I hosted, this subject produced lively interaction because everyone has been there and wants to find ways to go there more often! Over the next few weeks in this blog series, we’re going to look at characteristics of the manager people love to work for, how you can recognize this thriving manager and become one.

By the way … have you ever been a great manager? Would you realize it if you were? You can be sure employees generate ongoing buzz when they find a high quality manager! Whereas bad managers have lousy legacies known around the company and industry as leaders to avoid, great managers have wonderful reputations causing prospective employees to flock to their team. During this blog series, I’m going to frame our discussion of what thriving managers look like using three high level thresholds you need to cross on your path to achieving a great management persona: communicate, enable and support.

How Thriving Managers Communicate
The manager who cares about his or her team is the manager who communicates often in a positive, collaborative and motivating way. Employees thrive on management communication that is consistently open, honest and regular. You guessed it – the manager everyone loves to work for scores high marks in this skill set. Whether through actions or words, communication from a great manager takes place in direct and subtle ways that keeps their team feeling appreciated and informed. Crossing the communication threshold into great management means you, the manager, must provide appropriate information including business updates, brief and clear instructions and coaching when needed. This may be in the form of staff meetings, email, conference calls or face to face interactions.

The thriving manager also communicates with clarity and quality. They do not withhold information which can be shared or keep employees in the dark. The opportunity for team feedback, questions and two way dialogue is a given. Top that off with giving employees performance expectations for success and providing positive reinforcement when great work is delivered – this is the manager who cares about communicating and interacting the right way with their team. Another thing thriving managers do well as communicators; they don’t resort to extremes. They are engaged not enraged, professional yet confident and relaxed, understanding but not Pollyanna pushovers. The thriving, communicating manager must project a management demeanor while still engaging his or her team, showing they care and regularly sharing a smile. Yes – that’s right – you need to smile. This evokes confidence and openness to your group and it’s a communication nuance many managers forget to use. Don’t be a “grinning guru;” do be pleasant and approachable.

With communication being the keystone for productive interaction and positive relationships it’s easy to understand how first class, high integrity communication practices contribute to becoming a manager employees love to work for. Want to become a motivational manager employees enjoying reporting to? Cross the first threshold for thriving managers and begin practicing the management communication style I covered here!

Join me in a couple of weeks and we’ll explore the second threshold thriving managers must cross — enabling others. Do you have comments to share about great managers? Write to me! I’d love to hear your stories. See you next time …

For the last few weeks we’ve been working our way through the importance of having a well tuned system in place for managing business email –- particularly customer email that comes through your business website. Numerous customer complaints are based on non-responsiveness to questions or requests sent through the “contact us” page on a business website. No one at these businesses is bothering to answer. Big mistake! This is throwing away business!

What were the first two methods I shared in my last blog entry for turning customer email access through a business website into business success? If you said Email Derail and Email Trail you’re on the right track (okay, I gave you those two, but wait, there’s more).

Let’s review. The first method for improving your business email management is to avoid committing Email Derail. Avoid losing email-based customer opportunities by making a commitment NOT to ignore customer email! Consistent and efficient email response processes must be implemented by you, the manager. Great business email management requires being fast out of the gate with quick responses to customer email inquiries; thus turning interest into dollars. The same is true with email responses to co-workers who depend on input from others to ultimately take care of customers.

The second email management method I shared was the Email Trail. Proactively managing your business email also requires methods be in place to automatically create an Email Trail capturing and documenting contact information and preferences arriving through your website. This information trail should be aggressively used to set the stage for potential future sales. Now we’re ready to address the third point that’s required for turning email access to business success — the Email Sale.

When considering ways to use customer email to initiate deals and ultimately make an Email Sale, the “call me now” button is another powerful option for growing revenue through your business website. After typing in their phone number, customers click the “call me now” button on your website. Voila! In less than five minutes, their phone rings with you on the other end. The “call me now” button can be programmed to ring into your store, your cell phone, your manufacturing site or wherever you want it to ring and have someone immediately call back to speak with the customer.

Have your web master set this up. Post business hours by the “call me now” button and provide a “contact us” email web form for customers to fill out when you’re not available. If you don’t want to use the “call me now” button post an 800 number – or both. Now you have taken email to the next level by moving past derail, establishing a trail and moving to the potential for a sale. Yes – being email responsive truly has revenue potential.

Make it easy for your customers to act on impulse by managing their options to connect with you now, and avoid losing them later, in the online world. Customer interest or impulse online doesn’t mean the prospect is always ready to buy, but it does mean they are ready for something — more product and service information or even a purchase decision. Fast email responses are also a great way for dealers, manufacturers and partners to collaborate by sharing online sales leads. Keep your website email constantly monitored for quick response – grab them at hello. This helps give your customers the prompt attention they want and the sales you seek. Impulse – virtual or face to face — continues to be one of the best tools you can manage to help move access to success and close the deal.

A final email thought …. What if you’re a manager in a corporation where you let someone else worry about managing responses to customer email? Do you need to care about Email Derail, Email Trail or Email Sale? Yes, you do! (yes, you knew I was going to say that.) Anytime you’re working on a project or program that ultimately contributes to product and services revenue, you can derail progress by failing to respond to email in a timely manner. In addition, we all know how valuable an email trail can be when figuring out how a problem occurred or what steps are needed to move things forward. Finally, in this scenario, think of the “email sale” as completing and delivering the project successfully and on time. Whether responding to internal or external customers, efficient email management is crucial for success no matter where you sit in an organization.

How are you managing your business email today? Could it stand a good folder cleaning, some extra attention to become better organized or benefit from a new, more responsive handling process? Whatever the case, periodically scrutinize how you’re managing your business email and begin reaping the rewards it can bring to your business success.

That wraps up this Management Secrets series. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with a new series and a management topic on which everyone — I mean everyone — has an opinion. You won’t want to miss it – see you then.*

*excerpted in part and reprinted from Mary Elston Management column with permission from Soundings Publications, LLC

Hello — over here – yup, right here. Move away from the keyboard, move away now. It’s time to stop clacking away at your individual email and talk about the business of managing email for generating business. As we jumped into the right way to manage email for business growth with this current blog series and my first installment a couple weeks ago, I mentioned a number of reasons why managing customer email inquiries for your business is important. You may be thinking — well, duh! But knowing you should do this and actually making sure it’s getting done the right way are often completely different realities.

Per information shared in my last blog entry, many businesses are sluggish with how efficiently they manage customer email inquiries when it comes to turning queries into revenue. Even if you don’t actively manage business email inquiries in your current management role, you can think of this information as a great reminder for managing your individual business email as well. After all, when it comes to email, everything you do at work ultimately influences revenue gains either directly or indirectly somewhere along the business cycle. There are three ways to help manage your way out of the sluggish email-handling majority – let’s get into them out right now.

Email Derail
Unfortunately, far too many managers allow internet-based business leads to become derailed or ignored because they’re poorly managing email responses and website inquiries. This is a common email management mistake many businesses make. The trend for “bricks to clicks” has grown into “clicks to bricks.” Since many potential buyers are clicking online to gather information prior to going into the store, dealer and manufacturing websites can actually serve as decision accelerators! Managers must recognize this virtual value by maintaining user-friendly and highly responsive website features. Email derail can be readily corrected. With the right website features, your well managed email responses can be used as a competitive weapon to grow buyer interest and sales.

What type of responses do virtual buyers (and your co-workers) want? A lead response management study conducted by Inside Sales.com/MIT indicates the short answer is: fast! Samples of their study results for establishing telephone contact with sales leads captured through a web form showed …
• Odds of contacting a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 100 times.
• Odds of qualifying a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 21 times.
This means for dealers, manufacturers, and all businesses, it’s time to move from derailed email to quick, high quality responses to online sales prospects.

Email Trail
Beyond being highly responsive to email inquiries, what’s the best way to connect with customers online and create an email trail? The most user-engaging “connect live” methods are instant messaging; also known as instant chat; or a “call me now” button. A live sales rep receives a request for instant chat when customers click on a button on your dealership, manufacturer’s or business website to start a conversation. Within two or three minutes your sales rep responds to the request with a chat message saying “Hello, my name is …, how may I help you today?” Now you have established an even stronger email trail with the customer and you can gain more information including an email address and buying preferences.

Another way to create an email trail? Offer a free virtual gift such as advanced product use tips or a discount coupon – email the gift after customers fill in a brief form with their product interests, preferences and contact detail. Email trails help take the lead to the next level of warmth by collecting customer specifics and providing quick responses to consumer’s online information-gathering efforts.

That takes care of two of our three ways to better handle business email. What’s the third? Tune into my next blog entry and I’ll fill the gap with the final email tip. What tricks are you using to make sure all your business email — whether internal with co-workers or external with customers and partners – is being efficiently handled? Write to me and share your ideas. I’ll be back in a couple weeks with more email access and success recommendations. See you then.*

*excerpted in part and reprinted from Mary Elston management column with permission from Soundings Publications, LLC.