“Positive Impressions When Video Conferencing”
Like many of you I am finding myself meeting people on virtual video conference platforms. It’s been an essential learning curve as it has become the go-to for meetings.
In many cases, this is the first meeting to introduce ourselves, products and services. And it could be a first time for staff via this medium to interact with customers, partners, prospects, educational or community representatives.
As a result, organizations are outlining suggested behaviors and etiquette. This could include, for example, making eye contact, dressing appropriately, not eating, being aware of surroundings and background, and controlling for noise.
You and your staff’s image to the customer provides a perception of who you are, rightly or wrongly.
The impression given to the customer is an opportunity to gain their confidence and trust. They want to feel that they are making an informed decision by entering a relationship with you. Presenting a professional image, and a more self-assured staff, contributes to projecting confidence that is picked by the customer.
Guidelines to help gain trust and credibility:
- Know who you are. Demonstrate product and service knowledge, value and benefits.
- Accurately and honestly respond to customer questions. If you don’t know, get an answer. Give a time that you will contact them with the information.
- Listen and focus on what customers are saying to clarify their needs.
- Respect their reservations for moving forward with you. This may be the chance to understand their concerns and create solutions with their input.
- Ask if you can follow-up with a suggested timeframe. But don’t forget them.
- Don’t burn a bridge. You may hear from them again. Recommendations can come from where you least expect it.
- Thank them for their time and interest.
“Positioning Yourself for What’s Next”
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Along with our concern for the COVID-19 threat to family, friends, neighbors and ourselves, the coronavirus has literally altered how we approach and live each day. Adding to our stress are the loss of jobs daily and business shutdowns. Unemployment claims are reaching record numbers.
With that in mind, I am sharing below a sample exercise that I utilize when conducting individual sessions and business and group workshops in personal branding and story creation. Describing your personal brand and writing your story can help to clearly and efficiently communicate your assets and qualities for presenting yourself on online interviews, your online profile, employment applications and resume.
Thinking about replacing income and what’s next is an additional burden none of us wants right now. But at the same time, it may be worthwhile to assess who you are to position and distinguish yourself in what looks to be a competitive job market as employers begin hiring.
For some it will be a return to the job they had. Others may not have an employer to return to as some businesses may not survive or are reallocating their resources for a new direction. Maybe it is a change in career and industry that you have been contemplating for a while or you are evaluating the move to self-employment.
A few self-exploratory questions to help you to clarify your direction and to begin writing your story:
- What is your mission? Job focus? Career objective?
- What are your values and operating principles that you will not compromise?
- What are your competencies and skill-sets?
- What examples represent the impact that your skills offer?
- Describe your prospective employer target? What are their needs? What solutions do you offer and what can you help them solve?
- Why would an employer hire you?
- What makes you memorable? What distinguishes you from the competition? How are you unique?
- How would your network (customers, co-workers, friends) describe you?
- Who do you currently admire and what qualities do you want people to associate with you?
“Receiving Feedback is a Mindset & Skill”
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Organizations have invested a lot of time and money to develop effective employee communications and interpersonal skills. The intent is to create a working environment which supports the day to day free flow of communication and ideas.
A critical component of engaging co-workers and staff is providing each other with constructive feedback and criticism. This goes for the entire food chain involving the entry-level worker to executive.
This can contribute to performance growth for both the employee and organization.
Some argue that receiving feedback maybe the more difficult skill and mindset to develop since feedback is an evaluative process, involving both positive and negative comments.
Most of us are protective of our ideas, our ways of doing things and who we are. Getting criticism, even done properly, can make us defensive and feel threatened.
My close family friend and IT business guru James Anderson a technical support professional captures the feedback process perfectly when he states, “We have been conditioned to get defensive when receiving criticism versus looking at someone guiding you for success.”
Suggested guidelines to facilitate receiving feedback:
- Change your mindset, unlearn past behaviors and be open to feedback. Think of it as receiving information to potentially enhance your development.
- Think about what they are stating and ask for specific examples.
- Be aware of your emotions and manage them.
- Listen closely and control the urge to respond; let the person complete their observations.
- Is this new information or something that you have heard before?
- Reflect back to clarify and confirm your understanding of their points.
- Ask to schedule a follow-up to get time to consider what you heard.
- Respond to one point at a time with your perspective on each.
“Addressing Soft Skill Needs at Your Business”
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Employers are having a tough time finding qualified people with the background and experience to fill jobs, including locating employees with behavioral or soft skills.
An IBM survey reported by Bloomberg found that along with technical skills, employers are valuing behavioral skills as critical. There is an emphasis on soft skills, “such as the ability to work well on a team, communication, creativity, and empathy are best developed through experience rather than structured learning programs like a webinar.”
Kate Davidson in her Wall Street Journal article, wrote that soft skills “…can make the difference between a standout employee and one who just gets by.”
I like referring to soft skills as employability-success skills because they help someone get a job, but also move up the career ladder. They are not unique to a particular occupation or industry, but are required among all business sizes, utilized by the entry-level worker to executive suite. Across the world of work, people need to be capable communicators, team members, problem solvers and relationship builders.
Thinking about moving the needle on these critical employability-success skill sets at your organization? A few actions for your consideration:
- Conduct a needs analysis of your current workforce to inventory depth of strength of their employability-success skills.
- Ensure your management and supervisory team possess these skills as they are role models for the rest of the organization.
- Utilize behavioral and situational interviewing to hire people with the selected skills.
- Offer employability-skills training with the day to day experience as an opportunity to develop and reinforce these skills.
- Integrate employability-success skills into the performance management process to reward the required behaviors and to develop them where the need is identified.
- Evaluate project team and work group performance not only for meeting deliverables, but also how the overall and individual team members performed on the employability-success skills dimensions.
“Writing Your Product Value Statement”
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In my “What’s Your Story” newsletter I wrote about what it means to be a brand champion and how to introduce a brand champion initiative within your organization. One step suggested was to develop a “Product Value Statement” for your staff to adopt to enable them to offer a cohesive and consistent message on what you do, how you benefit clients and customers, and what makes you unique. This is relevant across organizations, either corporate, educational or non-profit.
The product value statement presents the results that a customer experiences from using your products or services. Some call it the “product opportunity statement” referring to the “opportunity” offered to customers. Consider your experience attending networking or association events and walking away from people you met for the first time and not understanding what they do. People oftentimes can have difficulty talking about themselves or their organization. Establishing a product value statement at your organization can contribute to information being delivered in clear and concise way that is understandable to the listener.
It can have multiple applications serving as the foundation for the typical customer interactions you encounter: whether it be an introductory call, marketing letters, handling inquiries about your services, or making a presentation. Once the message is established, it can be used for copy points on a website home page and in advertising.
I have found group sessions of managers and staff to be very productive exercise in developing and refining the product value statement. Keep in mind who your target is, custom tailor it and the results offered; for example, skill improvement, cost reductions, sales increases, or staffing efficiencies. To get you started, here are the three components in writing your product value statement:
- WHAT( Identifies you and what you do): We are __________ (Name) and we work with __________ (customers/organizations) whose __________ (difficulty/challenge) needs to be __________ (solved, increased, improved).
- BENEFITS: Our __________ (product/service/skill) has benefited them by __________(describe the impact/opportunity for customer).
- UNIQUE: Our _______(unique qualities, abilities) differentiates us from our competition.
Aramini Management is a management and business consulting practice. Since 2005 we have assisted organizations in the corporate, educational and non-profit arenas execute management and operational improvements to attain their goals and better engage their customers and staff. Our experience includes One Stop Career Center operations and community college workforce development and training grant programs for corporate clients.