management skills
04 Dec
Team Management

4 Problems Poor Management Skills Cause

How can you tell if your business is suffering from poor management skills? Lack of management skills in your business can have long-lasting impact to your business and your team. The results can be toxic, misleading, and create a lack of commitment. Thus affecting employee retention. This is why Allison Todd, Operations & Digital Growth Strategist of SiMar, unfolds the importance of ensuring proper management skills for improved results.

Four Problems That Occur with Poor Management Skills

Four Problems That Occur with Poor Management Skills

Good managers are expected to lead team members by modeling the expected behavior and creating a thriving work environment. With poor management, problems occur. Here are four problems that occur with poor management skills:

Avoiding Recognition

Not recognizing or crediting team members for their work, is a sign of poor management. Without a balance of recognition and critique, team members may not feel valued. They may also complete their work in a state of fear, actively avoiding mistakes vs confidently completing their work. Good management skills include more than just delegating. It also includes allowing team members to know, understand and execute their business role and responsibilities.

Unvalued Team Members

Too much focus on the tasks and not the people often leads to team members feeling unvalued. Sometimes, just by listening this problem can be solved. It’s management’s responsibility to provide guidance and boost the team morale. Focus on clear and transparent communication with your team.

Executing Poor Meetings

Many people sigh at the idea of meetings as most are perceived as a waste of time. Managers may be too focused on delegating tasks and meeting their business goals. Preparing meetings is often an under prioritized task. Quite the contrary, a meaningful meeting can advance business progress and increase team morale. It is also an opportunity to outline and discuss expectations. To resolve this problem make planning a priority and stay organized while managing your projects.

Instilling a Sense of Fear

Have you ever had a manager who held the security of your job over your head? Perhaps a manager who constantly micromanaged. If so, that is unfortunate and a sign of poor management. Micromanages communicates a lack of trust in your team. When the team is in fear their job, it leads to the lack of confidence and distrust in the business as a whole. The good news is these problems are easily remedied with good management skills. To begin with its important to have a good attitude toward management. and be flexible in your approach.

Conclusion

Notably, strong leaders with good management skills positively impact business in many ways. Planning becomes a vital concept of the business. There is a process for decision making that positions leadership with a checks and balances. Collaborating and problem solving become more of a welcomed experience. Thus improved productivity and morale overall.

Ask the Consultant

Ask the Consultant is a session to connect directly with Allison Todd. It is practical business advise during a focused, quick session. The goal is to provide clarity, enhance a business practice or improve business performance. As a result, she addresses your specific business challenge. And you gain clarity. Connect today and Ask the Consultant.

4 problems that occur with poor management skills
19 Nov
Grow Your Business, Productivity, Team Management

4 Sales Training Strategies To Build A Powerful Team

Effective sales strategies starts with clear and outlined processes and ends with the right team member. What sales strategies are you using to build your sales team? After all, the sales team determines business growth and stability. They are the people in charge of building good relationships with your customers. You can’t close the sale until you first build trust. Often trust equates to the customer being confident you know what you’re talking about, thus what you are selling. As a result, your sales team is essential to business success.

The most practical way to build a powerful sales team is with consistent and ongoing training. Your training strategies should motivate nurturing relationships while advancing sales. The content of the training should enhance the sales experience, address challenges, increase team performance and create a thriving workplace culture. In addition, your sales team members should have foundational learning and be open to adopt new sales techniques.

As a result, the team will be equipped to drive sales and contribute to business growth. These four sales training strategies will help build a powerful sales team.

Sales Training Strategies

Four Sales Training Strategies To Building A Powerful Sales Team

1. Practice Contributes to Perfection

Practicing your sales techniques is a great way to improve the business experience. The first and most important sales training strategy is practice. This includes role playing, shadowing, self-assessment and more. This also allows the business owner to best understand their teams’ assets. The opportunity for self-assessment, question and answer and collaborative conversations are all aids to the team member. This allows your team member to stay present and up to date in their expertise.

2. Train In the Field

The knowledge acquired from sales training is golden. And applying that knowledge in the field, also known as real world experiences, is critical to team development. Much of what you learn as a salesperson focuses on your ability to listen, problem solve and offer solutions to your customer. As such, a consistent customer service approach, will prevent you from responding to emotion vs rational. Therefore, real world experiences strengthen professional expertise. Teaming up a new sales member with an experienced sales member is an avenue to creating additional techniques. Each party can shadow the other, collaborate to develop new ideas, discuss techniques and troubleshoot challenges. Other real time experiences include business meetings, conferences, call reviews and customer reviews all provide real time practice and feedback.

3. Motivate Your Team Through Success Stories

Be okay with showing the team what works and what doesn’t. With transparency and constructive criticism, you provide your team member as much value as training. It’s also helpful to provide reasoning with action.  Apart from teaching sales theories, sharing success stories can inspire and motivate your team. Let your team hear other experiences and the different methods others use to overcome challenges. These strategies should be broken into digestible lessons reps can implement. Allow the team to analyze business process and expose them to strategies behind every successful sale.

4. Collaborations With Thought Leaders

These are valuable lessons transmitted from years of industry experience. And there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Leaders in your industry and in your business should be invited to discuss and share their sales experience. Oftentimes, you can learn as much from an expert as you can in a training class. Your team members can discuss and review the shared lessons with people who have an in depth understanding of their goals. Thus meaningful patterns of information provide the team member and the business owner value.

Conclusion

If you are getting the sales training right, then your sales team is responding with more sales. Don’t be afraid to adopt a “think out loud” method in your meetings. And recognize that your sales teams are constantly evolving. Insight, information and discussion are invaluable. Invest in your sales department, empower your employees, and give them access to the best sales training technique and resources.As a result, your business and the team will grow.

Teach Them to Sell

This e-book helps you identify the reasons your team isn’t performing as well as they should be. It offers tried and tested sales strategies to help you build the most productive and profitable team.

Four Sales Training Strategies To Building A Powerful Sales Team

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executive leadership coaching services
05 Nov
Team Management

Team Development: Allowing Businesses to Go from Fine to Excellent

The key to transforming your business into a highly lucrative venture is team building and development. The growth and performance of a company depend on the efficiency and performance of its workforce. 

Business efficiency is fueled by synergy in teamwork. The process of proper team development requires proper guidance and orientation.

As a leading business coaching agency, We at Si Mar Inc are dedicated to transforming your current team into the dream team. Our team-building approaches and systems are highly customizable to meet your business’s needs and improve overall performance.

At SiMar Inc, we focus on promoting your team’s ability and building an efficient and intelligent workforce. We at SiMar Inc understand that communication is the foundation of every team, and that is where we start our building process.

Through carefully planned and designed exercises ranging from group discussions, team retreats to conflict resolution, our experts on team building would have your team running at full capacity in no time.

A well-developed team has no issues identifying its roles and responsibilities and executing its objectives. At SiMar Inc, our ultimate goal is to improve your business’s overall health by developing your team to perfection.

Comprehensive Team Building and Development Services for Small Businesses

At SiMar, we are highly efficient at facilitating team development strategies. The process of team development usually involves;

  • the analysis of issues
  • The assessment of available options
  • Arriving at shared agreements and plans to implement action.

At SiMar Inc, we offer a broad range of services to address your team’s real weakness. Each of our team development packages is designed to meet specific needs.

Different groups and different businesses require different team development strategies. At Si Mar Inc, we take it upon ourselves to help you figure out your team’s needs and how we can help.

Team or Brand Formation

Is your team made up of the right people? If yes, are your team members in the correct position. At Si Mar Inc, we offer an in-depth assessment and implementation of team formulation strategies. The strategies are designed to help you select individuals with the right skills and attributes and fit them into the right positions. 

The first step to building an efficient team is selecting team members and sharing roles and duties. Si Mar Inc’s in-depth team formulation strategies are sure to guide your decision towards efficiency.

Strategic Planning

Team Development can not be adequately executed without proper strategic planning. At Si Mar Inc, we help businesses create plans for effective implementation of the team development process.

These plans and strategies can easily be adjusted to fit your business units, departments, branches, and subgroups. With strategically planned and implemented team development, your business would always be on track for growth and progress.

Board Leadership Management

The success of a team is highly dependent on the effectiveness of its leader. Board leaders, Executives, and Managers need to identify the leadership styles that work best with their strengths and attributes. There is no one size fits all leadership style.

At Si Mar Inc, we recognize and recommend the leadership styles that work perfectly for your team and your executives through our detailed analysis and insights into behavioral tendencies.

Executive Coaching

Effective leadership is a skill that must be obtained and honed. Your executives and team leaders must understand basic leadership principles must know if your business is to succeed.

At Si Mar inc, we offer executive coaching services with the sole aim of equipping your executives with the necessary principles and skills to take your business to the next level.

Team Innovation

Teams tend to get stuck when faced with expansion or new circumstances. The ability to adapt and innovate very quickly determines the survival of a business. Things are always changing, and only teams and companies that can innovate would keep up and stay in place.

The window of opportunity to innovate is still short, and most couples find it difficult to move fast enough or at all. At Si Mar Inc, we help teams get unstuck and set them on the path of innovation and dexterity. Insights from our highly experienced experts are the best way to keep your team ready to innovate with the times, on time.

For more information on our expertise in team building for your business, contact us now!

02 Nov
Team Management

What are The Five Stages of Team Development?

Team development is crucial in ensuring the efficiency and improved productivity of your team. If your team isn’t well developed, you will find your workforce operating far below its full potential. 

The benefits of team development are numerous. As a business owner, the continuous review and development of your team is a prerequisite for success.

It is one thing to know the benefits of team development and identifies it as a necessity. However, knowing how to go about developing your team is even more critical. 

Without proper knowledge of organizing and implementing your team’s development, you might end up wasting your team’s time rather than improving cooperation and attaining synergy.

The first thing to note about team development is that there are stages. Identifying the set your team currently occupies and the next step in your team’s progress would give the process of your team’s development focus and direction.

As an entrepreneur, you are the captain of your team. Therefore, knowing your team’s roadmap and destination is necessary for taking your team to greater heights.

Stages of Team Development

Team development is known as the effective process of learning to work together. According to Bruce Tuckman, an educational psychologist, there are five stages of team development, namely:

What are The Five Stages of Team Development?

Forming

Forming is the first stage in team development. Here team members are just getting to know each other—the stage where the team members find out their roles and other team members’ roles. During the stage, the basic structure of your team is developed. 

The stage is a very crucial point in the development of your team. It would be best to orientate your team’s duties and how they fit in with other team members’ responsibilities.

This is also your first time proofing yourself as a competent leader. This stage requires you to convince every team member that you have a plan and their careers are in good hands.

If you are working with an old team, then a structure would have been established. In a situation whereby your team’s structure isn’t optimum for productivity, you might have to go back to this stage and make some necessary reforms.

Storming

Storming is the second stage of team development. In this stage, your conflict resolution skills as a leader would be put to the test. This stage is filled with conflict and competition. 

The initial politeness fades, and your team members reveal their real personalities. This stage is quite problematic, and in most cases, production is greatly affected negatively. 

It is your job to ensure that no conflict or clash goes unresolved or unaddressed. Seeds of discord that lead to long term damage in the team are sown at this stage. Failure to address disagreements at this stage would stunt the growth and development of your team. 

Most business owners find it challenging to handle this stage of team development. However, once you cross this stage, your team would develop at a fast pace.

Norming

This stage involves your teammates adjusting to their roles. Unity and cohesion begin to emerge as team members find it easy to corporate. They are familiar with their roles as well as the personalities of their team members. 

However, this isn’t a guarantee of peace and progress. The norming stage is a stage of fragile peace and unity. Now and then, little spats might spring up, and old conflicts might reemerge. 

It is important to note that the norming stage is not a guarantee that a team cannot fall back to the storming stage. The norming stage marks the beginning of synergy. However, this fragile stage must be protected and guided with care and intention.

Performing

At this stage, you have finally developed your team into the dream team. Production is at its peak, and cooperation is smooth and seamless. Few issues might arise, but at this stage, your team has developed simple conflict resolution strategies.

All efforts of your team members are geared towards the success of the firm. Productivity and efficiency are rarely affected by distractions and conflict.

Adjourning

This isn’t a stage in the normal sense of the word. We can tag the adjourning stage as the review stage. There should be a scheduled meeting in which the progress of the team is reviewed. 

This usually entails acknowledging the team’s progress and awarding praises to team members who performed exceptionally well. This is also the perfect time to discuss ways to move the team forward and new strategies for further development. 

The Adjourning stage is necessary to keep your team performing at optimum. Neglecting this stage could lead to your team slipping back into a state of chaos and storm.

Conclusion

Team development is a continuous process that requires constant and intentional effort. Properly developing your team ensures that your team members work at optimum capacity while enjoying happiness and fulfillment in their careers. 

Position to Profit Membership

Entrepreneurship is hard but you don’t have to do it alone. Members learns about the Scale to Profit System, business development, business operations, sales techniques, building the perfect team.

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26 Oct
calendar management, Team Management

4 Problems That Occur With Poor Management Skills

Is your organization facing poor management issues? Wish to improve the overall management skills of your business? Lack of proper management in a business organization could impose a long-lasting impact while affecting the entire organization. 

The results could be toxic, misleading, and lack of commitment across the organization. The given factor could even affect employee retention; this is why Allison Todd –Founder & Chief Executive at SiMar –a leading business coaching agency, unfold the importance of ensuring proper management skills for improved results.

On the other hand, when an organization features strong leaders having good management skill, it tends to impact a firm in multiple ways positively.

Some of the potential benefits that we can observe are reduced turnover time, empowering employees to deliver more productivity, improving overall morale, etc.

Management is expected to lead the employees by proper example while creating a positive working environment for the workforce to deliver performance at their best-ever capacity.

Problems That Occur With Poor Management Skills

If your organization features poor management skills, here are some of the problems that could occur. The issues also dictate how effective management strategies could help in solving workplace issues.

Here are some problems to look out for:

Avoiding Recognition:

When the organization’s employees are not recognized or accredited for their roles in the organization, it is a clear sign of poor management. When the employees are only criticized for their respective shortcomings, they might not feel valued and would always work in a state of fear to avoid mistakes. 

In such a situation, proper management skills come into play. It should promote the notion of communicating correctly. The given ability is not just about delegating.

It should also include the efforts towards allowing employees to know that their roles are being valued in the organization. You should ensure proper & constant communication with the employees to receive useful feedback. Simultaneously, it is the team managers’ responsibility to guide subordinates upon boosting the employees’ overall morale.

Executing Poor Meetings:

Meetings in an organizational setup are not always what it is meant to be. While the managers are keen upon staying in the loop and delegating tasks, the employees, on the other hand, are looking for ways to stay away from such situations.

For the administrative staff, meetings are mostly perceived as some sort of hassle. To avoid such a case, visiting organized turns out to be one of the top management skills for running a successful company.

Instilling a Sense of Fear:

Poor managers are known to threaten the overall job security of the employees. When employees fear their job, it leads to a lack of confidence and trust in the given organization. On the other hand, you should aim at creating an environment of trust and honesty. 

Creation of Negative Environments:

When managers tend to commit some of the traditional leadership mistakes, they create a hostile environment in the office space. Managers should aim at treating the employees as equals.

19 Oct
Productivity, Team Management

Transforming Feelings Into Energy: Emotional Intelligence & Leadership

Emotions are like energy. They can’t be destroyed only transformed. Attempts at killing an emotion or burying a strong feeling always lead to disaster.

If you are dissatisfied with a member of your team’s productivity or actions. The best course of action is to have a private discussion with him or her.

Sometimes we avoid the difficult task of saying the painful truths to our workers to maintain peace. However, this is bound to cause huge problems.

When you are angered or saddened by someone’s actions, your emotions are bound to leak out no matter how much you try to hide it.

A dull feeling of anger or disappointment can grow and fester into animosity and acrimony until it explodes into a flaming disaster.

How to Deal with emotions

The best way to deal with emotions in your business is to identify them, address them, and transform them accordingly. With a high level of emotional intelligence, you would find yourself doing this with ease and flawlessly.

Done effectively, feelings of dissatisfaction and disappointment would be addressed and transformed into useful energy and vibes that would push your team and company forward.

A large part of this team-wise involves conflict resolution and keeping the team in sync and harmony.

However, it is essential to note that before you can lead your team emotionally. You must be able to control your feelings intelligently. As a leader, you must be a force of direction and order, not an agent of further chaos.

You must be competent at processing and handling your personal feelings as an individual. Before processing and fixing the emotional problems of your team.

This is most important when you are a party in the conflict. It would require even greater will and intelligence to keep your emotions in check as you play the role of mediator and second party simultaneously.

Conclusion

Your level of emotional intelligence determines how much you can control and process your emotional state. This reflects on your team and determines the general vibe and energy flowing within the workspace. As a leader you aren’t just leading your team’s productivity you are also leading the emotional ambiance of your team.

If you need more help in growing your business, check out this amazing guide:

The Confidence to Be the Brand

Transforming Feelings Into Energy: Emotional Intelligence & Leadership


16 Oct
Team Management

Four Ways Your Team is Keeping you Broke

Almost every entrepreneur has one or two stories to tell when it comes to cash flow and burn rate. Sometimes, your business is making a lot of money but manages to spend even more.

The first thing to assess is yourself. Are you taking too much from the honey jar? If the answer is ‘no,’ then you have to look into your business. A glance at your financial records might not reveal what is keeping your business broke.

In black and white, every expense looks legitimate, even necessary. You might not be responsible for what’s keeping your business broke. Surprisingly, fixing your cash flow problem may require you to assess your team and their actions. 

In many cases, it’s your team.

Before we list the four ways your team is keeping you broke, we must clarify a crucial point. The fact that a team member could be the cause of your declining revenue is both surprising and repairable. And this doesn’t make them a bad employee. We all have our shortcomings, sometimes a bit of guidance and correction is all that is needed.

Laziness and Nonchalance

Four Ways Your Team is Keeping you Broke

To put this in perspective, you have to see your employee’s service as something with financial value. As an entrepreneur, your success comes when the value you get from your staff is more than the amount you pay for their services. When an employee provides mediocre or reduced services, you are bound to lose money.

This can present itself as calling in sick too often, not meeting up with deadlines, poor attitude towards customers, etc. All these actions can hurt your business and keep you broke.

Chaos and Distractions

Four Ways Your Team is Keeping you Broke

Some employees can be termed agents of chaos. Perhaps that phrase might be too harsh. However, some employees cause many distractions that make it hard for other team members to function.

This could lead to your entire team acting below capacity and costing you money instead of making money. That employee who likes to sing out loud with his headphones on is doing more damage than you think.

Distractions make people cranky. Cranky employees can’t think straight and tend to lash out at customers and other employees. In most cases, employees responsible for constituting a nuisance might be oblivious to the havoc they are wrecking. It is your job to find the problem in your team and straighten him or her out.

Financial Ambiguity

Four Ways Your Team is Keeping you Broke

Financial ambiguity comes in many forms. Generally, it means when a member of the team isn’t very straightforward with money. It ranges from ordering the most expensive wine when on an official lunch to not reimbursing funds that were not used during a trip or mission.

This is very hard to catch as it doesn’t show up on the record books and is often not technically seen as stealing. However, it is important to note that a little here a little there makes a lot.  Beware of your team’s wasteful habits and make efforts to stop these habits from ruining your business.

Bad Management

Four Ways Your Team is Keeping you Broke

As a micropreneur, this finger is most likely pointing to you. The financial situation of you and your business largely depends on your decisions. One major problem most entrepreneurs face is differentiating business finances from personal finances.

This can leave you and your business spending more than you earn. As a micropreneur, you are a member of your team. And like every other member of your team, you should earn a predetermined salary. Tough months might have you taking a salary cut, but you should highly avoid taking bonuses unnecessarily.

Taking a bonus every now and then is a slippery slope to brokenness. Businesses have cycles. When things are looking up, it isn’t time to get a new car. No, its time to reinvest or save up for the rainy days.

Measuring your business’s current stage and the right compensation for you and every member of your team is crucial to keep your business afloat come rain come shine.

Conclusion

As a micropreneur, keeping your business alive is a full-time job, especially in the beginning. Irrespective of how profitable your business currently is, a bad employee can put you in a bad financial position. Out rightly stealing from the company is easy to detect with a keen eye.

However, some things that cost your business have to be sensed not seen. Sometimes discovering the leak in your cash flow might require a critical look at your team members.

22 Jul
Team Management

Building the Perfect Team

Why is it that some businesses have the the perfect team and others can’t seem to keep the team together? Many CEOs want the perfect formula for the perfect team. And truth is there is no definite design to building the perfect team. But leadership, communication, business resources and collaboration are core components. The perfect team goes a long way in deciding the direction and the growth rate of your business for a building entrepreneur.

Business Direction

First, let’s consider the business direction. People who you choose to join your team will have a reasonable influence on your decisions. The perfect team member is invested in their role and your business. They are open to both understanding and collaborating with their team members. As such your business direction is fuel by essentials of a perfect team. On the contrary, a bad team can lead you down a wrong path, leaving you lost in your business searching for sales. However, a good team would work tirelessly to show you new and better ways to take your business to where it needs to be. Therefore, choosing the perfect team is important.

Business Growth

Next is business growth. The reliability and proficiency of your team determines how fast your business grows. When you assert group norms that allow your team to work efficiently, you create standards by which they work. When you are trying to build a business to great heights and expand at an exponential rate, the ability to think outside the box is very valuable. And that can not happen without a strong foundation. No CEO wants a team of drones but rather a team of diligent innovators and freethinkers.

In conclusion, building the perfect team shouldn’t be based solely on their education and certification. Qualification is good, however, some other factors need to be considered. The goal is to build a team that isn’t just competent but also in sync with your business vision and values. Getting the perfect team isn’t an easy task as a mere interview might not reveal all the qualities you are looking for in a team member. However, with patience and due diligence, you can create your perfect squad.

05 Jul
Team Management

Onboarding Tips: Team Integration Made Easy

The process of integrating new staff into the everyday workings of your business can be a bit tricky. With your employees managing their roles and responsibilities that keep your business running smoothly, new team members can begin to feel lost and alone. Here are a few tips on how to integrate your new team without disrupting the day to day running of your business.

Simplify Onboarding

The first day for any new team member is usually a roller coaster. The first day is often an uneven balance of retaining information, remaining professional and asking the “right” questions. A new employee can get a bit intimidated by all of the information, processes and people. The best way to avoid this is to make all necessary information available to your new employee before they begin their first day of work. Merely telling them about their position isn’t enough to ensure that your recruits hit the ground running.

Your recruits need to have a detailed understanding of their roles and responsibilities. This includes sharing information about their direct report, team members, benefits, work expectations and more. Don’t throw your new team member into their work without sharing more about where they are working and who they are working with. I like to use a digital onboarding system that notifies me when documents are opened, reviewed, completed and/or signed. The convenience of completing this via email also provides an opportunity to review at your leisure. Before the work day, of course. This way recruits resume their first day feeling ready and confident to get some work done.

Create a Mentor-Mentee Program

A simple way to help your new new team adjust to their new work environment is to set them up with a mentor, their “go to person”. This can be the business owner, their direct report or a senior team member. Two or more mentors is not a bad idea as it allows your team member to choose a mentor who resonates with them.

 The main goal is to ensure the new team member feels free to ask questions and make clarification without being judged. Creating a good working atmosphere goes a long way in ensuring that your new employees are effective and enjoy a good work experience.

Leverage the Internet

The internet provides a lot of programs to educate, train and certify your team. It basically creates a virtual office for you and your workforce. For instance productivity software is at the top of the list of these programs. Instead of waiting for your recruit to submit misguided results, keep track of their work to ensure you can correct their mistakes before they make them.

Conclusion

The first few weeks of your new employee’s work experience is essential. Proper handling of these integration and adjustment period is very crucial in the progress of your team. Your ability to retain the best employees ensures the greatest results. The best way to create an effective onboarding process is to invest the time in the planning and creating of the system.

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