- Get Out of the Office
If you want to improve your performance, you must see what your employees are doing and how customers are using your products. Get out of your office and travel to the sales, distribution, or production floor, wherever your people are. And talk with people, employees and customers alike, to allow them to share their perspectives (whether you agree or not).
You’ll likely discover a few discrepancies between what you expected and what is really happening. Drawing on these observations and conversations, tweak or restyle the environment, workflow, procedures, systems, etc. to assure that you and your employees are able to meet and exceed performance targets. - Learn Why, Not Just What and How
Understanding your purpose within the broader context of the company’s mission can help you make better decisions faster. You definitely need to master the content of your job description first. Otherwise, you’ll seem like a lazy, sloppy worker who touts that she gets the "big picture" but can’t handle basic duties. But knowing the overarching strategy of your company, team, and job function can help you navigate complicated issues and show others that you are capable of higher level responsibilities. - Run a Better Meeting
Conduct meetings that propel you forward, instead of keep you struggling with the same tired predicaments. To get there, you’ll need to move beyond the good but incomplete guidance to prepare and stick with an agenda for an effective meeting.
Consider adding these requirements to your meeting game plan:
• Determine what you want to accomplish in the meeting (this step may involve putting together a proposal ahead of time so that you don’t simply toss around ideas in the meeting)
• Figure out whether you can reach your goals through an email or a face-to-face session with just one or two individuals (and cancel the meeting if you don't really need one)
• Ask for feedback and deal with concerns prior to the meeting, if possible, making sure that discussions are transparent and all who should be involved are part of important decisions
• Start the meeting on time and move through key points, allowing plenty of discussion but preventing side issues from dominating the conversation
• Take immediate action on decisions made at the meeting.
Automate One Aspect of Your Work
Get more done faster by automating a routine activity. For example, create an email template for certain types of inquiries, build a knowledge base that your staff can reference for routine situations, or create an Excel spreadsheet to handle certain types of calculations.Learn When to Sprint
Discern when you need to sprint (go all out, for a short period of time), instead of pacing yourself steadily for a long race. There are moments when you need to make quick decisions. You can’t go hard all the time. A consistently tired, burned-out employee doesn’t perform well.
But there are times when you need to apply extra, concentrated effort. Your boss may tell you outright when you are expected to stay late. Being able to manage those short bursts and keep them from becoming routine can help you to improve performance at all times.Learn More About Technology
No matter how adept you are at using technology, you can broaden your capabilities. Some knowledge can be put to use immediately for better results. For example, you might take 15 minutes to learn how to use an online survey tool, and another few minutes to design and send a survey to a group of customers.Learn to Upsell
Whatever your take on corporate mandates to encourage add-on sales (that is, asking if the customer wants fries with the burger or an extended warranty for the electronics purchase) or push a higher priced product when the basic one seems fine, you can learn to upsell while building great relationships with customers.
The highest performing salespeople tend to have a talent for interacting with people and the ability to pinpoint customer needs (and wants). If you’ve been struggling with canned pitches that seem to disregard customer relationships and don’t deliver results, consider doing the following:
• Learn and show that you know as much as possible about your company’s products and services, marketing position, differentiating features, and real world applications compared to competitive offerings and substitutes.
• Gain expertise in how customers use products and services in various scenarios (whether these are manufacturer approved uses or not).
• Listen to customers without making assumptions and ask probing questions about their requirements or anticipated usage, preferences, and expectations.
• Make a recommendation in a non-pressured way that allows the customer to affirm (and buy!) your selection or give you more information about concerns, needs, etc. so that you can formulate even better advice.
Most people appreciate a tailored approach that clues them into why certain items could be beneficial and why certain features cost more, instead of being offered products indiscriminately.
Clean Up Your Space
Einstein’s take on a cluttered work space ("If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?") may inspire you to leave a mess in your office. But you may not be as efficient as you think, even if you know which pile contains what pieces of information. There’s a psychic cost to having random stuff around, which may include fear that you’ve forgotten something or missed an important deadline.Improve Your Professional Capabilities
Keep learning.
Read books, take classes, participate in industry events, earn certifications, etc. Even if the latest research tells you things you already know, you’ll be able expertly articulate your position and increase your credibility among peers, leading to better communication and results.More significantly, however, you may learn something new that you can apply to improving performance immediately.Explain Obstacles to Your Boss
Let your boss know about insurmountable obstacles. Just be sure that you’ve done your research, experimented with different methods to overcome these challenges, and pinpointed underlying problems. And, ideally, when you talk about obstacles, present a proposal with a solution and the resources required for implementation.
There’s a line between communicating roadblocks and shirking your job duties because of everyday difficulties. If your boss is reasonable and you’re willing to try a fresh approach, you may be able to put an end to pervasive problems and achieve unprecedented outcomes
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