Six Quick Questions:

1. You work with a Colombian guy and you have heard that he has a very sick cousin. Should you inquire about this, or is it none of your business?
2. Three people come late to a meeting. One is an American from San Diego, one a Venezuelan who has lived in the USA for five years, and one is a visiting Chinese businessman. Can you guess the order in which they will arrive, simply from knowing their cultural background? Why?
3. What one extra feature would probably significantly have helped the sales of US vehicles, in Japan, in the 1970s -1990s?
4. You meet a client from the UK. She orders a beer at lunch and uses some language that makes you blink. Is she a bad woman with an alcohol problem?
5. African-American culture tends to be higher-context or  more ‘diffuse’ than Caucasian American Culture. True or False? What would this mean to your sales process with an African-American client?
6. If someone asked you for the percentage of household spending done by disabled family members, or for the approximate spend of the disability community in the USA, what would you reply? (www.EnableAmerica.com)

Five Strategic Questions:

1. New York culture is lower-context or more ‘specific’ than Florida culture. How would this affect your customer service training if you have many more customers in FL than in NY?
2. You are in retail and your IT is outsourced to an applications/data storage management IT company. Most of their team is Indian and they seem to deal unusually well with confusing, ambiguous situations. Is there some sort of cultural advantage operating here? How can your company develop a competitive advantage from examining this factor?
3. One of your new sales reps reports a sharp downturn in business from an account that was previously a steady stream of income. S/he describes the (Lebanese) customer as “from one of those South American countries.”  Your senior manager wants to see your coaching plan for the new sales rep. What does it include?
4. A major client company has recently gone through a merger. Their new head office will be in Paris instead of San Francisco. What are you going to do about retaining this account and the flow of business from it?
5. Your customer base is getting younger. A new check shows that the median age is eight years younger than your last measurement.  What should you do about this change in customer demographics?

You are invited to schedule a CPS workshop on Finding and Keeping Multicultural and Diverse Customers: glynis@c-psolutions.com or 813 598 9184.

CPS apologizes for any hitches  in our new, evolving but extra-safe website. IT security is one of the three major issues that futurists predict will affect business in the coming decade.

Joe requested a short program from CPS, built on these principles. The sales team (Jamie, Rick and Craig) helped out with the front-end analysis, and the rest of the team added information as the workshops progressed.
The program ended with each sales team giving a graduation presentation. They chose areas where they saw opportunities to grow their knowledge and develop innovative ideas.

Jamie organizes the slides

Each team gave a presentation, often with tastings, hand-outs, displays and other graphics.

The standard was fantastic. The judges (Joe, Woody, Jamie and Troy) were repeatedly impressed beyond all expectation. Glynis was ecstatic.

The teams reported that they had enjoyed the process, become closer as teams, and learned an immense amount, mainly through their own efforts.

They are mastering the complexity of their product range, and then guiding each customer to benefit from their knowledge, as they grow as business experts and partners: the sales gurus of the 21st century.

Al and the Witbier expertsThe Rolling Rock "Under Sold Products" Team

The photographer couldn't wait for the whole team - or the cider.

An amazing soup and then THIS apple dessert - and the cider!

Craft beer explained...

Gary's team explain old and new beer

“The change in our sales guys is great. They’ve had fun, but they are also thinking outside the box in a completely new way”.
Senior sales manager.

Sign up for this event

In July 2009, the BBC World Service reported a $180 million cost to United Airlines, when Dave Carroll’s viral video “United Breaks Guitars” led to a share price drop of approximately 10%. www.longislandexchange.com

Carroll’s band and other passengers witnessed guitars being thrown on the tarmac by careless baggage handlers before take-off, and reported this to United staff. Three people showed no interest in their plight, and United dodged his $1200 claim for a $3,500 guitar for a year before denying it completely. Carroll’s song (complete with the badly-mutilated guitar) is apparently destined to become a United training tool. Enjoy it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

Disengagement is a major business problem, with many causes. These include a lack of skillful management, selection/succession procedures that do not put the right person in the right job, and inattention to climate and culture. And, of course,  measurable, affordable and effective learning interventions.

CPS is privileged to work with some truly excellent companies, who drive engagement from the top, and have a strong awareness of the cost of disengagement, and its consequences.  They have put the real numbers on retention,  productivity, service, quality, innovation, on-going process improvement, collaborative intelligence and the on-going development of competitive advantage.

Those who want to drive change in the engagement issue do best when they produce the numbers. No one gets out of their comfort zone without a compelling case for action, and many of the people who make key decisions have a background of thinking in terms of numbers, not on whether their people bring their whole selves to work.

Give them the real, hard numbers, plus the basis on which those numbers were derived (c-psolutions has things like how to calculate the cost of turnover etc if anyone needs them). Show them the hard research on why people go through the motions at work or leave their jobs. Give them valid metrics on the impact of disengagement on sales, service and customer retention.

Theory speaks to some people, but the business case is the best and most compelling reason to take the action needed to engage our workforce.

And to stop people breaking those poor guitars.

CPS is eligible to provide custom solutions to clients with state funding assistance, and helps our clients to source these. As a values- and ethics-based small business, CPS specializes in affordable, lasting solutions to people and business challenges.