What Are Your Team Doing?

Last week I had an unannounced visitor. I was working in my home office and there was a timid knock at the door. So timid I was not even sure it was a knock. When I got to the door there was Malcolm*.

Malcolm was walking the street for a company and giving away "Stand By Power" boards as part of a government initiative. So his company would get paid by the government for the 1 per household board they installed. Anything else they sold was theirs.

It was obvious to me that Malcolm was massively undertrained. It seemed like his company just scooped up uni students who needed cash and said. "Walk the streets, give these away and fill out the paperwork."

With the right recruitment and the right training, Malcolm could have done these things too:

• Engaged with me so I cared about what he was selling
• Questioned me about other rooms in the house that may have needed another board
• Offered an energy audit to be done at a mutually agreeable time
• Offered LED globes (Malcolm would have seen at least 9 globes that could have been replaced with them at my place)
• Asked me if I have family or friends in the area who may be interested so he could get a warm referral

These things may have added five minutes to the time with me but over the course of a day, it would add hundreds to his sales figure.

So what are your team doing? Do they have the training to do their job correctly? Are you checking that they are following the training? What about you, do you have the training you need? 

If not, take the action and get it.

* Names have been changed to protect the innocent


PS If you Exhibit, there is a 2 hour training session on tonight in Mulgrave on how to Exhibit Like A Pro. Details are here