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Showing posts from September 29, 2017

Which mistakes have you learnt the most from as an entrepreneur?

Thinking that products are the business.   Products are important. Output is important. But most of the conversations we have with our teams (over the past two decades) are about people. How do we make the people we deal with happier. If the people around you are happy, then you can solve most of your problems and sell more products. Never make the people mistake. Every business serves two kinds of people: internal and external. Most businesses only concentrate on their external people - thinking that 'products are the business'; and technically ignoring the channels at which they reach their external people: the internal people.  Don't tow the rhetoric: small businesses can't afford the same standard as medium and multinationals. But it is the small things you practice on daily basis that really counts: like, how do you address your staff? How often do you show empathy; and praise their effort whether it was a success or failure? It is ho

Why do sales managers set unreasonable targets?

The conventional logic behind setting high targets is: Profit. Self-explanatory. Company culture. It’s better to aim high and miss than to aim low from the start. Also, if you don’t give sales reps a chance to push themselves to the limit, then they might never know what they’re capable of. Top-down management. Obviously it would be more logical for sales teams to set their own targets, provided they can be trusted to put the company’s interests (profit/revenue) over the chance to get comfortable/lazy (get paid for doing less work than they could). But since that’s a difficult environment to establish, and business is business, sales targets are usually set based on broader company goals for revenue or growth.   Visit us at: Pukka Logistics & Support Services Ltd. 73 Allen Avenue, Ikeja.   or Call: 01-4549191; 08075686814; 08173598248 E-mail: info@pukkalogistics.com.ng http://pukkalogistics.com.ng   

People Forget About Accountability

While it's true that Accountability starts at the top, and that if leaders don't walk the talk, and meet their commitments, it will be almost impossible to create a culture of accountability. Yes, if you model accountability, some people will become more accountable. But it takes more than that to make accountability and ownership the norm within an organization. If you truly want to create a culture of accountability you have to HOLD people accountable. Most leaders, seem to forget this piece. That's probably because it's the difficult part, the one where we have to focus on changing people's behaviors, which is always tough. We have had clients who have told us that; they don't like to hold people accountable because it feels too confrontational, and that can often have the wrong impact and end up with a culture of blaming, or even worse naming and shaming. All of which actually reduces accountability. So I can understand why