Is Your Promise Synching?

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet Your sales team is making promises that the rest of your organization is expected to fulfill. Are those who must deliver on these commitments prepared to do so? Is your promise to a customer synching with the operational resources necessary to satisfy the commitment? The most productive strategy for increasing sales is to build enduring relationships with customers that generate more orders. Sustaining these relationships requires that your customers recognize you as a …

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Leadership and Change

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet Leaders drive change. Whether reacting to an external challenge that threatens the business, or proactively disrupting the status quo to improve performance, leaders and change are inseparable. The most visible leadership stories describe triumphs over trouble, departures from the past, doing what has never been done, or going where no one has ever been. Every story is about challenge and change. The same is true for those who lead their …

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Two Directions for Culture

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet Culture tends to move in one of two directions, and as a leader who influences which path your organization and team will take, you have a decision to make. It’s a choice that impacts how you work with others in the organization and the investments you make in your business and yourself. One path leads towards more openness and transparency. Turn the other direction for control and dependence. Does your business benefit if …

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Transaction or Investment

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet When a customer requests a proposal, how do you respond? If you propose a solution that merely resolves the stated problem, then you may relieve the customer’s immediate pain without ever discovering how your solution could help the customer succeed in the longer term. Your solution is a transaction, a one-time resolution that wastes an opportunity to reveal your organization’s broad experience and competency in a way that differentiates you in the …

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3 Questions Your People Ask About You

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet Leaders rely on feedback from their teams as one metric to gauge their effectiveness. Asking each team member what’s going well and what can improve produces some insight, but empathetic leaders seek a more comprehensive perspective that explores how their credibility and intentions are perceived by their teams. To gain this perspective, these leaders suppose that their personnel are asking 3 questions about them: 1. “Do you care about me?” Does …

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When Growth Stalls

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet When growth stalls, the need to reassess strategy, people and process becomes urgent. The people evaluation may considers the “right person-right job” question, balancing an individual’s performance against the consistency of actual versus expected behaviors. The process evaluation may challenge best practices. What has worked well to deliver productivity with consistent quality versus what can be improved, by how much and how soon. The strategy evaluation is typically the most comprehensive assessment, often beginning with a review of …

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3 Attributes That Boost Customer Loyalty

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet When asked why they are loyal to a particular supplier, customers don’t award the highest grade to outperforming competitors on product or service, or to securing a better price-to-value ratio than the competition. The highest grade is consistently awarded to the sales process they experienced. The primary driver of customer loyalty is the sales experience itself. A salesperson or business that respects the customer’s time by demonstrating urgency and efficiency earns …

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What’s Your Return on Customer Service?

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet Increasing activity with current customers is still the most productive, profitable means of boosting sales revenue. And the service level experienced by the customer is a core driver of this increased activity. In today’s market, access to information is so effortless that many products are seen as commodities and the life cycle of a technical competitive advantage is a long weekend. Providing exceptional service, that saves your customer time and money, …

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Inspiring Initiative

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Bob Schultek Author of  The Gauntlet Leaders are change agents – they are expected to drive productive change that improves results.  There are always processes to be improved and problems to be solved. And since their people are busy doing their jobs, leaders require an investment of additional time and energy from their team to pursue change. This is a commitment that cannot be compelled; it’s an investment of discretionary initiative that can only be inspired. Inspiration …

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Ideas Don’t Drive Change

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet We are bombarded with new ideas from all directions. Some are fascinating enough to capture our attention, but usually, they don’t motivate us to change. Our customers share this experience. What does drive customers to consider change is when clearly proposed benefits generated by ideas, products and services go beyond fulfilling a need, to helping achieve a goal. Making the effort to discover why meeting a need is important, how …

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