Relationship Of Financial Management to Other Organisational Services
The financial management of a company is the very core of business as it brings the past, present, and future together. Organisations that are poorly managed in the financial area impact every other department from marketing to credit and collections. All eyes in the company must turn to the numbers at some point and all financial managers must develop the ability to communicate essential financial information in a way that makes it useful for decision making.
The financial dynamics of an organisation can be complex and impact every function of a business. Marketing can only build a campaign based on an allotted budget. Managers can only give salary increases to staff if the company is earning enough profit. Obtaining organisational credit relies on sound financial performance. Adequately outfitting a business with appropriate levels of management, staff, and operating resources relies on the company being financially successful.
Presenting…the Finances!
When you think about presentation skills, it’s normal to first look to the sales department meeting with customers or the call centre taking client calls or even debt collectors contacting clients. But financial management also requires developing presentation skills because financial managers must be able to present relevant information that leads to sound decision making.
Role of Management in Building Sales Through Accounts Control
Management plays a critical role in building sales through accounts control. One of the best strategies which can be employed to increase the bottom line is to improve the quality of the effort put into the management of accounts. Quality accounts control is concerned with building a sales organisation around the customer’s needs as opposed to attempting to sell products or services which are developed independent of the customer.
This may sound fairly obvious in the reading, but becoming a customer focused business requires that everyone within the organisation commits to the vision of customer satisfaction. From the executive office to the line employee working in a call centre, there must be a mission driven focus on the customer. In other words, after any contact with your business, the customer should come away with a sense the company has a pervasive interest in the satisfaction of the customers’ desires and will do what is necessary to achieve that goal.
One of the areas where a business has a clear opportunity to manage its customer relations in order to build sales is through accounts control. This is true for all businesses including those responsible for debt collection.
In the Business of Quality
Selling as a Component of a Marketing Plan
When you cut right to the chase, the point of marketing is to generate sales leading to income and eventually profits. Knowing this you would think all companies would focus on the interactions between company staff and customers because, as they say, customers are the lifeblood of the business. Without customers and sales, there is simply no business.
All too often organisations see selling as the responsibility of the sales department or the telemarketing centre, and everyone else working for the business is in a strictly supportive role. This is an unfortunate viewpoint that can limit the ability of the organisation to grow and thrive. Selling is an integral component of a marketing plan which covers everything from direct customer contact to customer service.
What is important to realise is the fact customer service is a function of every single department within the organisation. For example, in the finance or credit departments, employees frequently talk to customers on the phone or communicate through email concerning payments on accounts. How efficiently and productively the communication is handled can have a direct bearing on whether that customer ever does business with the company again.
From that perspective, the accounts receivable clerk is a sales person when she discusses a past due amount on a bill. Senior management are sales persons every time they attend a professional meeting. The examples could go on and on. Each contact a member of the organisation has outside the business is a form of a “sales call”.
Using Presentation Skills to Close a Sale
How do you measure whether a presentation is successful? This is not a riddle, because the answer is obvious. A successful presentation leads to a customer sale. The words “closed sale” hold a certain magic in the business world, because they mean a person or business has decided a product or service your company sells will meet a particular need.
But for the sales person there is also a personal success element that makes the words “closed sale” even more spectacular. But it can be a long difficult road from initial contact to the final agreement if the presentation is not handled correctly.
A sales presentation is obviously a method used to convince a prospective customer to become a buying customer. But presentation skills are used in a variety of circumstances.
• Telephone sales presentation
• Group presentation
• One on one personal selling
Developing Telemarketing Skills
Anyone can get on a phone and read a sales script…right? Unfortunately that is a tremendously oversimplified approach to one of the most powerful marketing tools available to a company. Telemarketing is a comprehensive concept which addresses call centre activities and every phone call between employees and customers.
In other words, telemarketing is a marketing concept that encompasses customer service and customer relationships in order to build a market responsive company. Telemarketing concepts applied properly can lead to increased sales, increased customer retention, a steady influx of new customers, and more profits.
Companies that approach telemarketing as strictly cold calling sales are missing an opportunity to use the contacts as a foundation for building a strong marketing program.
Yes, it’s true that anyone can get on a phone and read a sales script. But if the employee has no commitment to the company vision, the call will be simply a telephone call and not a marketing call. This is an important distinction and it takes call centre training and sales coaching that begin with a foundation composed of the mission of the company.
How to Promote Teamwork Within an Organisation
It’s easy to assign people to a particular team, but how do you actually get those people to operate as a team that works towards a common goal? Volumes could be written on this subject simply because each team creates its own unique dynamics. Channelling those dynamics in a way that leads to success in meeting goals is a challenge best met through team development activities.
How do you build an effective team? It begins by building team member participation in the vision of the company which is then moulded into team participation. A team member must feel committed, empowered and able to use a particular expertise in a way that promotes team goals.
Promoting teamwork within an organisation requires that certain critical issues be addressed first in order to give members the information and desire to commit to the team. One of the biggest problems organisations experience with teams is the inability of team members to understand how the success of the team will play an important role in the success of the company.
Teamwork is promoted by developing the following.
Customer Service Can Differentiate a Company in a Competitive Environment
Customer service is a lot more than just giving service. That may sound odd at first, but customer service is not just an act of doing something a customer has requested. True service is a marketing strategy which can differentiate a company in a competitive environment. It is a way to create quality within the company which leads to new customers and higher customer retention.
When you talk about customer service, it may be tempting to focus primarily only on what has been defined in your company manual. As a manager, you teach your staff the procedures and then spend your time insuring they are followed. The problem is this is not quality service which necessarily benefits the customer or the company.
You can think of it in this manner. Your manual may dictate when a customer can return a product and how the staff is to handle the request. But simply processing the return of the product does not necessarily tell you why the customer wants to return it, how the product could be enhanced so the customer would not want to return it, nor whether the customer was satisfied with the return process.
In a successful company, customer service is much more than a set of actions. It is a focus on the customer and what the customer wants in the way of service. In other words, the customer defines customer service. This looks at customer service from the viewpoint of the customer and not from management. Customer service desires should flow upward to the company and then downward as a management response to customer needs.
The Importance of Understanding Conflict Resolution
Conflict exists throughout environments of all kinds. In the workplace, no matter how much you attempt to avoid it, if you work with people the chances are you will have to deal with conflict at some point. People coming from different viewpoints and experiences, and having different perceptions, are not going to agree all the time.
Here is the interesting fact about conflict. Some people see it as completely negative while others respond as if conflict is an obstacle that actually presents new opportunities for improvement. The two views of conflict are worlds apart which means the responses to the conflict will be just as different.
Unfortunately, viewing conflict as only an impediment usually results in dictator type responses on the part of management. And anyone who has worked for a manager who issues dictates without getting input knows that style of management frequently generates even more conflict. The truth is that your view of conflict drives your response to it and has a direct bearing on how well the conflict is resolved.
Developing Great Leaders Able to Resolve Obstacles
Transformation Through Training
Words can be very powerful as everyone knows. They have moved nations to war and encouraged the discouraged. Words can also be transformational and that is the purpose of the words used in a company training program. The words are meant to transform company managers and staff into leaders who can help insure the success of the company.
These are not just buzz words which are meant to be read and forgotten. The transformational words used in a training session lead to the development of additional effective word use throughout the organization. Managers learn to use words to empower staff. Staff use words to create customer loyalty.
The flow of words through the organization can move departments to be cooperative or they can create divisiveness. Words can inspire employees or wound customers. The assembly of words can create a highly effective organisation able to handle change in a productive way.
Business training uses words that inspire individuals to develop their talents, makes strategic planning possible, addresses complex customer issues, and improves overall company productivity. The best words spoken are spoken right in the business too. On-site training only makes sense, because people can learn and implement training concepts in the company where current fortunes lie and future possibilities are developed.
Personalising the Company Vision
It is possible to identify a company where managers and staff have not been adequately trained and have not developed their leadership qualities. In a company such as the one just described, personnel make individual decisions without regard for how it impacts the ability of the company to fulfil its corporate vision.
For example, the person working in the call centre does not care if a customer is permanently lost as long as he or she collects their pay check. The managers in charge of the customer service departments care only about instituting procedures which decrease departmental workloads without regard to how those procedures affect the sales departments.
In other words, departments and people work independently of the company vision or mission. Through an effective staff training program, you can change these attitudes and develop the leadership abilities people possess while also showing them ways to apply those abilities in the support of the business mission. This difference in approach by managers and staff can lead to:
- More unified organisational personnel structure
- More satisfied personnel able to use their skills
- Increase in customer conversion rates and sales through better customer service
- Increased profits
- Increased customer retention