The Interface Factor - - Profit Pointers=?ISO-8859-1?B?gSAgICA=?= Curriculum, Issue 16

            Christine Harvey is the Author of 6 Business and Leadership Books published in 25 languages by 48 publishers worldwide, including international best seller ‘In Pursuit of Profit.’

(For application of these principles to:  business, real estate, network marketing, personal development, see APPLICATION TIPS below.)

Hi Team -  

Just yesterday I called my bank to speak with the President about an important matter. I was told he was golfing for the day. Next I spoke to the VP and was told that the President was not golfing. He was in fact away for a week, starting yesterday. This is what we call Ineffective Interface Between Departments.

What if I had relied on the first information, and set my whole decision process around being able to talk with him on Monday? I would have been an unhappy customer.

Have you ever faced a situation in buying a product or service – upon buying it, the sales person told you one thing and after the fact, the service department told you something different?

If so, what was your reaction to the company? Not good usually.  

Yet both parties might have been acting on good faith.

Again we have - Ineffective Interface Between Departments. Perhaps the manufacturing side has discontinued a product and the sales department was never told. Or the delivery department has a backlog, and your promised delivery date slips. It could be caused by conflicting policies between different departments.

But it could be caused by something else – and that’s the way people relate to each other. Yesterday I had the pleasure of hearing about a system called ‘Empathy Styles.’ It talks about how each of us have natural ways of communicating and behaving that fall into 7 basic styles. It shows how we react to people who are like us and how we react to people who are unlike us - and how conflicts and understanding are affected. I was amazed at how well the trainers of this system were able to pick up clues about people’s style by simply observing them - and know instantly how to best relate to them. The application to improving sales, management, hiring and team building is enormous. If you want more information on this, let me know.

In my book, ‘In Pursuit of Profit,’ I tell about how managers solve problems in communication and interface between departments. Some give sales training to their non- sales folks so that they could appreciate the complexities of sales. Others acknowledge the back office people and make them feel part of the sales team. One manager overcame it by holding weekly meetings followed by socials with several departments, and took sales from $150,000 to $15,000,000 over a seven year period.

3 MINUTE ACTION TIP: To dramatically increase your sales, think of ways to create successful interface between departments. Find out what’s needed. Will it be sales training, communication training, acknowledgement – or what? (When you do, your sales could increase 100 fold as in the example above!)

APPLICATION TIPS:

Business and sales, USE THIS ACTION TIP between departments to increase sales, productivity and harmony.

Real estate, USE THIS ACTION TIP with your assistant, team members and yourself to improve results.

Network marketing, USE THIS ACTION TIP with your team members and yourself to improve recruitment by leaps and bounds.

Personal/ leadership development, USE THIS ACTION TIP with all new contacts to improve your image.

REFERENCE RESOURCE: Chapter 11, Pages 103-110,  In Pursuit of Profit, by Christine Harvey - an international best selling training tool, used by corporations around the world to improve results instantly.

About the Author:

Christine Harvey was the first woman and first American elected to Chair a London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, where a business start-up initiative was launched with Prince Charles. She also served as Director on the International Board of Zonta, with 36,000 members in 62 countries and Margaret Thatcher as honorary member, as well as two venture capitol boards – one in the UK and one in the US.

She is the author of six international marketing and leadership books now published in 25 languages by 48 publishers, including ‘In Pursuit of Profit.’

She has been a lecturer at the Institute of Directors in London, and her company has trained over 100,000 people in management in Europe, America, Australia and Asia. She was honored by addressing the Parliament of Czechoslovakia on the subject of Privatization of Industry, and the Parliament of Rwanda on Policy for the Growth of Private Industry, and has been consulted by the media in numerous countries.