- Key insight: We are more technology driven than ever. Yet the importance of people who build relationships, make friends and serve their communities has only increased.
- What's at stake: Too many organizations seem to believe they can do all the thinking for the people closest to the customer. But if sales managers attempt to take all reasoning and thinking out of a job, you'll get employees who stop reasoning or thinking.
- Forward look: Make roles clear, understandable and give people room to think. Do that, and you'll empower them to thrive in any era.
I recently took on a home office project I had been putting off for years.
While doing it, I was reminded of how much our industry has changed, but how some
Like many people who have been fortunate enough to work with and for a variety of organizations over several decades, I've accumulated a lot of … uh … stuff.
We are having the flooring in our home replaced, and it's my responsibility to have my office space "accessible" for the crew. When I mentioned it to a retired business executive friend, he offered some good advice … that I did not heed.
He said, "Don't start reading any of the old things you find in that time capsule. You'll never finish." Alas, I couldn't resist. I wanted to see what treasures I had deemed worthy of labels such as "Important" and "Don't Throw Out."
The walk-in closet of my home office was filled with boxes and crates containing reams of paper, hundreds of business cards, and mountains of sales and customer service training manuals.
I found nondisclosure agreements with banks and on projects I completely forgot I worked on. So, I feel confident I have obeyed the terms of those documents.
I also found more
But it was the notes and observations I made throughout the years on stacks of yellow pads that had me sitting on the office floor reading instead of completing my assigned task.
One set of notes, in particular, had me smiling and reflecting on how I believe some things are as true today as they were back when Palm Pilots ruled the world.
I had been pulled in to work with a Canadian-based bank that was entering the U.S. market. One very large container in the corner of the closet held about a hundred pounds of 3-ring binders.
I'm guessing part of my nondisclosure agreement was that I not distribute the training manuals for the managers they hired.
If any of those folks are reading this, rest easy. I apparently honored the agreement.
And while I realize that the beloved 3-ring binders were the official training material format of the time, the sheer weight and volume of it all stunned me.
I remember needing small dollies to transport training materials to numerous banks "back in the day."
Anthropic's head of banking told New York Banking Summit attendees that the future is agents that operate autonomously alongside employees.
On one of my notepads, I had written and circled (so I apparently thought it was important), "Your customer service and sales strategies should look more like the directions on a bottle of shampoo than the instruction manual on a VCR."
If you were around when VCRs ruled the world, you get that reference. If not, Google it. Or Chat or Grok it. Whatever.
My point was that we needed to break things down to easily understandable and repeatable behaviors. When we give people too many edicts, we do not empower them. We stifle them.
Going through those notes, I remembered being a folk hero to the people tasked with building the business and something of an annoyance to the "strategists" at headquarters.
Too many organizations seem to believe they can do all the thinking for the people closest to the customer. It was at that time that I first began speaking about the fact that if you attempt to take all reasoning and thinking out of a job, you'll get employees who stop reasoning or thinking.
Back in the Mesozoic Era, I first coined and began using the phrase, "Make a friend, make a customer."
To be honest, it was originally just a holding title for a section of a manual until I could think of something better. I couldn't and the deadline to roll it out arrived.
To my pleasant surprise, that phrase quickly became the most frequently cited comment in participant reviews. It helped take much of the intimidation out of
Many struggled with the concept of asking probing questions, overcoming objections and driving a sales process.
But they intuitively understood that "making friends" required meeting people, listening, engaging in conversation, showing interest, behaving in a manner that made people want to be their friend, etc.
And here we are today.
Our tools and technology have changed. Our 3-ring binders have become PDFs and intranet sites. Palm Pilots have become smartphones.
We are more technology driven than ever. Yet the importance of people who build relationships, make friends and serve their communities has only increased.
Make their roles clear. Make them understandable. Give people room to think.
Do that, and you'll empower them to thrive in any era.
