People Management - how to avoid Kids Club

I was speaking with a colleague who has recently been promoted to management, and after a rough week he broke and declared - It feels like I am running a kids club!

Ironically my advice to him is probably just as relevant for kids as it is for sales teams. 

There was more to it then what I am going to share, but I thought there were two points that apply to almost every situation:

Treat them like adults

Make sure you're treating them like adults and not children - If you stand over their shoulder, micro manage and show a lack of trust, then they will reflect that in the way they act and respond to you.

Empower them to conduct their roles with autonomy (ensuring they operate with required systems and process) and give them the responsibility of meeting mutually agreed targets.

Adults tend to act more like adults when they are treated as such. 

Keep them busy 

Make sure they're busy, idle hands are restless and will often look for distractions and people to join them in their quest for entertainment (distracting others who may well be busy).

However there is a caveat to this one, make sure its productive / engaging work. Most sales people (employees) want to feel like the work they are doing has value, work for the sake of work will just make staff feel like you don't trust them enough to do something of value and then you can refer back to point number 1.

I would love to hear you thoughts, comments or abuse?

Image courtesy of Stuar Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Call Tracking

Within an increasing competitive economic environment the focus on campaign optimisation and realising a more accurate ROI (Return On Investment) from your marketing activity, has never been more acute. 

Call tracking is a hugely valuable piece of this puzzle and one that is largely underutilised. So for this post I thought I would address the basics and introduce you to call tracking in its simplest form.

What is Call Tracking?

In simple terms, call tracking is the ability to trace phone calls back to the person who initiated the call, as well as the relevant advertising channel that prompted this call.

How does it work?

Call tracking works by assigning unique virtual tracking numbers to different advertising sources. Within a traditional media mix this would allow you to identify which medium (TV, Press, Outdoor, Radio etc.) generated a call. Take call tracking online and you can identify calls by campaign, source, medium, conversion page and even back to a keyword level.

Why use Call Tracking?

Call tracking gives you greater marketing transparency and allows you to optimise your marketing activities, by providing reliable, relevant and actionable information on which advertising sources are generating phone leads into your business.

Call tracking is not a Silver bullet; however the phone call is a valuable path to conversion. Understanding how and where calls are generated and having the ability to optimise campaigns based on that information, not only improves the accuracy of your ROI calculations but it can significantly increase the ROI and ultimately help you grow your business. 

If you want to know more Check out http://www.avanser.com.au/

Picture Source: freedigitalphotos - David Castillo Dominici