value Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Dennis E. Gilbert

11
Feb 20
-

Better Service Is Typically Not Cheaper

Tags : leadership marketing price quality value

Are you prepared to deliver better service? In your workplace, at your job, for the customer, or because you care?

It sometimes appears that everyone is dumbing things down.

Does it make sense? If it does, for whom?

Doing It Cheaper

Why send a direct mail piece when you can send an email? Why walk into the grocery store when you can order ahead and pick it up at the curb? No need for a face-to-face meeting, let’s stay in our offices or cubicles and meet through technology.

Is less expensive better?

On the flip side, someone is always looking for the expensive car, the high priced bottle of wine, or a pair of shoes with a red sole.

When is better, better, and cheaper, cheaper?

The answer is pretty easy, “Always.”

For your commute to work you may not need the most expensive car. A nice tasting wine may not necessarily come with the highest price tag. And, there is a good chance you can make a great impression around the office without wearing Louboutin.

While all three may be great and make you feel like a million bucks (literally) they are not a requirement.

Better Service

There is a difference when you get to the bottom though. The cheapest of the cheapest feels, well, cheap.

We wonder why there is so much frustration with the tech support hotline. We wonder why the burger just doesn’t taste like a burger. For the business, they wonder why no quality candidates will apply for their job opportunities.

The answer is simple.

Some things are good enough and some things are better.

The lowest price is probably the wrong option.

The cheapest will always be the cheapest.

Every time.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

21
May 19
-

Workforce Learning, it Sticks and Grows

Tags : culture growth people value workforce learning

It is all about culture. At least that is what most experts will say. Does building your organization have anything to do with workforce learning?

A couple of entrepreneurs get together and start a company. A few years later and they have a company of fifty or one hundred. And so the organization is growing, or so it appears.

What is creating the culture?

Culture and Change

Growth means change and change means learning. “Go get buy-in. Get everyone bought-in.” the CEO requests.

Yet many people struggle to understand how buy-in is achieved. Shouting about buy-in may disrupt the flow, yet getting traction often requires something different.

Marketing, advertising, and selling matter, they help spread the idea. Yet adoption of the idea may still require a different approach.

Difference Makers

Every day there is a person who sings in the shower. A person who paints a picture, and a person who demonstrates great leadership around the workplace.

Yet, the shower singer may not become an Elvis Presley, Whitney Houston, or Mariah Carey. The picture painter may not become as well known as Michelangelo, Rembrandt, or Picasso. And the workplace leader may never make it to the C-Suite.

However, each one of these people bring something forward. The extent of their interactions may make a difference for someone’s day or even positively change a life, or two, or three. They help others learn, grow, and perhaps identify with a culture.

Workforce Learning

Organizational culture is made up of many things. Mostly, things that are driven by people. People who share with other people.

Buy-in is created by shared experiences. People who participate together build it together. It catches on, and it sticks. It has value and no one wants wasted effort.

Workforce learning helps people decide how they’ll shape the culture. When they discover value, they share it and then suggest that their friends try it too.

They’re bought-in, it sticks, and it grows.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

27
Feb 19
-

The Value of a Deteriorating Image

Tags : brand deteriorating image rusty value

If you are in marketing or advertising you have a keen sense of brand value. If you run a business, lead a department or team, or are building a career, you should care about brand. Do you have a deteriorating image or brand?

Building your brand sometimes happens without realizing it. In some circles we may label this an image. What is your image? Have you thought about this lately?

Image Builders

If you’ve watched a few minutes of American Pickers on the History channel you may have heard Mike Wolfe talk about rusty gold. He likes old things. Things that have been used, worn, and maybe with a little rust.

Not so long ago, denim blue jeans with holes were popular. Stone-washed was, or is, the popular label for jeans that appear to have heavy wear.

A new expensive car is nice. Is there any value to one that appears to be in decent operating condition yet notably old or with heavy wear?

Is brand really about taste? Our preference for something that defines an image?

Deteriorating Image

Winter months in the Northeastern United States can be brutally damaging to our homes and vehicles. My vehicles are an integral part of how I do business.

I drive a rusty twenty-year-old Tahoe in the winter, yet, I have a nice car that is mostly only driven in fair weather. Showing up at a 5-star hotel for an event and tossing the keys of a rusty old Tahoe to the valet probably doesn’t have the image of success.

Should it matter? Well, that may be a good question. The brutal truth is, it does.

Regarding your business, your workplace department, or even your personal brand, image matters. Your brand success will depend largely on the feeling you create with those you are trying to attract.

It may be that there is a certain appeal to rusty gold, stone-washed, or old school.

Sometimes a hard-used image creates appreciation and value. It is the alternative to hardly used.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

14
Feb 19
-

The Dreaded Performance Review

Tags : mission motivation performance review purpose value

Performance evaluations and reviews are a special opportunity in the workplace. Are they clouded with inappropriate feedback? Are you about to receive the dreaded performance review?

Golden Rules

There are a few golden rules. Sadly, many supervisors don’t have adequate training or preparation to create a scenario where the review helps, not hurts, future employee performance.

Some of the rules are simple. The review should not be about a opportunity to blast the employee for poor performance or shortcomings on goals and objectives.

If this is an annual or semi-annual review those shortcomings should have been addressed long ago.

However, the review should be about goals and objectives. It should include meaningful and valuable goals that are directly connected to the larger organizational mission.

The Agony

Why do people dread performance reviews?

There are probably at least several reasons. Here are a few:

They’ve had a bad experience in the past.
The team is chattering about upcoming reviews and citing how terrible that day will be.
There is little or no understanding of the real purpose of the review so they see no value.
Setting goals and objectives makes them accountable to change.
Their supervisor has identified that reviews are a meaningless waste of time.

You get the picture. One or more of these characteristics have plagued or undermined the true purpose and value associated with performance reviews in many organizations.

Dreaded Performance Review

If you are a supervisor you have a responsibility. You should also have a commitment to the success of every member of the team. Future employee motivation is likely directly connected to the successful performance review.

Consider that your team will react to their review. One way or another. Do you want the next six to twelve months to show positive performance improvement?

Above all, the success (or not) of everyone will largely be based on what happens next.

-DEG

Do you need help with creating a positive culture and experience connected to the employee performance review? Contact me.

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

21
Dec 18
-

Are You Gaining or Destroying Market Attention?

Tags : attention customers market value

Every time I login, I get a pop-up flash sale. When I attempt to exit, I get a different pop-up. At the networking event someone pushes the sale of a ticket. The TV commercial shows misery and asks for money. Is this helping with market attention or pushing it away?

Most people will enter your website with curiosity first. An “order now” pop-up is painful before I’ve had a chance to view the menu.

We don’t like telephone calls from someone we don’t already know.

We shy away from non-profits, even those that we share a purpose with because we’re afraid of being guilted into something more.

Although the intent is to improve, what we sometimes call marketing is driving down or driving away business.

Market Attention

There are a few simple rules for navigating market attention:

Don’t assume or treat everyone the same. Repeat buyers are different from new contacts.
Attempting to create a feeling of guilt with your base is the quickest way to weaken your relationship.
Understand that diminishing attention means your value proposition is less attractive than it once was.
Hitting your base (tribe, customers, members) harder and expecting linear (or greater) results is almost always a fallacy.
Respect and reward those with the energy to engage, as much as or more than what you offer potential new customers.

Gain More

Your market is built on trust and emotion. Certainly, fairness and value are part of that process. Gouging your market is a turn off. So is the repeated invitation to subscribe when you already have.

Attempts to gain market attention and increase your base are sometimes doing the opposite.

Two steps forward, two steps back, doesn’t get you very far.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

02
Oct 18
-

Why You Should Be a Standout Sensation

Tags : best fit confidence innovation standout value

Often the goal is to fit in. The successful job applicant is largely successful because they’ve convinced the hiring organization that they are the best fit. Is this the correct logic or should you be a little different? Should you be a standout sensation?

We’re not going to easily rewrite the golden rules of job applicant success. I’m not even sure we should. However, sometimes what moves us forward is not being the best fit, it is being different.

Does Different Sell?

I’m not suggesting different such as purple hair, or different such as violating every societal trend, or even different such as refusing to adapt and normalize with appropriate etiquette. Not at all.

What about being different by being a standout sensation? Does this sell? Is it valuable? Yes.

What has contributed to Zappos success? Being a standout sensation in the art of customer service.

What about Amazon, eBay, or Apple products? Whether you are a fan or not, whether you agree or not, something makes them stand out.

It is hard to get noticed in a crowd of average. It is hard to be selected when the perception of value that you bring is just like everyone else.

In nearly everything that we do, the difference may be in the testimonial, it may be in the recommendation, and in a connection economy it may be your activity within the group. Any or all of these may lead to an opportunity to stand out.

Standout Sensation

Sitting in the dark corner all dressed up at the prom is safer than busting it out on the dance floor. Until Footloose changed the perspective.

You can struggle with positioning and hide away with fear. The fear of fitting in, being accepted, or being chosen.

The alternative is putting in the extra effort, the practice, and the risk of innovation to become a standout sensation.

One will get your somewhere, the other is just part of the crowd.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

27
Sep 18
-

Great Value Is More Meaningful Than Price

Tags : cost leadership price training value

We know better, but we still do it. Every time we are about to make a big purchase we excruciatingly get stuck on the price. Great value is what we should really be assessing.

We may grab a snack from the convenience store, a coffee at the trendy shop, or feed a dollar or two into the vending machine and think nothing of it. Bigger ticket items often cause us to pause.

Value In Action

Yesterday, I joked with some friends on social media about buying a new Range Rover. The most consistent part of several threads across a couple of days was price.

Price can be an easy way of saying “no.” Why is that so easy? Often because no one is considering the value.

What are you or your organization buying? What are the big-ticket items that have your attention? How will you prepare your personal or departmental budget for the coming year?

Price, although often negotiable, is very apparent. We see the numbers and analyze the fit. Is it affordable? Will it work?

The CFO or your CPA may choose some deeper analysis. What is the anticipated life, the costs associated with ownership, and what will it do, if anything, to the balance sheet? Smart people.

Great Value

All these things matter, but many of them are more connected with price than value. Is value important?

Truly the Range Rover should be about value. The purchase of a personal computing device should be about value. Our home, our furniture, about value.

In the workplace when we bring on a new employee, about value. When we invest in employee training and development, about value. That large capital equipment purchase, it should be about value.

Beyond the technical or mechanical evaluation of price, there is often the intangible part of value.

One thing is certain. Be cautious of low price, it is often not connected with great value.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

10
Sep 18
-

Balancing Customer Service or Tipping The Scale

Tags : appreciation balancing customer service motivation value

People often suggest that most things in life require balance. Are you balancing customer service? Does the harsh outweigh the delight?

Doing your best work matters. Doing your best work and being recognized for it may feel like it matters even more. What happens when your best work is criticized?

Show Appreciation

Every day employees, business owners, and people helping other people try hard to create satisfaction.

When a compliment is received, it feels pretty good. A referral, a handwritten note, a smile, a nod, or even an email can make a difference for your day, perhaps your week. If it is really great, it may last a lifetime.

We tend to welcome comments and gestures of appreciation. Without much thought we accept the gratitude, grow through it, and work hard for more.

It makes the effort feel worthwhile. Justifies the labor and is satisfying.

No Appreciation

The other side of the coin is when we put in the labor without recognition. When we hold the door, give the smile, and lend a hand and no appreciation is shown. Nothing recognized, no gestures, and no take away.

It happens when people are judged. When biases lead the conversations, and when what is done well or done right is what was expected and for that, no gratitude.

When the extra effort, or even the required effort goes unnoticed, unrecognized, and underappreciated it feels like our work lacks value. A lack of value makes us question the reasons for the work in the first place. No appreciation, no reason to do the work.

Balancing Customer Service

Lack of appreciation is a deal breaker. It can ruin the moment, the day, and leave a lasting undesirable impression. Good news travels fast, but bad news often travels faster.

For everyone that you serve and for everyone that is serving you, is there balance? Are you balancing customer service efforts? Internal or external, are you providing motivation or disengagement?

If you’re going to tip the scale, tip it by providing more value. It’s appreciated.

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a five-time author and some of his work includes, #CustServ The Customer Service Culture, and Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

08
Aug 18
-

Constructive Contributions Are Valuable In The Workplace

Tags : communication contributions listening risk value

Conditioning plays a role in much of what we do. As children or young adults many have learned to keep quiet, to not say anything, and just sit back and observe. However, it is constructive contributions that will have an impact on your future.

Speak Up, Listen, Contribute

Many people are afraid to speak up. It may be from ridicule, from the risk of being wrong, or because past experience has taught us it is safer without comment.

There is value in listening more, and many people should practice better listening, but what things are going unsaid?

How many times have you sat in the meeting with a thought on your mind but you failed to share it? How many times could the lost sale, lost client, or lousy performance have been prevented?

Measuring Risk

The value of constructive contributions is very high but like many high value items it is often very rare.

People often measure risk in the wrong way. What is riskier, speaking up, or watching the team go down the wrong path?

It may be alarming the number of times that things go unsaid. Of course, sometimes inaction may be the right action. How do you know what to do?

Constructive Contributions

When you paraphrase, you often increase understanding and limit miscommunication. What is the risk or the harm? Little or none.

When you build on others ideas for the benefit of the decision, there is little effort wasted and the quality of the decision improves. You also invite future contributions.

When you take a chance, leap, and risk with thoughtful, constructive contributions, you may change the outcome. You may invent something new, better, or appropriately encourage redesign.

The best job security, the highest probability for a promotion, and the insurance of a future for your organization may exist through constructive contributions.

While there may be some risk, the value is great.

Ante up.

-DEG

Originally posted on August 8, 2018, last updated on November 24, 2019.

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

26
Jul 18
-

How To Measure Productivity Through Metrics

Tags : busy measurement metrics productivity value

Overwhelmed, too busy, and unsure of exactly how to save yourself? Join the crowd. People everywhere are concerned about improving personal efficiency. How you measure productivity is a good place to start.

Metrics

Most measurement begins with metrics. In our digital world personal productivity often includes metrics centered around email processing. Ask someone how busy they are and chances are good that their inbox will enter the conversation.

Doing whatever pops up and identifying that you are busy may be a fact. However, you shouldn’t confuse the fact that you are busy with productivity.

I had to process over one hundred new email messages.

My boss sent me six new to-do’s in the last half-hour.

I didn’t have time to answer your message, I had to process three days of backlogged email.

When helping businesses form strategy I often suggest that many individuals and businesses can get caught up in “firefighting.” This is a tactical approach to solving problems which can slowly erode strategy.

Metrics, such as the number of email messages processed may be valid, but don’t make the mistake of confusing metrics and measurements with productivity.

Keeping Busy

Proving that we have a lot of motion and that we are busy should never become a metric.

The digital relationship builder can amass new social media friends, connections, views, clicks, likes, and shares but that doesn’t necessary mean that they’ve built a single new relationship. The numbers are there. Is the relationship?

We can make metrics improve which will cause busy work, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve created progress or value.

Measure Productivity

Often the most confusing part about strategy is understanding the difference between tactics and goals. Seldom is there a need to make executing a tactic a goal. That is more about motivation rather than strategy.

There is a related concept to measuring productivity. Many people believe being busy is a measurement of accomplishment, thus being better at being busy means improved productivity. It could, but often it is just busier.

Do you really want to measure productivity? You can start by measuring the value of the outputs from all of the work that you do.

Keep in mind that metric improvement may be a fact, but did you create any real value?

-DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

Tag Archives: value

Feb 20

-

Doing It Cheaper

Better Service

May 19

-

Culture and Change

Difference Makers

Workforce Learning

Feb 19

-

Image Builders

Deteriorating Image

Feb 19

-

Golden Rules

The Agony

Dreaded Performance Review

Dec 18

-

Market Attention

Gain More

Oct 18

-

Does Different Sell?

Standout Sensation

Sep 18

-

Value In Action

Great Value

Sep 18

-

Show Appreciation

No Appreciation

Balancing Customer Service

Aug 18

-

Speak Up, Listen, Contribute

Measuring Risk

Constructive Contributions

Jul 18

-

Metrics

Keeping Busy

Measure Productivity

Search This Website

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Blog (Filter) Categories

Follow me on Twitter

Assessment Services and Tools

Recent Posts

Email Signup

Subscribe to newsletter

Contact Info