Month: June 2022

5 reasons why mentoring is critical to leadership development

by d2admin

Cultivating future leadership from within is a growing trend in many businesses. It’s great for ensuring the long-term stability of the business because existing leaders won’t be around forever. How to grow your own leaders from within requires mentorship and here are the five reasons why.

1.  More and more workers are expecting mentorship

As millennial employees and the generations that follow are beginning to represent larger portions of the workforce, studies show that they are seeking greater mentorship from their employers. The Huffington Post has reported that 79% of the millennial workforce see mentoring as critical to their workplace success. Research by Deloitte has suggested that millennial workers who intend to stay with an organisation for more than five years are twice as likely to have a mentor than not.

Employers should recognise this as a good sign. It shows that those entering the workforce are hungry to excel in their roles and believe in staying with the business long term if they are given the opportunity to develop.

2.  Mentorship grows a stronger internal talent pool

For many employees, the level of mentorship will determine how long they intend to stay with the business. Further research by Deloitte has revealed that 43% of millennial workers plan on quitting their current job within two years. Let’s not let the terminology blind us from the facts – the millennial generation represents a significant portion of the workforce. Employers should begin to consider how they can satisfy the demand for increased mentorship. Not only will this stabilise workforce retention and reduce the cost procuring external talent, it will provide a stronger talent pool for future leadership.

There is in fact stronger demand on leadership to confidently navigate businesses through disruption. Evolving technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, changing customer demands, globalization and now nationalism are all disruptive factors that pose a risk to businesses today. Mentoring will be critical to ensuring those who understand these growing challenges also understand how to lead effectively.

3.  Mentors can see what others can’t

BLT’s latest research on UK leadership training programmes uncovers a divide between HR and line managers when it comes to taking ownership of leadership development.A mentor will give the business greater visibility of how and where those taking part in development programmes can improve. Line managers might not get this visibility and HR certainly won’t as they have limited face time with each person. Most importantly, the mentor can communicate this back to those undergoing development, making sure the feedback is constructive and that achievements are highlighted too.

4.  Mentors facilitate strong relationships across the business

Mentors are more than role models. When they recognise the areas where people need support, they can connect them with others in the organisation who are experts in the relevant subject area and can provide the support required. Relationships build from these connections and these relationships will be important to continued development over time. Strong leadership relies on strong relationships, so by the time people reach the point where they’re ready to take up the leadership mantle, many of those relationships will be in place within the organisation.

5.  Mentors can continue to grow through mentoring

While it’s obvious that business and the individuals undergoing development will benefit from mentorship, it’s easy to overlook the fact that there are many benefits for mentors too. For someone who’s been in the organisation for a while, the opportunity to become a mentor can be energising, re-igniting the individual’s engagement in the business and creating a stronger sense of value through the impact they’re having on the business.

Mentoring others can build confidence and help individuals learn more about themselves as well as increasing their own skillset. Ultimately mentoring presents an opportunity to create a legacy within the organisation which can be passed down as mentees become mentors, providing the business with a consistent supply of strong, homegrown leadership on demand.

5 cutting edge behaviours that enhance sales performance

by d2admin

Successful selling requires a certain set of behaviours, but those behaviours are constantly evolving. As new sales challenges and new developments emerge, salespeople must adapt or face losing out to competitors that have understood and reacted to changing behavioural requirements to support their sales strategies.

It’s important that companies communicate the latest behaviours that sales people should be demonstrating and encourage and support them to understand and successfully integrate those behaviours into their daily sales activities when dealing with prospects and customers.

Here are five behaviours that are becoming increasingly relevant in sales:  

1.    Understanding generational differences

Younger generations often get a bad rap from their elders. Take the millennial generation now representing a large percentage of the workforce. Millennials are often criticised for being reliant on technology, constantly glued to their phones and users of dumbed down language and writing. But instead of criticising, salespeople need to embrace and partake in the way younger generations communicate. They need to understand their expectations and see things from their perspective. Different portions of your target market will be represented by different generations. Use social selling to engage with different generations in the way they’re used to engaging with others, demonstrate an understanding of their world view and talk about things from their perspective and you’ll build better business relationships.

2.    Building personal brands

In a world where people concentrate on their online personas almost as much as their real selves, everyone has a personal brand. Businesses need to embrace this as an opportunity and make the most of the tools available, such as social media and thought leadership opportunities, to help build the brands of their salespeople, positioning them as industry experts. In doing so, they can amass an online following where your business can be freely promoted, while your salespeople build reputations of trust and expertise. This also increases the opportunity for engagement with prospects digesting the content that your salespeople are putting out there. Your salespeople don’t need to be skilled writers – the content itself can be created with your marketing team, an agency or a freelancer.

3.    Embracing ‘scary’ tech

Scaremongering headlines often deride technologies that have been developed to make our lives easier. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one such technology that improves efficiency and intuition in the sales process. AI can take over the management of many of the basic, time-consuming tasks that slow down your salespeople, from creating contact lists, logging communications with prospects and generating sales proposals. The market for smart sales tools has exploded and continues to grow. Businesses embracing and implementing these solutions are removing the menial tasks from their sales people’s workloads, enabling them to place a stronger focus on what they’re best at – selling.

4.    Becoming customer centric

When it comes to selling, businesses are becoming increasingly customer-centric. This approach, sometimes referred to as Account Based Selling (ABS) means building a sales strategy around each individual prospect. Each prospect will have its own requirements and its goals that differ from every other prospect. By placing those requirements and goals at the centre of your sales approach and tailoring your offering around them, you will set your business apart from your competitors. Today, prospects have unbridled access to information about the products and services available to them, so a solution that can be carefully tailored to their needs will make your business stand head and shoulders above the one-size-fits-all solutions that are also being offered to them.

5.    Maintaining the human touch

Instilling any new behaviour in your salespeople, your leadership or across the wider business requires a careful blend of self-led study and group-based learning activities. While digital training solutions have become popular for allowing people to fit training around their busy schedules by enabling access to online content and activities where and when it suits them, the human touch is still an important aspect of behavioural training. Blending online self-study with face to face and group learning activities will provide both flexibility but also builds a support system by maintaining the traditional collective element of workplace training.

Embracing these 5 behaviours will enhance your businesses sales activity, but embedding the behaviours successfully will come down to how well you tailor behavioural training to your sales people’s needs. By adopting a blended approach across a sustained learning programme broken down into bitesize learning activities, you can ensure your people thrive in the ever-changing world of sales.