Values-Driven Service Insights and Stories with Alan Williams

Values-Driven Service Insights and Stories with Alan Williams

[00:00:00] Alan Williams: And I think that sales and service are kind of synonymous because if you haven't got the service, you won't get the sale or you won't have it on a sustained basis

[00:00:11] welcome to Sales Made Easy, a podcast or Business and Personal Growth.

[00:00:16] Now, here's your host, Harry

[00:00:18] Harry Spaight: today with me I have Alan Williams who is the founder of Service Brand Global. He helps progressive leaders of service sector organizations internationally and in the UK, across the pond as you , might say, to deliver significantly better business performance. and a service excellence culture through get this values driven organizational alignment.

[00:00:47] Harry Spaight: Values. Yes. Values go a long way in creating value. So Alan Williams, welcome to the Sales Made Easy podcast. What's the good

[00:00:57] Alan Williams: word, sir? Thank you, Harry, for the [00:01:00] invitation. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

[00:01:02] Harry Spaight: Excellent. So Alan, I wanted to touch on that you're an author and you've written a few books.

[00:01:09] Harry Spaight: Can you tell me a little bit about what those books are about? Yeah,

[00:01:13] Alan Williams: sure. So all about values. So the first one is about how do organizations translate their values into the practical daily behavior of employees because If your experience is like mine, you know, you can go into a big flash office and they can have the values etched in the wall at reception.

[00:01:36] Alan Williams: But then if you ask people about them, they haven't got a clue. So that's the first one. Then the second one is. a personal version of the same approach. So this is to help people practically live their values on a day to day basis in the face of a world that is very busy and dynamic and can take us off course and off balance unless [00:02:00] we're consciously practicing what we believe in.

[00:02:03] Alan Williams: And then the third one is called The Values Economy. So it's about how Things are changing and how we're making choices now much more based on what's important to us rather than on a rational, often financial basis, which is what we used to do. So fair trade is a good example, you know, where people are willing to spend.

[00:02:22] Alan Williams: A 30 percent premium, not because of the quality of the product, but because of the way they believe it's got to the shelf and then thinking that's the right way. And then, funny that we're talking about customer service and customer experience, I'm just waiting for the manuscript edit for our next book, which gets published next April.

[00:02:43] Alan Williams: So that's called Supercharging the Customer Experience.

[00:02:46] Harry Spaight: Outstanding. So is that also tied in with the values, thought process as well?

[00:02:52] Alan Williams: Yeah, it is, Harry, because at the end of the day, the customer experience needs to be rooted in the values of the [00:03:00] organization that's providing that service or else it won't feel quite right.

[00:03:04] Alan Williams: So, for instance, if, you know, let me give you a European example. You guys are probably very familiar with a feeling that German people are very organized and efficient, right? So they're famous for their vehicles. And so if you went to a hotel in Germany and it was a little bit cold, not particularly friendly, but it was very efficient, you would think that's, that's fine.

[00:03:30] Alan Williams: That's like, that's what they're like. Whereas if they were all a bit warm and fluffy and friendly, but got your room number wrong and didn't have your reservation, You'd be thinking, am I in the right country? So is this thing about it being rooted in the values of whether it's the organization or the location?

[00:03:47] Harry Spaight: Yeah, 100%. Yeah, makes sense. So one of the things that you and I were chatting about earlier is that well. Values are extremely important, obviously, but they don't always [00:04:00] trickle down to throughout the employees. And you mentioned, you know, having the values on a wall somewhere or laminated, I think, as you're stating better to live on than to have them laminated or something along those lines.

[00:04:13] Harry Spaight: Talk to me about that. How do these values get passed down to everybody or as many people in the organization as possible? Yeah,

[00:04:22] Alan Williams: well, well, first, let me just describe the situation that you allude to, which is all too often. And so, you know, we were talking about the values being on that wall. And so imagine this scenario.

[00:04:36] Alan Williams: Here are our values, words on the wall. There are five of them. And we want all of you employees to go and live them please now. Now with no guidance, don't be surprised that people's behavior is like this, you know, all over the place. And so there are a number of key steps. The first one [00:05:00] is to be very clear about what your values are and to have some form of descriptor.

[00:05:06] Alan Williams: So that people have a bit of a clue more than the word excellence, for instance, and then it's a question of everybody knowing what they are. But the work that I do helps all of the employees to be involved in translating those values into more concrete, observable behaviors. So for instance, if, if we mentioned the value excellence there.

[00:05:36] Alan Williams: If the organization has a value of excellence through a workshop process, it might be identified that a very practical behavior is that we check things one last time, right? That's a really practical, observable behavior that You and I both know whether we've done it at the end of the day, and we know whether each other's done it at the end of [00:06:00] the day as well.

[00:06:01] Alan Williams: And that becomes the way everybody behaves in the organization. And when that's in place, by definition, the value of excellence is being lived. And so the approach I use is called 31 Practices because there are no more than 31 days in a month. Everybody consciously practices one small behavior each day.

[00:06:22] Alan Williams: And the neuroscience of it is that that conscious repeated practice embeds the behavior.

[00:06:28] Harry Spaight: Nice. So these 31 values and practicing them daily, how, how do you know that they're being practiced daily?

[00:06:40] Alan Williams: So the another important part of this, and it's a very practical operational approach. It's not living in human resources or corporate communications, which is often where the value stuff lives.

[00:06:54] Alan Williams: So I, I work to help organization get this right into the guts of the business every [00:07:00] single day. So one of the sessions that we have is with kind of middle management leadership, asking the question. How can we support and reinforce this process of 31 practices? And so the sort of suggestions that come up are, hey, what about if we translate our 31 practices into a question set that we all commit to use when we're hiring people?

[00:07:26] Alan Williams: So in that example of excellence and we check things one last time, if you were interviewing me, you might say, Alan, we believe in excellence here. So can you give me an example of where you've checked something one last time and found how valuable that was? So then you're hiring people like you want rather than having to retrofit them, right?

[00:07:48] Alan Williams: Another example might be that on your email signature block. You have your values specified underneath your name and your title. So people know what the organization stands for. [00:08:00] So this, this whole working session lasts for a half day, and it's about getting the people in the organization to identify those things that you can do that actually support the 31 practices being alive.

[00:08:13] Alan Williams: Connecting it to a recognition program is a really important one.

[00:08:17] Harry Spaight: Hmm. Yeah, I like the sounds of that. I always love recognition. So how does

[00:08:23] Alan Williams: that look? So it's very, very simple, Harry. And again, I think I tend to favor the simple rather than the complicated. And so for me, this is not about hiring a third party to put in place a complex recognition program.

[00:08:40] Alan Williams: All it's about is saying, Guys, we want to celebrate when people are behaving like we've all agreed we should be behaving. And so when you see somebody doing this stuff, these 31 practices, we want you to shout it out. And we want to make everybody aware of that. [00:09:00] And even if it's you. Please feel free to share what you've done.

[00:09:04] Alan Williams: And then we'll have a committee of people that are not the senior leaders in the organization. And every month they will review all of the nominations and they will choose the very best examples. And those people will be put in the spotlight and we're going to celebrate them. That's it. Recognition for me is the best return on investment you can get in business.

[00:09:25] Alan Williams: Wow.

[00:09:26] Harry Spaight: And yeah, that is really, so it's not like a tons of money being thrown at it. Just the simple, maybe a little, there's got, I'm thinking it might be a little gift, some little financial thing going on,

[00:09:39] Alan Williams: but yeah. So, so something but small. And also you've reminded me of one, one business that I was in, I think it was about 10 years ago, I think it was a hundred pounds a month.

[00:09:51] Alan Williams: But we said it's you're not going to get 100 or 100. What we would like you to do is tell us a [00:10:00] gift of that value that you would really like. And we'll buy it for you and present it to you. And when I presented to this guy, he, he worked in the post room and he cried. Wow. You know, he was like, no, nobody, no other organization has done something like this for me.

[00:10:17] Alan Williams: And, and he received that recognition. I think it was because he spotted that somebody's mail was the wrong address and he flagged it up to the right people. So something really very, very simple as well.

[00:10:29] Harry Spaight: Yeah, I mean, this is so good. I'm just thinking about the common thing I've heard over the years in America.

[00:10:38] Harry Spaight: I don't know if it ever happened in the UK, but people say here, that's not my job. I don't get paid to do that. And so they don't frequently don't go the extra kilometer, if you will. Is that similar in the UK.

[00:10:54] Alan Williams: Yeah, it is similar and I think that happens Harry when you focus on the job description too much, which is the [00:11:00] what you want people to do, whereas I tend to focus on the why and the how, and let me share another story with you.

[00:11:06] Alan Williams: So this was in a bank, and we were responsible for the reception services delivery. And we paid a lot of attention to explaining to the ladies and gentlemen on reception that their job was to make our visitors feel good. Right? Mm hmm. Yes, they had to produce a name badge and check them in and all that stuff, but that was just the what.

[00:11:28] Alan Williams: The why, making people feel important, and the how, by being really friendly and complimentary, that's really how you got the job done. So Yeah. This guy was arriving for a very important meeting with the bankers. And he was expected, so his name badge with photograph had been pre prepared. We always used to encourage the reception team to greet people by name before they introduced themselves to create that good first impression as well.

[00:11:56] Alan Williams: But what we hadn't forecasted or couldn't have done... [00:12:00] He had a little terrier dog with him. And so when he approached reception, the receptionist said, and now if you could just lift up your dog in front of the camera, please. And his name is. And produced the name badge, printed it out, the guy walked into the meeting room and the first words he said was some, I'll use a beep, but he said, that was the best beep greeting I've ever had anywhere in the world.

[00:12:24] Alan Williams: And the meeting

[00:12:25] Harry Spaight: went like a dream. Oh, great. Yeah. So you get to bring dogs to meetings in the UK. I mean, what's

[00:12:30] Alan Williams: the

[00:12:31] Alan Williams: deal with that? There's

[00:12:32] Harry Spaight: probably a size limit. I'm thinking my loud dogs will not, will not be able to sit still in a meeting, but yeah, it's a great story. So in the UK, in the U S Alan, a lot of people don't want to work.

[00:12:46] Harry Spaight: I'm hearing this more and more. It's hard to find good people. And so pretty much if someone shows up for an interview and they can fog up a mirror, the shows that they're alive, they're [00:13:00] going to get hired in some jobs, especially sales jobs, because they're hard to fill with this type of thinking around values, work and hiring people in sales.

[00:13:13] Harry Spaight: Do you think.

[00:13:14] Alan Williams: Yeah, I know that it does. So I with the 31 practices approach that I described, I do a report every year, which involves interviews on a group basis on one to one with employees at all different levels. And I was speaking to this one guy who said that he was contacted by a recruiter. Who said, go and you know, there's a job going with this insurance company.

[00:13:39] Alan Williams: Why don't you go and have a, a check it out? He said, well, I'm not really interested in the insurance sector and I've never worked there before. So I'm not sure that I'm so bothered. So the recruiter said, well, you might be because they're really into values and they bang on about how important they are.

[00:13:57] Alan Williams: And what seems to be different about these guys is that. [00:14:00] They've translated them into a set of practices that they actually encourage everybody to live by every day. So he said that made me curious and I came along for the interview and I found out a little bit more and I found out that they were being straight about it.

[00:14:14] Alan Williams: It wasn't some sort of a sham. And I ended up taking the job and I'm here as that's one of the other example I can think of is from the US it was in New York, and this was for a hotel company. And so I said to this group of eight people around the table. What is it you like about the 31 Practices approach?

[00:14:35] Alan Williams: And and the Hispanic lady who cleaned the bedrooms, she just leant down into her handbag and took out the little booklet that we produce for everybody to, you know, like a memory jogger. And she said, this is like my Bible at work. I read it every day and it makes me a better person. Wow. And when I told the general manager that, you know, he was like, this man, this [00:15:00] is like gold dust.

[00:15:01] Harry Spaight: Right. So it goes way beyond the wage.

[00:15:04] Alan Williams: Well, yeah, that's right. Because yeah, of course, some people work for the wage. This is not to say this is everybody. For me, the key thing is that your wage should be something that you take home at the end of the day, but it shouldn't be what gets you out of bed in the morning to go to work.

[00:15:21] Alan Williams: And that doesn't, I don't, I really believe that it doesn't matter what level of job it is. And are you familiar, there's a training program called FISH. Have you, have you come across this? It

[00:15:31] Harry Spaight: does sound familiar.

[00:15:33] Alan Williams: Okay, so it's about a fish market in Seattle. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yep, that's it. And that's it, you know, when they talk, I can't remember the names of the characters, but it's like, I've got to be at work at 4 o'clock in the morning and dealing with the fish in a freezer, and so I can either choose to be in a good mood, or I can be grumpy, and which would I rather do?

[00:15:57] Harry Spaight: Right, yeah. I mean, that [00:16:00] whole Seattle, it's Pike Fish Market. Yeah, I remember when I was leading a sales team in Washington, D. C. One of my sales reps gave me that book to read. Yep. And I immediately started applying it for our sales team or not. I, we, yeah. And so we sat around a conference room and we came up with ways that we could throw fish in, in sales.

[00:16:23] Harry Spaight: Yeah. So it was all these small wins was like throwing a fish. Yeah. And so these emails were going back and forth and eventually became company wide from one sales team to another. It just, the excitement about throwing fish I brought in ended up getting stuffed fish. For a quarterly meeting and we were throwing fish across the room with 100 people in the room or more.

[00:16:51] Harry Spaight: And it's just it was exciting and fun. And so, like, the whole thing is like, you're going to go to work anyway. [00:17:00] But you have to earn a living somewhere. Why not have some fun along the way and just become a much better experience for everybody involved?

[00:17:10] Alan Williams: Yeah, and you've reminded me of another. So this isn't about fun, but it is about this different mindset.

[00:17:15] Alan Williams: So I started to have responsibility for a call center operation, a help desk. And my first day when I went to meet the team, they were miserable. And what they were saying was not enough people, too many calls. So I said so how many calls does the group handle in a day? And they said, well, it's around about 5, 000 calls in a day.

[00:17:40] Alan Williams: And so then I said, what's your world record? And they were like, what? What's your world record? So they said, well, we can look it up. And it was 5, 600. I think it was. So we just put 5, 600 up on a flip chart on the wall world record, and then just change that number when you beat it. [00:18:00] And then all of a sudden, instead of people feeling downbeaten about having so much to do, they're like, Oh, maybe today we're going to beat the world record.

[00:18:08] Alan Williams: Brilliant.

[00:18:09] Harry Spaight: Yeah, it's just, it's so good. And then you're taking what is. A complaint like people, I think I hear quite a bit is what's the negative of going, what's the negative going on in a business things that are out of our control. One person was talking to me recently saying, just don't like dealing with the public.

[00:18:32] Harry Spaight: It doesn't matter how good of a job you do. Someone can leave a nasty review because something out of your control happened and it impacts your business. So what do you do with that? Right? Yeah, I can see how the person is just exasperated trying to grow a business and then they get frustrated with the same people that they're serving, may turn around and leave a nasty review because that's the way some people are.

[00:18:57] Harry Spaight: They just want to be nasty. [00:19:00] What's your thought about that, Alan?

[00:19:01] Alan Williams: Just get over it. Because those those people exist, right? But it doesn't mean to say everybody's like that, right? I used to, I don't know if you know, Harry, but I used to be in the commercial hospitality sector. So one of my jobs was managing director of a five star hotel.

[00:19:18] Alan Williams: And we had a complaint from a guy. And so I invited him to come back because it was a bad complaint. And so he came back and complained again. And I invited him back again, and I was embarrassed because, you know, you want things to be right for this guy. The third time he reported that he had he found toenail clippings in his bed, and so now I'm getting frustrated, right?

[00:19:47] Alan Williams: The housekeeper, I discussed this with her. She said, there's, I'm sorry Alan, but there is no way because I checked that bed personally. I took the covers off and [00:20:00] on my child's life, that's not true. So I challenged the guest and he admitted that he had made it up from the very first complaint. To this one in order to get something out of the business, but I chose consciously just to take, you know, to deal with it professionally, deal with it the way that you should and give him nowhere else to go, basically.

[00:20:27] Alan Williams: And then he confessed he was the one that was embarrassed. And, you know, think of all of those people that had I chosen to treat them like. He was behaving, then my business wouldn't have been as good. Whereas we retain this absolute focus on the customer being all important. And you do what they need to be given.

[00:20:49] Harry Spaight: Yeah. Wow. What an experience. So, does that. What's your thought about that? The customer's always right

[00:20:57] Alan Williams: then. No, I, I don't [00:21:00] think they are, but they're paying and so you treat them as though they are.

[00:21:04] Harry Spaight: Yeah. And I think, like you, you mentioned there is that you, you treat them respectfully, but there's some people you're just not going to make happy.

[00:21:13] Harry Spaight: Right? Yeah. You know, in a situation like that, you might just offer, here's a gift card for another hotel . Try something like that instead of. There's some people are just not going to please if that's the type of hotel that you are or something instead of giving them more money to spend with you. Maybe it's take off mate.

[00:21:32] Alan Williams: Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. Harry. I mean, so the two further examples the same. It's the same hotel actually and these are two examples of how you can deal with customers and feel. Satisfied that you've done the right thing. So one guy, it was autumn time and it's a beautiful Jacobean manor house with a big expansive lawn at the front and very large trees.

[00:21:57] Alan Williams: And this guy said to me [00:22:00] Alan, there are leaves on the lawn. Complaining, complaining.

[00:22:03] Harry Spaight: Now vacuum out,

[00:22:04] Alan Williams: will you? We, we did clear the lawn twice a day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon. And so I explained to him that that was what we had decided was the appropriate action to take. Sorry if he was disappointed that he couldn't see all of the lawn, but that's what we chose to do, and that was it.

[00:22:25] Alan Williams: That was one. The other one was much more extreme, so it was the organizer of a corporate conference. And she was... Just over the edge rude with members of my reception team to the extent that she made one of the ladies break down in tears, you know, just just too vicious. Yeah. And so I asked the reception lady to put the phone over to this organizer.

[00:22:54] Alan Williams: introduced myself and told her who I was and told her that if she ever spoke to a member of [00:23:00] my team like that again, I'd take it up with her boss and ask for her to be removed from SIGN. So, you know, I think you can't do that necessarily when you're in a frontline role, but what you can have in a service organization is your senior leaders being as close to your frontline people So that they're like that and together so that the frontline people know that they will be backed up when they need it.

[00:23:25] Harry Spaight: Oh yeah, it's really good. So is there, you bring up such a good point about people being around right people who can make decisions being around others who are not or given more of a script or told to work within a certain range. So you're what's your thought on that is to get people their offices close by or how does that actually look yeah I think in the in

[00:23:51] Alan Williams: the best service establishments you do have senior people close to the action where things are happening rather than being too distant [00:24:00] and the other thing is trust in your frontline people so I remember that again that hotel when people joined us I used to greet people new employees personally, and I used to tell them just three things, Harry.

[00:24:13] Alan Williams: So the first one is, give yourself a pat on the back, because you are the very best person we saw, and that's why you've got this job. So you beat lots of other people. Secondly, If you need to break the rules to make a guest happy, do it, but then tell your boss very quickly so that we can deal with it.

[00:24:34] Alan Williams: And then thirdly, bear in mind this was a 200 acre estate with beautiful gardens and a championship golf course. I said to them, enjoy yourself while you're working here, because if you can't enjoy yourself in an environment like this, there might be something wrong with you. Hmm.

[00:24:50] Harry Spaight: Nice. I want to go work there.

[00:24:53] Harry Spaight: Sounds beautiful. Yeah. I mean I remember it sounds a little bit like the Nordstrom's. I don't know if [00:25:00] Nordstrom is still like this, but years ago, Nordstrom's had a reputation for going way above what was required. And I think one of the things was is that they would take something that people would buy clothes, you know, a year later, two years later, whatever, some ridiculous length of time.

[00:25:21] Harry Spaight: I'm not saying it needs to be like that. I mean, if you want a reputation of being extreme, that's one thing. I don't think businesses need to be that way generally, right? Just being respectful and balance is the key. What's your thought on that? My Speaking off the cuff too much here on that.

[00:25:40] Alan Williams: No, I don't think you are, Harry.

[00:25:41] Alan Williams: And I think you have to do what's right for the identity of your business. So Nordstrom have a stellar reputation and I use them as a mini case study in one of my books. And, you know, they've just made a really important decision to come out of Canada, for instance, and it's all about [00:26:00] them. being really on top of their game and being sustainable and doing what's right.

[00:26:05] Alan Williams: And one of the things I love about Nordstrom that's included in that mini case study is that they will not approve an investment on an IT project unless it can be shown that the customer will benefit. Now that's really important because how many organizations do we both know where money is spent on IT and then IT gets in the way of people doing their job, but nobody's kind of thought of that.

[00:26:33] Harry Spaight: Yeah, it's funny. So I'm coming from the sales side of business. And one of the things I've looked at over the years is that I believe that any business needs to be everybody needs to be in sales inside of the business that the business is surviving because of sales without sales. There's not a business right you need revenue coming in, that comes in through [00:27:00] sales.

[00:27:00] Harry Spaight: That's the way economics work. And I believe that everybody should be tied into that somehow, some way. Okay. Is that, you know, the people who are answering the phone are in sales. The people who are taking care of the service organization, fixing stuff, they're in sales. The administrative people who are dealing with billing, they're also in sales.

[00:27:25] Harry Spaight: Sometimes people look at me like I have two or three heads, but what's your thought on this? Is this, am I off base? What's. Talk to

[00:27:33] Alan Williams: me.

[00:27:33] Alan Williams: I'm, I'm, I'm with you a hundred percent Harry. And I think that sales and service are kind of synonymous because if you haven't got the service, you won't get the sale or you won't have it on a sustained basis.

[00:27:44] Alan Williams: And I, whenever I've run businesses, I've always had bonus schemes where everybody benefits from the success of the business. And everybody realizes that if they're not serving a customer, then they are serving somebody who is. And [00:28:00] this concept of the internal customer is something that I think is really important.

[00:28:05] Alan Williams: So the chef being mindful when they're handing that plate over to the waiter that the chef needs to be thinking, I would be proud to be standing in front of the customer and putting that plate down. And I want that waiter to be complimented on the quality of the food and the speed of the service and everything else.

[00:28:24] Alan Williams: So I'm, I'm with you. Everybody is there to deliver. Service to customers in order to gain sales. And actually, just one more point on that is the discrepancy between the sense of importance between people in sales operations versus people in head office. And I remember having a conversation with a guy on saying, Do you have any?

[00:28:49] Alan Williams: What do you call tills in the US? You know, where you take the cash?

[00:28:54] Harry Spaight: Like a cash drawer or something,

[00:28:56] Alan Williams: or yeah, so I said to him, do you have any cash drawers at [00:29:00] head office? And he's like, what do you mean? So I said, you don't do you, this is where we take the money. Yeah.

[00:29:06] Harry Spaight: Okay. So I think this works both ways.

[00:29:10] Harry Spaight: Is that sometimes salespeople to get a little egotistical, maybe and they think they are the creme de la creme and they might have attitude because they say, well, look without me. You don't really have a business without me bringing in the production. You're not going to have the revenue and so forth.

[00:29:28] Harry Spaight: And they probably think they can think too highly of themselves. So you have that, not that that happens a lot, but occasionally it does. That'd be silly not to mention that. But then on the other hand, you have people who are in other departments and they look down upon salespeople because they'll say things like, Oh, they don't work very hard.

[00:29:47] Harry Spaight: They don't know what it's like. They're terrible with their paperwork. Their follow up isn't any good. They over promise. They under deliver. They have all this negativity going on. So now as a business owner, how [00:30:00] do you corral that and help make that better?

[00:30:04] Alan Williams: Yeah. So I think it comes back to where we started the conversation, which is about values.

[00:30:08] Alan Williams: So everybody having a clear understanding of what the organization stands for, that they're all in it together. And it's just that everybody does a different job. And you've reminded me of a kind of quite young sales guy that I had in the hotel and he was promoted to a management level. And I remember the conversation really clearly because I told him that he needed to do that in hotels you have something like something called a duty manager at the weekend.

[00:30:37] Alan Williams: So this is a kind of middle manager or senior leader who makes final decisions, you know, in the absence of other people at the weekend, and I told him you're going to need to do a weekend shift. And he said, but Alan, I'm into sales. And I work Monday to Friday, nine to five. And I said, well, yeah, you used to, but now you're working occasionally at the [00:31:00] weekend as well.

[00:31:01] Alan Williams: And I bet you after you've done two or three sessions, you will have learned a lot and people will respect you a lot more than they've done previously. And both were true. You know, he said, I never realized how hard these people worked. turning a conference room round into a dinner setting and this sort of stuff.

[00:31:18] Alan Williams: And similarly, he got to know some people. So when he was doing a show round, they were, hi, Andrew, how are you? And people were impressed. So it worked both ways. So I think it's mutual understanding is the key based on the values.

[00:31:35] Harry Spaight: Yeah, so good. I mean, I love that. Do you think it's valuable? It's a good use of time to have people from one department to hang out with others in another department that to give them better insight as to what they're doing?

[00:31:49] Harry Spaight: Yeah,

[00:31:49] Alan Williams: totally recommend it. So I used to, you know, I was running this, 20 million dollar business, but I used to do a day in the greenkeeping department. [00:32:00] So raking the bunkers at six o'clock in the morning and then going and having a hot drink and a bacon sandwich at seven o'clock for your first break. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:32:10] Alan Williams: So this mutual understanding and people regarding themselves as part of a collective. rather than an individual doing a job, I think is really important.

[00:32:22] Harry Spaight: This is great. All right. So I am really busy, Alan. We've got a job to do. We've got customers to take care of. I don't have time to look at values every day.

[00:32:38] Harry Spaight: Do you ever hear someone say that? And what's your thought about it?

[00:32:41] Alan Williams: Yes, I have. And the answer is that it takes no more time than you're currently taking. And the other the other thing that I like to ask people to think about is whether they admire a high performing either sports person. or musician, you know, musical artist, for [00:33:00] instance.

[00:33:01] Alan Williams: And so let's choose, Coco Goff, right? A tennis player in the US doing really well, young player. And do you think that she just turns up to a tournament? And hopes that she's going to do okay. Absolutely no way. And what it's all about is her spending hour after hour consciously practicing, for instance, a forehand cross court shot.

[00:33:32] Alan Williams: So that she knows, even under extreme pressure, she can pull this shot off and be confident that she's going to do that. So... If that's what's required to perform at the highest level in sport or music, why do so many people in their jobs just turn up and hope that they're going to be able to perform okay?

[00:33:52] Harry Spaight: Yeah, it's a sad fact that just because you have the job, it's like you don't need to get [00:34:00] better, is the way I think a lot of people think, is that they already have the job, but they're not thinking about necessarily about how to improve. And B become elite. I think this is a very common issue. And I used to say that just because you are in sales does not make you a sales person.

[00:34:22] Harry Spaight: Absolutely. Right. Because you, anyone can get a sales job, but, you know, they can come and go, but that's probably true with any real, any specific career thought.

[00:34:34] Alan Williams: I think it comes back again to, you know, earlier we were talking about the difference between the what, which is the what you do in your job versus the why and the how, and so a different hotel job.

[00:34:44] Alan Williams: I remember a lady whose job it was to polish the marble in the reception area. And she used to tell people that she wanted that floor to sparkle because it greeted every single guest that came to the hotel. And that was her [00:35:00] job and her responsibility. Now, how cool is that? Rather than thinking, I'm just the person that cleans the floor,

[00:35:07] Harry Spaight: right?

[00:35:08] Harry Spaight: There's a number of great stories and experiences like that. Someone that working for. NASA here in the U. S., right? You're familiar with that story? The janitor or something, you're talking about how he's helping get people into land on the moon or whatever. You know the story better than I do. I can tell.

[00:35:27] Harry Spaight: So this has been super helpful. Alan, what am I missing here? Is there something that stands out that we should have talked about here for the last minute or so?

[00:35:36] Alan Williams: Well, Harry, I think maybe we haven't touched on this, but To remind ourselves at all times that we're human beings. You know, we're not just employees.

[00:35:47] Alan Williams: We're not just a payroll number. We're a human being. And if we treat each other with humanity and respect, then perhaps we'll all feel better and do more and [00:36:00] be more productive together.

[00:36:01] Harry Spaight: Yeah, that's really good. That's a great way to end this. Alan, where can people find more of your brilliance, sir?

[00:36:09] Alan Williams: Well, Harry LinkedIn is probably the, the shortcut.

[00:36:11] Alan Williams: So Alan Williams and the company name is Service Brand Global. There's also a a website service brand global.com and I'm happy to hear from people if you want to get in touch.

[00:36:23] Harry Spaight: Okay, awesome stuff. Alan, appreciate you joining me on The Sales Mate Easy Podcasts. I can't wait to continue to read and find out more about what you're doing on the values front.

[00:36:35] Harry Spaight: Great stuff.

[00:36:36] Alan Williams: Thank you, Harry. Bye now.

[00:36:38] Thank you for listening to Sales Made Easy. If you found value in our conversations, please subscribe and leave a review. Our goal is to provide practical strategies for growing your business while staying true to your values. Remember, six. Success in sales is [00:37:00] about serving your clients. Serve first and the selling will follow.