Employee Advocacy- how to increase sales through employee independence

How does one increase sales?  It’s a question that every retailer asks themselves, and one which seems to have as many answers as there are retailers.  But one of the best ways to answer that question is to look at people who are doing it right.  People like Lululemon.

Lululemon was recently listed number 3 on RetailSails list of the 10 retailers with the highest sales per square foot, right behind Apple and Tiffany.  A yoga-inspired fitness apparel company, Lululemon’s employees follow a rather unique profile.  Not only are they encouraged to live a healthy lifestyle, but type A personalities and strong team players are also aggressively sought out.

But more than that, Lululemon encourages employees to own their brand.  Store managers are responsible for almost every decision regarding their individual store, including store layout, color coordination, and community involvement, effectively encouraging them to think of it as their own small business.  And given that seventy percent of managers are internal hires, retail store employees (known internally as “educators”) know that they have the ability to reach that level.

Internally, educators are heavily trained.  No matter what their level of skill, all new hires work the floor for three weeks and receive thirty hours of in-house training.  They are taken to spin and yoga classes to make sure that they understand the culture, and they try on all of the products to help grasp just what it is that a customer is looking for when shopping for fitness brands. 

These employees know the product and, because of their training, have the confidence necessary to communicate the value of those products to customers.  They are the most effective kind of employee advocates, with the coaching and information needed to answer every question- and the empathy to want to help the customer in their goals. 

And it’s that kind of employee that helps a little fitness brand expand into a multi-national empire.

Best Performing CEO’s in the world

Harvard Business Review recently came out with their list of the top 100 best CEOs in the world, and the results are intriguing.  The HBR judged CEO’s based on their return on shareholder investment and how much their firm’s market value increased, among other requirements. 

This year, there was considerable turnover in the top 100.  About half of the CEOs on the 2013 list are different than he 2010 list.  Some of that was that more CEOs were included in the 2013 study, including international corporations.  Because of this, several newcomers to this list include those from other countries.

Among them were Lars Sorensen, CEO of Novo Nordisk, and Li Jiaxiang of Air China.  But while China has been rapidly growing over the last decade, the CEOs there are not succeeding as well as their U.S. counterparts.  On average, however, U.S. CEOs did not do as well as their Latin American, Indian, or British counterparts.

One of the most interesting results of the data was that it showed that over 74% of the surveyed CEOs were insiders and, overall, CEOs that had been hired from within rather than without did better.  In the US especially, outsider CEOs did not usually deliver the goods as well as insider CEOs.

MBAs seem to still be useful, as the study found that the average MBA ranked 40 places higher than the average non-MBA.   But while many have theorized that having a company do good philanthropically or environmentally could help CEOs succeed, the data doesn’t seem to support that theory.  But that wasn’t true across the board, as CEO’s like Franck Riboud of Danoe was able to both succeed financially and receive high ratings in his company’s CSR.  Alessandro Carlucci, of Natura also was able to pull together successful results.

Check out the complete list of the top 100 CEOs, and more of the HBR’s evaluation of the data here.

http://hbr.org/2013/01/the-best-performing-ceos-in-the-world/ar/1

Four pieces of advice for leaders in business

Sometimes being a leader can seem like a lonely job.  The very nature of leading means that there are few people around who can advise you about whether or not you’re doing something correctly.

Which is why good leaders look to other leaders, especially those who have already succeeded.  Who better to tell you what works in business than someone who has seen it work first hand?  Here are a couple of pieces of advice from successful business leaders.

Listen first, then act.  This advice comes from Cordia Harrington, President and CEO of Tennessee Bun Company.  Cordia came from a family where her families lived month-to-month and it was a treat to visit the local McDonald’s once a month.  But she found success first in real estate, then construction, then by becoming one of the first female McDonald franchise owners in history, and finally by becoming CEO of The Bun Company, a conglomerate supplying buns and English Muffins worldwide to McDonald’s and other distributors.

According to Cordia, listening first to the issue, making sure you understand it, and only then trying to coach is one of the most valuable pieces of advice that she has ever been given.

Listen to both sides of the argument.  Brian Lees, Massachusetts State Senator and Senate Minority Leader had this information from his mentor, United States Senator Edward Brooke.  Listening to only one side of an issue, or only to the people who share your views, means that your own opinions aren’t as well defined as they could be otherwise.   On the other hand, listening and talking to a wide variety of people and listening to their views is essential to becoming a good business leader- one who understands all the issues in play.

Be curious.  As Einstein once put it, “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” According to Mary Jean Thornton, former Executive VP and CIO of the Travelers, she has been successful because she learned to stay intellectually curious, which has allowed her to better understand the present and to challenge both herself and her people in her organization.  This has helped all of them end up closer to their original business for the firm.

Know the answers to the questions your staff wants to know.  According to Kevin Nolan, president and CEO of Affinity Health Systems, every employee in any organization wants to know the answers to three questions:  “Where are we going?” “How are we going to get there?” and “What is my role?” Knowing the answers to these questions helps keep your organization moving forward in the right direction, and helps keep everyone who works for you on track for success.