REDSEED BLOG

Hiring Tips for the Silly Season

Making RedSeed Easier for YOU!

November 1st, 2011

Alot of our readers are customers, and many of them use the RedSeed platform regularly, whether they’re doing training or working in the Coach and Administration Mode. I’d like to start presenting a few simple ideas on how to get RedSeed working smarter for you, at the same time presenting some simple usability tips that will help any internet user.

Let’s look at accessing RedSeed (or any other commonly used page) first. How do you get to the login page? Do you go to our website and click login? Do you type in RedSeed into Google and go from there? Obviously the goal is to get to the login page without wasting too much time and there’s a couple of ways of doing this. The first solution is creating a favourite or bookmark, which is a way for your internet browser (the program you use to access the internet) to record a webpage for quick reference. Let’s assume you’re using Internet Explorer 8 for example (we’ll talk more about this shortly). Follow the two steps below, and you’ll have a link you can click no matter what you’re doing in your browser and you’ll head straight to RedSeed.

Step One:

Step Two:

Pretty simple huh? If you use another version of Explorer or a different browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc.) the instructions will be slightly different but you should have that functionality. You may just need to do a search in the help menu for ‘Bookmarks’ or ‘Favorites’ (American spelling).

Maybe you’re the type of computer user who like to have everything on their desktop. No problem. Follow the steps below and you’ll get an icon that will take you straight to RedSeed.

Step One:

Step Two:

And finally, my third point for this helpful post is around browsers. I’ve given the previous examples in reference to Internet Explorer version 8; that’s because approximately half of RedSeed users access the platform via this browser, using this particular version. Approximately 25% use an older version (6 or 7). If you are using an older version, it would be worth considering either upgrading your browser, or ideally trying something like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. Without getting technical either one of these browsers have the ability to increase the speed and functionality of RedSeed, and they’re safe, free and easy to install. Why not try one of them out?

Google Chrome: http://www.google.com/chrome

Mozilla Firefox: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

We’ll continue this conversation at some stage, so stay tuned. If you have anything you’d like to ask post a comment below and I’ll try and address it next time round. See you soon for more helpful tips!

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Training Summary Release

October 12th, 2011

This morning we released a new interface to the RedSeed suite of tools, the ‘Training Summary’ screen. It is similar to the ‘User Detail’ view in the ‘Coach & Admin’ dashboard, but optimised and available for the Trainee. Some reworking of the RedSeed login was done to integrate this new summary screen. We have also released a password reset function and some other tweaks and fixes as part of the release.

Login & Password Reset

LOGIN

With this release we needed to add some tweaks to our login procedure. The initial login form looks quite similar to before but with the addition of a link for Password Reset. Once successfully logged in the following scenarios will occur:

Trainee with one or more course enrollments

These account types will be directed straight into the new Training Summary screen, where they can then choose their course (previously a drop down list of courses in the Login area). Note: even if a Trainee is only enrolled in one course, they will still be loaded into the Training Summary (in case there is new feedback to review). Previously a single enrollment Trainee was sent straight into training.

Manager with one or more course enrollments

These managers have a similar change as described above where the drop down list of courses/coach & admin option has been replaced by two buttons, ‘Coach & Admin’ and ‘Training’. The Training button will take them to the new Training Summary page where they can now go into Coach & Admin via the other button. The manager can switch between the Coach & Admin and Training Summary screens during their login session.

Manager with no course enrollments

Similar to the previous login mechanism, a ‘Manager’ with no course enrollment will be loaded straight into the Coach & Admin area. They (like all other managers) will be able to navigate between the ‘Coach & Admin’ and ‘Training Summary’ areas while logged in via the top navigation menu bar.

PASSWORD RESET

Due to the nature of user accounts in RedSeed, where we have some accounts using a unique email, some a shared email and others a non email format login – a ‘self password reset’ option has always been tricky to implement. In the future we will be adding a separate email field for each user account, so users can have the option of setting a personal email for their account, even if their login username is something else (or a shared office email). This will enable more robust delivery of notification emails and also the option to use this new feature for resetting their own password.

So from now on, if a user has a unique email address they can reset their own password via this tool. The link to initiate this action is now found on the main RedSeed Login screen (HELP: I forgot my password.) When the user clicks on this link they will go to a new Password Reset form. Here they can enter their email and request a password reset. If their email address matches a single account, then a special token link will be emailed to them. This token link is valid for 3 hours, and if clicked on during that time period will reset their password. The randomly generated password will be sent via email – they can then choose to update their password via the ‘My Account’ option once logged in.

If a user enters a non email format in the Password Reset email box, they will be told this feature is only available for unique email address set accounts. If a shared email address is entered, a message stating that their Manager is the person to see for their password reset will be explained. If there is any other problem resetting the password for the account, a link to support will be provided.

While this new Password Reset does not cover all account types, we hope it’s an important step in the right direction towards self management and a more automated processes, minimising the workload for all our Manager and HR users!

Training Summary

Why a new interface? We recently discussed the options for presenting some of what is available within the Dashboard at a ‘User’ level, to the trainee themselves. Access to print off a workbook, visually see their progress (with any highlighted events; workbook marking, inactivity alerts etc) and also a new mechanism for reviewing positive feedback. While the workbook could be accessed via the training interface and from there all comments (both for correct and incorrectly marked answers) – we realised good, notified access to new positive feedback from Coaches was all too subtle and very possibly overlooked. So the key focus for this interface was to enable easy access to this positive feedback (i.e. feedback given on workbook answers marked correct). See below for a description of the key areas of this new interface.

CURRENT COURSES

The current courses lists all the training enrollments for the logged in user. This includes normal enrollments and ‘Free Roam’ enrollments. The red GO button links off training for that course. Clicking on the course name will drop down more detailed information (start & last update date time, marking manager, cumulative training time etc). The other columns offer notification of feedback status, workbook pdf, exam result and also a notification link on how to get a certificate if the course has been passed.

FEEDBACK

The feedback icon (either red for new or dark grey for read) links to a pop up window which will show all questions, answers and coach’s feedback on answers that have been marked as correct. This is an important addition we hope will enable Trainees to keep track of the feedback provided and further realise the benefits of our workbook cycle. Previously these types of comments could only be seen by navigating back through the course, or via a generated workbook pdf. We now evisage the following type of scenario as a Trainee progresses through a workbook marking content course:

- Trainee works through a session and submits workbook

- Coach marks the workbook and sends back questions that need rework with feedback provided on both correct and incorrect answers as appropriate

- Trainee addresses those incorrect questions taking note of the feedback for those incorrect answers (as previously and still currently shown within the training workbook question section), then re-submits their workbook

- Coach marks new answers and potentially provides more feedback before unlocking the next session for the Trainee

- Trainee logs back into RedSeed, reviews any new unread positive feedback from that Session, then hits GO to get started on the next session

OTHER LINKS

The ‘My Account’ functionality is available within ‘Training Summary’, so users can update their name, email, password and video preference settings. The Help area is also available and if the user is a Manager, access to the ‘Coach & Admin’ section is available. These options are all available via the top menu bar, as per the other RedSeed Interfaces.

Other Revisions & Fixes

As part of the release we also included some tweaks to the ‘Coach & Admin’ and ‘Training’ areas:

Logout bug during Exam session. The new save on logout feature was causing grief logging out during an exam session in some scenarios. This has now been resolved.

The Coach & Admin level names (Companies, Regions, Stores etc) now have vanilla character formatting. Previously there were some rules making the first character names uppercases and this was not making sense for the way some levels were defined. The level names will now display in the Dashboard exactly as they have been loaded in RedSeed – please see us if you need any revisions to your level definitions.

The Programme and Session progressed percentages that used to be displayed at the end of the visual bars in the ‘User Detail’ view have now been removed. They were ambiguous especially in the cases of those who have passed the exam (as this percentage amount was not the exam pass mark). The next stage of this refinement will likely see the introduction of the same sort of information that is now available in the Training Summary view into this area.

Previously the User Details screen for any account with no enrollments OR ‘Free Roam’ enrollments had an ambiguous message regarding their enrollment state. This message has now been reworked for more clarification.

New certificate templates released.

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Fixed or growth mindset and how does it affect your work?

September 9th, 2011

Mindset – the new psychology of success by Carole S. Dweck.

I have to confess to being one of those people with a stack of books beside my bed. I read multiple titles at one time combining both work reads and novels, and will choose according to my mood on the day.

One that has just moved from my stack to my husband’s is Carole Dweck’s ‘Mindset’. Her work centres around our mindset and how some of us have a fixed mindset and others a growth mindset. Dweck uses many examples of both, and demonstrates how the way we view things has a profound effect on our lives.

Many people believe that we are born with a certain set of qualities that are set in stone and can’t be changed, for example our IQ. Others know that our qualities can be cultivated through effort, for example we can become smarter through practice, training and method.

If we have a fixed mindset we spend our life having to prove our ability over and over again. We try to hide our inadequacies when we could be spending our energy on getting better!

In a fixed mindset we only want to do what we know we are good at, what’s tried and true, instead of seeking out experiences that will stretch us.

The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it when it’s not going that well is the hallmark of a growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times of their life.

So how does this translate to work, and most importantly, can it add value to your organisation?

We can look at the growth mindset from a number of different points of view. Firstly from an organisational point of view. Does your business have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset? Are you willing to try new things, work hard to master them and to get better, or are you forever trying to prove that your product and your business model are successful? There is a risk that we get stuck in our ways and the world passes us by. We become outmoded and old-fashioned, chasing something that used to be good enough.

If the success of an organisation is based around the performance of its people, there is a real need to hire and to foster the growth mindset. You should be looking for people with potential, not natural skill. And then you need to have a system in place that will support their growth through things like apprenticeships, workshops and coaching sessions. If our skills are to be increased through practice, there must be an environment that facilitates practice. You need to focus on creating an environment that allows people to improve rather than having to prove themselves. If people worry that there will be disapproval for their ideas and actions then they are less likely to try.

Secondly, from a personal perspective; how can you make sure that you continue to grow and to improve your skill set? With no one pushing you outside your comfort zone there is safety in doing what you know and flying under the radar. After all who really wants to draw attention to themselves, particularly if you don’t even know if you are going to succeed. People with a fixed mindset are easy to identify through their unwillingness to try new things, to take a risk or to develop and be better than they are today. We can however change our point of view and look at things from a growth perspective.

Every person has the capacity to learn and to change. The key is making it an attractive proposition. What will I get out of putting myself out on a limb and admitting that I don’t know everything? In the end it is a release from the pressure of having to live up to a certain standard and having to prove your skills over and over again.

In businesses that fosters a growth mindset there is more positive energy, more ideas, innovation and more loyalty because people feel that they are learning and are supported in their role within the business. If you want some examples of successful growth mindset businesses check out Jim Collins book, ‘Good to Great’.

Take a look at yourself and your business. Do you feel special, superior to other people and entitled to more? – you have a fixed mindset. Learning enriches your life and the lives of the people you interact with. Carol Dweck’s ‘Mindset’ is not only a fascinating read, it’s knowledge that can change your life.

- Anya Anderson

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Music and Retail : A Complicated Relationship

September 5th, 2011

Most people love music, or at least appreciate it. The increase in consumption of personal music devices is testament to that, and I think you’d struggle to find someone who hasn’t heard of an iPod. We love it while we’re driving, doing housework, exercising, entertaining or relaxing, and we know this is because it ‘does something’ to us. Whether that ‘something’ is energizing, relaxing, motivating or mood-enhancing; the effect, generally physical or emotional, is undeniable.

Intelligent retailers understand the value of music in their stores. Research has shown correctly chosen music can keep shoppers in stores longer, and can slow their shopping pace allowing more exposure to product ranges, while poorly chosen music can cause aggravated customers or simply dissuade people from purchasing. Music can encourage our customers to relax, which in turn aids dialogue, making selling much, much easier.

So grab your CDs from home, plug your MP3 into your store PA, or flick on the radio and watch your sales sky-rocket. Is it really that easy?

Unfortunately playing music in your store is considered illegal unless you have a license, and being caught playing unlicensed music in your store can leave your store $3,500 in the red, possible more. Even the hold music on your phone system can land you in trouble if unlicensed.

There are two different copyrights at play here; one for the public performance of a song, and one for the song itself (its lyrics, composition, melody, etc.). The Institutions managing these licenses are Phonographic Performances NZ Ltd (PPNZ) and the Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) and licenses are generally required from both. The fee is dependent on the size of the store and the number of media players being used.

So how much will it set you back? Well as an example, let’s say your store was 300 square metres, you have hold music on your phone with up to 5 lines, and you had one CD player playing for the entire store. You’d be paying APRA approximately $145 per year for your license with an additional $131 for your hold music, and another $160 for your PPNZ license, with another $87.50 for your hold music. You may be thinking there’s some doubling up going on here, but don’t forget your paying for the copyrights for both the song itself, and the recorded version of the original work. That’s a total annual cost of $523.50.

For more specific breakdowns of costs, see the APRA Retail Background Music License application HERE, their Music on Hold License application HERE, and PPNZ’s rates HERE. Alternatively you can call PPNZ on 0800 88 77 69, and APRA on 0800 69 27 72. And for all you NZ Retailers Association members, you should find you qualify for a 10% discount on the APRA fee which should lighten the load.

So hopefully this doesn’t come as too much of a surprise to you all, and I’m sure many of you will already have your licenses sorted, but for those who don’t, save yourself some stress down the track and pick up the phone or get online. Or alternatively you could set yourself up as a ‘silent store’ and carve yourself a wee nich in the market. Good luck with that.

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Spring is coming!

September 5th, 2011

Spring is coming. You can smell it in the air. Notice the part of you that is waking up, uncurling from the heaviness of winter and is feeling more motivated and energised. With longer daylight hours we are more inclined to get outside, get busy and be social. With this ‘springy’ energy we can jump into our days with new vim and vigour, sometimes setting a new pace that within a few weeks can leave us gasping for breath and feeling tired. Suddenly the new diet, fitness routine, wine group or new initiative can feel onerous and like an obligation.

The lead up to summer sociability and the Christmas rush can be a challenging dynamic to manage. It is during this period our commitment to ourselves and our own well-being can be sorely tested! Keeping yourself in the picture is imperative. How do we do that? Here are a few tips I find helpful for myself.

> Every morning upon waking, check in with yourself and gauge your tiredness. Are you bounding out of bed with enthusiasm? Do you sigh and drag yourself out of bed? By checking in every morning we can choose what we say yes to and what may have to be negotiated. We often hesitate to negotiate around commitments because we don’t want to disappoint anyone or miss out on an opportunity. My experience has taught me if I am clear about my energy levels and express this there is always a solution that works for both parties. When we honour where our energy levels are truly at, it pays great dividends in our productivity.

> While exercise is hugely important in managing our well-being, check that your current exercise routine suits your new sociability level. By that I mean we only have so much energy to go around. If your exercise routine is demanding and intense, consider lightening up a tad until the busy period has passed. Flogging yourself with exercise is not going to erase those extra wines! Keep up your exercise routines but peg back on the intensity until you have the energy for it. Our body needs movement to be healthy not flogging.

> Be conscious of eating nourishing foods. Food provides us with the energy to live. If we are really living it up, we need to eat whole nourishing foods. Lots of lovely fresh vegetables and fruits help replace the vitamins and minerals lost through burning the candle at both ends.

Breakfast is essential to keeping your energy constant through the day. Drink a big glass of plain old water before eating breakfast. This re-hydrates the body and flushes out any toxins packaged up by the body while you have been sleeping.

Try eating a good source of protein for breakfast. Protein is a slow release food that will help to maintain a steady energy. Try a tuna or baked beans on toast grilled with a bit of cheese on top, cereal with yogurt and nuts on top, poached egg with whole grain toast, and my favourite a green smoothie! Green smoothies are a wonderful source of pure energy. You can find the recipe at the end of this article.

> Schedule sometime quiet time just for you every week. Even 15 minutes of quiet, alone time per day can provide vital reflective time. You will be amazed how this will inspire and revitalise you. Sit with a hot drink look out the window or sit in the sun, go for a walk in the park on your lunch break, have a hot soak at the end of the day, or play some chilled out music while taking some time out before starting the next thing.

There you have it! I hope your find these tips helpful.

Jen Lancaster

Balanced Life Training Ltd

http://www.balancedlifetraining.co.nz/

Green Smoothie

- 2 bananas- the riper the better

- 1-2 bunches of young greens

- Water or if you like it sweeter rice milk, vanilla soy milk

Some examples of greens:

Spinach

Flat parsley

Endive

Mizuna

Radicchio

Romaine

Beet greens (tops)

Kale

It is important to mix up your greens daily when making your smoothie to avoid tummy upset.

Blend ingredients together until smooth in blender. Drink and enjoy.

‘To ensure good health: Eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness and maintain an interest in life.’ -William London

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Plugin Release & Other Updates

August 31st, 2011

A new release went out yesterday which introduced a few new features, reinstated some old functionality and included some other bug fixes and revisions. Read below for a detailed description of these changes.

REDSEED PLUGINS

In our FAQs section we state “If you can think it, we can make it happen”. To date most of our training content has been delivered via video, copy, imagery and interaction via long answer, multi-choice quiz and exam style questioning. We’ve recently had a request from one of our clients to implement a very customised interaction module for assessing knowledge that doesn’t fit into the traditional text or multi-choice answer format. To implement this feature for them we’ve developed a plugin system that we plan to use for any non standard content/question delivery. The plugin system is geared towards questions so can be still integrated into our workbook marking cycle offering full tracking and traceability.

So now we have this mechanism in place we just wanted to re-iterate that call from our FAQ for both existing and new clients – let us know if there’s anything unique you might need. We’d love to make use of our new plugin system for you!

INTERNET EXPLORER SPELL CHECKER RETURN

A while back we retired our old spell checker button & functionality within the trainee interface. With newer web browsers containing this functionality we didn’t want to push out overlapping features, or try and re-invent the wheel. Unfortunately our old friend Internet Explorer has been a bit slow on the chase getting built in spell checking, so there has been a request to reintroduce this feature. We wanted to accommodate this, but also recognize the reason we retired it in the first place. This means we are now only pushing out this spell checking functionality to users connecting via Internet Explorer. As we’ve now completely committed to the jQuery javascript library, we’ve also taken the opportunity to implement a more sophisticated spell checker for those IE users. While the old style spell check button still sits below each answer box, the spell checking is now page wide. This means you can now work through all your answers on the page and then hit the spellcheck to do a full page assessment in one go.

REPORTS UPDATE

A little while back we added CSV versions of our User Summary and Level Summary reports (which focus on enrollments, started and completed totals). We now have CSV versions of these reports available and also a CSV version of our Inactivity List report.

All of these additions are available within the main ‘Reports’ section of the Coach & Admin view. We have a few new reports to add to the list soon so will be looking to revamp the interface for generating, saving, exporting and printing, so stayed tuned.

SPLASH PAGE REVAMP

We’ve revamped our Store and Region splash functionality to ensure all our site/application interfaces are consistent. We’ve also incorporated some ‘sort by’ options into these areas that are already available in the dashboard.

Splash pages are configured at a client level at this stage, so please contact us if you would like this form of overview/login for your team.

BUG FIXES AND MINOR REVISIONS

The recently released ‘User’ and ‘Level’ summary reports were including archived users in the totals (skewing results). This has now been resolved to only include ‘Active’ users.

Workbook marking stuck? We’ve identified a key contributor to this scenario and released a patch. We still have further modifications to do on this component so please let us know (support@redseed.me) if you have any further issues.

We’ve tidied up the actions that occur when you click ‘Logout’ while in training mode. Now your current answers are saved and if you are working through any re-attempts, your answers will be saved and you will be moved onto the next section requiring new answers.

Resolved an issue for workbook pdfs not loading when specific formatting was applied to answers.

Manager Classic (the previous version of Coach & Admin) has now been retired. We try to keep the previous interface available when something new is introduced (such as the current Coach & Admin dashboard), for those users having issues transitioning while we fine tune. However the current Coach & Admin is now our main focus for new features and enhancements and as such manager users will no longer have the ‘Manager Classic’ option when logging in.

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Making Social Media Easy

August 2nd, 2011

Last month I broke down one of the simplest, yet most effective brand management tools: Google Alerts. What I like about alerts is that it’s simple to set up, takes virtually no effort to use, and it adds value to your time online. That’s a particular gripe of mine at the moment; we have too many Social Media platforms, too many blogs to read, too many tweets to observe, too many status updates. What we need is a way to bring them all together into one place.

I’m on a mission. A mission to make Social Media useable. Picking elements that take less time and reap more rewards. I’m not saying this is the way all companies should develop their online activities, but I do believe it’s a good start. Having identified a few key goals within online activity that add value, Google Alerts was useful in terms of brand management and awareness, or simply: knowing what’s being said about you online. It sort of an automated ‘pull’ mechanism, bringing the information to you as opposed to going out and hunting for it. So how else can we monitor our brand, competitors and industry experts?

We’ve all heard of Twitter, and most people know how it works…sort of. The only problem I have with it is that you have to work for it, unless you have a few tricks up your sleeve. Let’s look at what it can achieve for us, bringing it back to that idea of value. You can find people and organisations on Twitter that are in your industry or field of interest, and ‘follow’ them, meaning when they tweet (post a statement, link, image, article, etc.), you’ll receive that information in your ‘feed’, much like the ‘news feed’ feature in Facebook. You can also use it to disseminate information, marketing, expertise, etc. to people who want to follow you. But the inherent problem is that if you have alot of information coming through in your feed, it can become a full time job monitoring it. I don’t have time for that. Enter TweetDeck.

I’ve been using TweetDeck for a couple of months now and without it, I don’t think I’d be using Twitter as much as I do. In fact it’s so good, Twitter just bought it. TweetDeck is one of those pieces of software that works on anything; PC, Mac, iPhone, Android, on your computer, on the internet; and they all sync and play nice together. Tick.

What does it do? Quite a bit. It brings your feed to the desktop of your computer so you don’t have to be in a browser (Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.), and let’s you manage multiple Twitter accounts, bringing them all into one feed. I have a personal Twitter account that I use to follow friends and general interest Tweets, and a work account to follow professional advice, customers, competitors etc. It’s good to have them all in one place without having to log in to separate accounts. It’s not even limited to Twitter feeds, you can bring in Facebook accounts, LinkedIn, FourSquare, MySpace, and Google Buzz. And because you can post Tweets, content and links from the platform as well as receive them, you can make the most of the multiple account environment by posting to all your SM platforms (or a specific selection) at once! If you’ve got something to say, why not get it out to all your friends and contacts with one click?

Where it really comes into it’s own, for me at least, is with it’s multiple-feed layout, meaning you can allocate accounts or search terms to separate feeds. I can create a feed for ‘RedSeed’, and every Twitter post that is created in the world with that search term will come to me in a legible, collated form. Next to it I might have my Facebook news feed, another search term for ‘Christchurch earthquakes’, and my LinkedIn feed for example. Then the final piece of the puzzle: minimise the application and get on with your work, and TweetDeck will give you non-invasive updates as they happen in an alert box on your desktop.

Bring it all together and it works. I don’t want to be on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google, searching for information when I can make it come to me. Do you?

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A Sales Lesson from Apple

August 2nd, 2011

Sell more by NOT selling! That is Apple’s new sales philosophy.

What do they mean by that? It’s all about solving customer’s problems, educating them, and getting them so passionate about Apple gadgets that they simply have to have one. Cool eh? It seems like a new approach and one that is working for them according to the stats. More people visit Apple’s 326 stores in 3 months than visit Disney’s 4 theme parks in a year! That’s about 60 million customers! Apple’s annual retail sales per square foot are $4,406, higher than any other retailer on the planet.

So what can we learn from their approach? Their formula for success in their stores pivots around a casual atmosphere and intensive control of how employees interact with customers. No detail is left to chance, the customer experience is orchestrated to the nth degree including what is pre-loaded onto the demo machines. It is a well known fact that customers will return to your store if the experience is good, however it is the culmination of all their interactions with your company touch points that give them the overall feeling of what it is like to buy from you, and in a highly competitive environment, nothing can go wrong. Sales assistants are taught to interact with customers and to help customers solve problems. They receive no commissions, however there are high performance expectations and if a sales assistant doesn’t make the grade they are re-trained or moved to another position.

So is it really so new? It’s certainly a different approach than the one our grandparents would have used. In many cases businesses still believe that an intimate and complete knowledge of their products will be enough to sell to their customers. Their sales assistants are talking in jargon and acronyms that go over the head of their customers. This is far from relationship building, in fact in many ways it looks like they can’t relate to customers and see themselves as superior. Old style selling was all about your products, their features, advantages and benefits. New style selling is about customers, their lifestyle, their dreams, their needs and wants. If you can understand these things then you can use your expertise to show them just the right thing to solve their problems and enhance their lifestyle. So, yes it really is about solving customers problems, not selling stuff – it’s subtle, but its important that your team can tell the difference.

Getting your team to understand and use sales techniques so that they can easily strike up a conversation and understand what the customer is looking for is one thing, getting them to use it all the time is another. Apple closely manages their sales assistants and the service that they give to their customers. The same top-end experience that happens in one store must happen in the other 325 stores and it has to happen every time, for every customer.

Having strong policy and procedure around service, sales and a customer moral code gives the structure to grow revenue. There is no other way to get brand domination. So what can we easily look to implement in our stores that will take us that step closer to the ‘new’ model of a bricks and mortar store?

1) Have a sales process that is written down and that everyone uses.

2) Have high expectations of your sales staff and their behaviours with customers.

3) Have a fair and objective way to monitor the interactions with customers.

4) Take action if their behaviour falls below your expectations.

Don’t allow poor performance, complacency and “I’d rather be somewhere else,” attitude to creep into your business. If it is already, go back to the beginning, set the ground rules and in the words from “Good to Great’ by Jim Collins, you’re either on the bus or off the bus. You need the right people who believe in offering outstanding experiences to customers to help you get loyalty from your customers and increase the value of your brand.

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WDCNZ 2011

August 2nd, 2011

In mid July Brendan, our Web Development Manager, and I headed up to Wellington to attend the inaugural WDCNZ (Web Developer Conference New Zealand). In brief, it was tech-talks for web developers and my expectations weren’t high. I’m certainly no web developer, but this was a fantastic event. Well organised, with a great mix of high calibre presenters from offshore and within New Zealand. The venue too was great – the Macs Brewbar Function Centre, and some in the office have mentioned this may have been the main reason we wanted to attend, which may hold a small degree of truth.

As I said, I’m no developer but I’m immersed in the web on a daily basis from a design and UX (user experience) point of view and also from a new technologies perspective with the implementation of new features and functionality within the RedSeed platform.

I’m happy to say that the web developer community seems to relish the idea of sharing ideas and actively engaging in discussions about new technologies. Everyone we spoke to were more than happy to share their thoughts around HTML5, CSS, new video technologies and the development approach to mobile apps, whether they were on the side of native or web. These were some of the areas Brendan and I really gained a good insight into the state of this dynamically changing environment and it was great to bounce ideas and issues off some of the fantastic minds attending this event.

We both returned with a comprehensive list of ideas and technologies we want to explore and I’m sure we’ll see the fruits from our attendance at WDCNZ flowing through to RedSeed in the coming months.

A big thanks to xero for sponsoring the event and the Trademe guys for the free wifi. Speaking of Trademe – we even had the opportunity the following day to have a guided tour and a Q&A session with some of their web and operations team; fascinating, but that’s another story….

But back to WDCNZ – we can’t wait till next years event.

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