Welcome back to #ThoughtFULLThursday. My name is Casey Hasten, Executive Recruiter, Director of Recruiting with VIP, and all-around hiring guru. I wanted to continue our conversation today about building better teams and today specifically about building better teams by empowering them with knowledge. An easy way to get that knowledge out to them is through professional development courses, right? I do this in a series of Lunch & Learns throughout the year, typically about once a month. I have three keys for my Lunch & Learns.
Number one, they have to be fun. How many times have you groaned when you heard about another mandatory professional development class? When my notice goes out to the team that there is a professional development opportunity coming up, I want them to be excited and can’t wait to join the party.
Number two, they need to be relevant. It needs to be something they can use that pertains to their job. One of the most recent Lunch & Learns I did was a business etiquette course. (If you need a great business etiquette coach for your team, I highly recommend JW Etiquette – Julie Wakefield.) Everybody was very excited because they got to go and have a nice lunch and they just accidentally learned how to use the right fork. Even more than appropriate silverware to use and which plate was ours, we were taught what our responsibilities were as the host. For example, how to pick the right restaurant, where all parties should be seated, and what to order when you are there. (By the way, do not order French onion soup. That’s a big no, no.)
Finally, the third criterion is I want my team to be able to use this information if not immediately, very soon thereafter. Going back to the example of the Business Etiquette Lunch & Learn, this information was immediately relevant to my team because we do a lot of entertaining in the sales world with our clients and sometimes those clients might be C-level executives with Fortune 500 companies. We want to make sure we are making a good impression of ourselves with the client, while also representing our company and brand well. This was almost immediately applicable, as most of the team had lunches and/or dinners already scheduled with clients.
Another approach I like to take is teaching on NOT what everybody else is doing. I want us as a team and a company to have kind of a little edge in sales. I recently ran across a lady who teaches Sales Improv and so, of course, I was like, okay, let’s see what this looks like. It hit the mark on being fun. It hit the mark on being relevant because it is an easy way to quickly establish rapport with new clients if you’re being kind of funny with them, right? Sales humor. She teaches the Improv technique because you can quickly pick it up and apply it, hitting the mark on able to use the information immediately.
I will tell you, I have never seen my team so engaged. We all walked away with superhero names and still to this day are referred to by them. You should have seen us…it was pretty funny as we made our superhero motions while spouting our superhero names. (In case you are curious, I am Communicator Casey with some awkward Ninja moves.) The point is, everybody let their guard down. These Lunch & Learn opportunities not only teach them skills which will help them in their sales business, it also brings us together as a community and creates a team building event as well. (If you want a fantastic Sales Improv Coach for your team, contact Pivot10 Results – Gina Trimarco.)
Anytime you get a sales team laughing and cutting up and talking about something for days, I feel like I have accomplished something. I would highly encourage you if you are not already implementing something of this nature to help improve your team and give them the skills and the professional development they need…start. If you have any questions about putting on a Lunch & Learn or who to talk to, contact me and I will be more than happy to share some really great people who can help your team immediately.
