You get what you pay for

The second "truth" of sales and service is "You only get what you pay for". See the "trust" truth in an earlier blog. Simply put we reap what we sow. In the ever present shadow of the Employee Free Choice Act is the issue of wages and their impact on an organized drive within your company. What ever your position as an organization what you pay people has an impact on the performance of your organization and on the attitudes and direction of your employees. Let me be clear; I live by the motto for companies to""Provide the highest quality of sales and service for the least amount that is profitable to the client and profitable to the company. This means companies should pursue every competitive advantage possible to compete. This includes paying wages that are responsible. Just beware of what you choose.

Here is the 2nd truth:

"Truth 2: You Only Get What You Pay For

Yes, I inserted the word “only.” The reason? Most people still don’t get it. You can’t pay dirt, invest no money in training, recognition, supervisors, quality, workforce management, administrative support, treat everyone lousy and expect great customer experience. A better perspective might be that when you don’t invest in sales and service appropriately you get even less than what you pay for. Performance is even poorer.
We have a conundrum in that many entry-level jobs have such high turnover that companies are afraid to invest (tools, training, etc.) in a job that has a high turnover rate. The result is a self-fulfilling prophecy that we cannot invest if they leave; yet we are unhappy while they are with us because they don’t do a good job.

One of our challenges is that we are equally reticent to invest one level up at the frontline manager. The majority of these folks are our “star front-liners” promoted. We need to invest in making these people successful right from the start. If we don’t teach them what to do the results will be unfortunate. The reason is prior to this move they were only responsible for themselves. Now they are responsible for a team of people.

Let me be clear; money does not solve all problems. Some of the worst organizations we have seen overpay their people. Steven Covey, in his book “The Eighth Habit” states that organizations consider land, material and technology assets yet “they?” consider people liabilities.

If you are reticent to invest in people then invest in the process and operating system that these people use. Install the “right way” to lead, coach, run meetings, measure performance metrics, build winning culture and then no matter who comes in or out you are guaranteed to get quality results.
Companies that don’t invest in their people (both the value-side and the able-side) lose every time."