Good speakers are plentiful. Great speakers are few and far between.

And then there’s that rare speaker who does not speak as a speaker but as a friend who knows who you are . . .

• your struggles between personal strengths and weaknesses, between doubt and self-confidence
• your lingering heartaches and defeats that gnaw at your sense of accomplishment and well-being
• your desire to be successful even in the face of disapproval, discouragement and adversity
• your emotional and psychological challenges of living in the real world of daily work – or lack of meaningful work
• your fears of failing to live up to expectations – your own and others’
• your hopes, aspirations and yearnings for a better, brighter, more prosperous future

You need a speaker who tells you the truth.

But the truth about what? Mere statistics, systems, strategies, trends, tactics and techniques? As important as these are, you need a speaker who tells the truth about YOU. When you hear someone speak YOUR truth, your motivation to express your uniqueness explodes. Then things really change – for the better – for good.

What would such a speaker be worth to your organization? $20,000? $30,000? Or celebrity range fees of $75,000 and above? Were those fees you paid in the past really worth it in the long run for you and your organization?

It is rare, indeed, to find a speaker who delivers high quality for low cost. Ken Wallace is such a speaker. He speaks as a friend to your audience members, speaking their truth so they can clearly see their capability to immediately perform better than they ever thought they could.

Here’s how it works:

Ken is the author of, “Your Better Self: A Simple Guide to Where You Want to Be” and it’s companion piece, “Your Better Self Study Manual: A Simple Guide for Living on Purpose in Peace and Prosperity.”

When your organization purchases both books (at a discounted price) for each audience member, Ken waives his standard speaking and training fees. Travel costs are separate.

You could recoup the cost in the registration fee or simply subsidize the total cost to whatever degree you’d like. The books can be branded to reflect your meeting’s theme or your organization’s pertinent information.

Here are the benefits of doing this:

• Generates goodwill and feelings of gratitude and reciprocity
• Significantly reduces out-of-pocket meeting expenses
• Provides additional tangible resources that build on the value received during the meeting
• Offers take-away value that the organization can use to reinforce learning and positive behavior change well after the meeting takes place
• The books can be given as a “surprise” by designated people of the organization as a means to express appreciation and/or recognition of the audience
• Portions of the books can be used in a workshop format to begin on-going engagement with their content as a creative means to continuously improve performance and organizational outcomes
• Creates a platform for effective follow-up and post-meeting support

Call Ken at 866.586.5021 or email him at ken@KenWallaceCompany.com.

You may want to use the booking inquiry form to provide information about your upcoming meeting.

Information about Ken Wallace, his speaking, training and coaching topics and the Ken Wallace Company, can be found by clicking here now.

Go to Traits of Success and enter your name and email to immediately download your copy PLUS get a complimentary enrollment in the popular 32-day eCourse, “Success Traits Training.” Otherwise, to receive just a copy of the eBook, click the button below to Tweet and receive the download link. Thank you!

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If you’d like to have a copy of the book on your smartphone, here’s the QR Code . . .

After hours of frustration trying to get my drain unclogged, I finally broke down and called a plumber. Upon arriving, he asked where the problem pipe was located. I took him to the bathroom and, pointing to the open doors under the sink, I said, “There’s your challenge, right there.”

He spent a few moments surveying the situation and then took from his toolbox a simple pair of pliers and gently tapped the entire length of the curvy piping. After just a few minutes of inspection, he wrapped his pliers with a bright red bandana he took from one of the many pockets in his tattered blue overalls. With precise aim, he drew back and struck the pipe about halfway between the bottom of the basin and the point where the piping disappeared into the wall.

It worked! The water flowed freely and all was right with the world. The entire visit lasted a mere five minutes. The plumber wrote on the invoice the following words: “House call . . . FREE; Knowing What to Do (Where to Hit the Pipe) . . . $75.00.

But knowing what and where is not enough. The noted comedian, George Burns, was said to have interrupted a person who was not quite finished asking, “What is the key to comedy?” with his answer: “Timing!” In addition to what and where, you must also know when.

There is such a thing as “putting the cart before the horse:” you wind up having to pull a load you wouldn’t have had to were you to have done things in the proper sequence and at the right time. You cannot hope to reap without having sown or to acquire wisdom and solid character without making the daily choices to discipline your baser instincts.

Wisdom comes from understanding what you should be doing with your time. . . right now wherever you are. Getting to the place where your knowledge, skills and experience position you to “move the needle” and succeed faster is the essence of living in peaceful abundance. When you know you know you can make things happen, you become equipped with the power you need to achieve what you want. Furthermore, what you want becomes shaped by what you know you can accomplish rather than merely hoping for something you doubt that you can achieve.

This, indeed, is a peaceful – and powerful – life that emerges from becoming your better Self.

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Make Your Meaning Clear Every Time

One of the most difficult tasks in any organization, whether large or small, formal or informal. business or social is to effectively communicate so that the results of people’s work and effort are what was initially designed and desired. Just because we can talk doesn’t mean we actually communicate. Assuming so makes for embarrassing, sometimes painful or even disastrous mistakes.

Communication often fails because assumptions are made about the use and mutual understanding of terminology, jargon, concepts and colloquialisms. Likewise, assumptions about the intended and implied meanings of any written or verbal communication cause misunderstandings when not made explicit during the communication process.
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But being a part of a team can be an exhilarating experience, one that expands and enhances personal perceptions, skills and attitudes and invigorates individual motivations to consistently perform in an extraordinary manner.

Natural and normal obstacles to team building and teamwork can be quickly and easily identified and overcome so that projects, tasks and assignments are completed on time and within budget. Ken Wallace shows you how.

Are you part of a team that is struggling with how best to:

energe the work environment by improving relationships and processes
minimize mission drift, goal-shift and blurring of the company vision
maintain high levels of concentrated energy on project completion
provide support, encouragement and direction during meetings
make effective decisions within the organization’s “big picture”
willingly share information and knowledge in a timely manner
focus time, energy and talent to achieve specific results
efficiently manage mission critical tasks and activities
identify realistic team mission, goals and objectives
receive honest feedback on personal performance
deal effectively with differences among members
offer honest feedback on others’ performance
prioritize important and time-sensitive tasks
listen and communicate for understanding
stimulate motivation and enthusiasm
develop persuasive presentations
respect individual team mates
generate innovative ideas
exercise patience

If you are dealing with any of these plugs in the pulse points of top team performance and productivity, then call Ken to learn how he can help you get through these issues quickly and completely and unleash the power of purposeful performance!

Just one session with Ken – even over the phone – can significantly improve the value of your team’s contribution to your organization’s success and profitability. Call now (866.586.5021) to get your team moving faster toward goal accomplishment and personal recognition among your peers and management.

Call me now (866.586.5021)

or click here.

If any of these statements are true about you, you need to call Ken Wallace and schedule your FREE initial conversation with him about how you’re feeling and what he can do to help you out of your doldrums and into the life of your worthy aspirations.

Ken Wallace Company offers three levels of personal and executive coaching that range from personal assistance to help you quickly achieve your goals to one-on-one life-altering mentoring that opens up a whole new “playing field” of life.

Go here to learn the details and how you can enroll. Your life will improve dramatically and you’ll get past long-held fears and roadblocks so you can accomplish more than you ever dreamed you could more quickly than you ever thought possible.

Call me now (866.586.5021)

or click here.

• Your goals will be specifically defined in writing
• You’ll discover what strategies work for you
• You’ll pursue your goals persistently and energetically each day
• You’ll consistently attempt to make continuous improvements in your life and work
• Each of your days are filled with gratitude, joy, service and peace
• You’ll find your life cleared of the residual effects of toxic people
• You’ll find yourself surrounded with successful, encouraging and positive people

Executive Coaching

It’s lonely at the top . . . Learn to appreciate and enjoy the challenges of leadership, the adventures of change and the fulfillment of your personal purpose. Become a 360 degree leader – see not just your business as a whole but yourself as a whole.

Top executives have very few people, if any at all, to whom they can turn in times of confusion, doubt or distress to discuss the issues and their feelings without fear of looking weak or indecisive.

Ken Wallace takes the politics out of leadership by helping leaders bear their burdens better by sharing those burdens with someone who listens thoroughly and then provides clear, honest, constructive and straightforward feedback.

Executives increase clarity and deepen their understanding of problems relating to both operations and employees as well as their emotional reactions to these problems. Equipped with this fresh perspective, they experience greater confidence, focused determination, enhanced self-esteem and renewed commitment to succeeding in the face of every challenge.

Key Benefits

In addition to all the benefits pertaining to all other forms of coaching listed here, Ken’s one-to-one coaching with executives and key leaders offers other benefits:

• Leaders learn how to lead by loving and love without fearing “what others might think.”
• The leadership provided by loving leaders produces better performance and financial results
• Loving leadership creates working environments that feed employees’ personal lives off the job

Management Coaching

Learn creative and exciting ways to change your management approach into effective leadership that will be experienced by others as creative and exciting. You will be better equipped to lead your people to increased levels of efficiency, effectiveness and enjoyment of work and the working environment.

Coaching of management personnel and teams is focused on the means and manner of becoming servant leaders. Servant leadership involves all aspects of the leader’s character and personality, not just the ones that are traditionally identified as “leadership traits, practices and characteristics.”

Leading by serving is a well-known concept but not a widely practiced approach. The primary difficulty to implementing this approach is that people don’t fully and clearly understand what is necessary to do it effectively and joyously. It is not a chore but a source of joy and personal fulfillment and contentment. When a manager knows where to start and what to do next then the manager becomes a true leader who leads with passion not just with promise(s).

Ken Wallace coaches the best out of people and helps them become true leaders in the pursuit of providing outstanding service to those whom they lead.

Key Benefits

• You’ll clarify your goals and boost your performance
• You’ll make better decisions
• You’ll communicate with confidence, clarity and effectiveness
• You’ll resolve performance issues quickly
• You’ll eliminate limiting beliefs
• You’ll develop your relationship skills
• You’ll model and replicate your expertise through others
• You’ll develop your talents and expand your skill sets
• You’ll more easily help your employees improve their performance
• You’ll more quickly devise and implement plans for strategic growth

Employee Coaching

Learn to exercise your natural leadership ability in the relationships you have throughout the organization. You are already leading others to some degree; learn how to do it intentionally focusing on the improved results for both the company and its people.

Key Benefits

• You will be more creative at work and at home
• You will be able to work with others more effectively
• You will be more satisfied and productive at what you do
• You will be equipped to reduce and even prevent conflict
• Your enthusiasm for your life and work will significantly increase
• You will position yourself for greater recognition and rapid advancement

Call me now (866.586.5021)

or click here.

Beginning with this month’s newsletter, we’ll be exploring five fundamental character and behavior traits that are absolutely necessary before anybody can experience successful accomplishment and living.

These traits must be cultivated by design. You can think of them as the building blocks – the foundation – of your growth into a successful life.

A successful businessman and public speaker originally wrote this book in the late 1800s. The concepts and “laws” that are discussed in the book are ageless. They are instructive for your personal growth and development today. What made for successful living then continues to make for successful living today.

The following are traits that are a “must” for anyone who is looking for both short-term and long-term success in life. These traits, when honestly embodied and expressed, focus the capabilities you already possess to manifest those of your aspirations that are worthy of your time and effort.

Study these traits carefully and thoughtfully. They will make a significant positive difference in your life. If they don’t, you’re simply NOT choosing to look for ways to incorporate them into your daily life. Always remember, the choice is always yours to make. And the choices you make gather to make – or break – any success you experience throughout your life.

The first of the five traits of success is:

The Power Of Concentration

Throughout the ages, great people have invariably had great concentration. In art and science, business and warfare, literature, politics and philosophy, the real achievements of the race have been due to this power. Concentration arises chiefly from being deeply interested, and is very closely related to persistency and definiteness of purpose. Concentration is an enemy to self-consciousness and vacillation. It enables a man to do the best that is in him. It is one of the characteristic marks of genius itself.

A timid person is erratic in their habits. They shift constantly from one thing to another, accomplishing nothing worth anything. Is it a book they’re reading? Soon they turn the pages impatiently, skim lightly over the most important parts, hasten to learn the conclusion, and cast the book aside. Is it a new business venture? They enter upon it enthusiastically, but at the first sign of difficulty lose heart and give up. Every change they make causes a loss of time and energy, so that they are always going but never arriving.

People make their own world. To cultivate concentration they must think and do only one thing at a time. Concentration is the art of continuous and intense application to a task. It is not an abstraction; therefore it cannot be offered as an excuse for carelessness. Here’s an example: A young man who worked in a bank was assigned to collect a note for $75,000. He received the customer’s check for the amount, had it certified, and returned to the bank. Upon arriving at the bank, he immediately engaged a fellow worker in conversation, and then was sent out again for another errand. He loitered on the way, and when he returned, the bank had closed and everyone had gone home.

That night the young man told his father how he came to have the check still in his pocket. His father made him call the president of the bank at home, and early next morning the young man handed in the check. The president called him into his office and said: “We don’t require your services any longer.”

Thoroughness is one of the marks of a self-confident person. They do everything they undertake just as well as they can. If it is a business matter to be discussed, they first inform themselves so completely that they are able to talk with accuracy and intelligence. If it is a public speech to be delivered, they don’t wait until the day before and then put together a few hastily considered thoughts, but all is carefully and thoroughly prepared long in advance. Such a person speaks little of what they are going to do, but first does it and lets their work speak for itself.

Every person should get an idea of values in their life. There can be no true success where time and talent are squandered. “Every moment lost,” said Napoleon, himself a wonderful example of concentration, “gives an opportunity for misfortune.” The building of a self-confident person requires effort, self-sacrifice, and singleness of purpose.

It is not quantity but quality of work that differentiates one man from another. One thing well and thoroughly done is better than any amount of careless work. The person who is completely absorbed in the present duty has no time for discontent and discouragement. Time does not hang heavily on their hands, for the clock is not their master.

No one can become deeply interested in work that is distasteful to them. Thousands of people struggle up-stream all their lives because they are in a job that doesn’t fit them. An anonymous writer said: “It is a sad parody on life to see a man earning his living by a vocation which has never received his approval. It is pitiable to see a youth, with the image of power and destiny stamped upon him, trying to support himself in a mean, contemptible occupation, which dwarfs his nature, and makes him despise himself; an occupation which is constantly condemning him, ostracizing him from all that is best and truest in life. Dig trenches, shovel coal, carry a rod; do anything rather than sacrifice your self-respect, blunt your sense of right and wrong, and shut yourself off forever from the true joy of living, which comes only from the consciousness of doing one’s best.”

In order to cultivate concentration a person must bring their will to bear strongly upon their work and their life. They should realize that every difficulty yields to this power, and that uninterrupted application to one thing will achieve the seemingly impossible. Mental shiftlessness is powerless in the face of difficulty, but a person of strong will and concentration uses obstacles as stepping-stones to higher things.

You need to begin to develop your concentration today in little things. Cultivate the most intense earnestness in whatever you may be doing. Say to yourself: “This one thing I do and I do it to the very best of my ability. My purpose is sure and steady. My aim is accurate and certain. I hold my thought severely and positively to the work in hand. My endeavor is to do better at each succeeding effort. I don’t think about tomorrow, for today demands the best that’s in me.”

“I move quietly but persistently toward a definite goal. I shall be immensely successful through constant, earnest and sincere application to my work and duty. I grow daily in my power of concentrated effort. I am absorbed in all I do.”

A person should concentrate not only in matters of business, but in their reading and recreation. This great power brings with it many other valuable elements, such as order, punctuality, thoroughness, self-respect, and self-reliance. Through concentration a person may aspire to the highest achievements. By its aid there is practically no limit to ambition.

Buskin said that “men’s proper business in this world falls mainly into three divisions: First, to know themselves. Secondly, to be happy in themselves. Thirdly, to mend themselves as far as either are marred or mend able.”

We hear people constantly deploring the fact that they lack concentration, memory, definiteness, and other qualities of excellence, but those same people don’t make the slightest effort to cultivate them. Few persons are born with really great gifts; most of the truly great have achieved greatness. Napoleon ascribed his greatest victories to his ability to concentrate his forces on a single point in the enemy. Gladstone was remarkable for this same power. When the great statesman died, Lord Eosebery said: “My lords, there are two features of Mr. Gladstone’s intellect which I can not help noting on this occasion, for they were so signal, so salient, and distinguished him so much from all other minds that I have come in contact with, that it would be wanting to this occasion if they were not noted. The first was his enormous power of concentration!”

“There never was a man, I feel, in this world, who, at any given moment, on any given subject, could so devote every resource and power of his intellect, without the restriction of a single nerve within him, to the immediate purpose of that subject.”

The story is told of an English statesman whose powers of concentration were so great that after a great debate in Parliament, they hurried from the House bareheaded, passed his coach at the door, and walked all the way home in a pouring rain. In the highest form of public speaking men become so absorbed in their subject that they lose for the time being all consideration and thought of everything else. This power is really indispensable to the highest form of extempore address. The great pulpit orators of the world possessed this faculty in preeminent degree. Whitefield, Mirabeau, Wilberforce, Parker, Spurgeon, Beecher, Phillips Brooks, all were men of tremendous earnestness and concentration. John Bright was so completely absorbed in the subject of a forthcoming speech that they brooded over it day and night, talked it over with his friends, and when no one else was available discussed it with his gardener.

But along with a person’s concentration there must be actual performance. Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler says that “Indefinite absorption without production is fatal both to character and to the highest intellectual power. Do something and be able to do it well; express what you know in some helpful and substantial form; produce, and do not everlastingly feel only and revel in feelings–these are counsels which make for a real education and against that sham form of it which is easily recognized as well-informed incapacity.”

The power of concentration is to be developed so as to enable a person to do better work, to produce the best of which they is capable. It does not mean brooding and meditating, with no thought of action and production. It is to encourage work, not restrain it.

It’s a mistake to think that concentration means a straining of the mind. On the contrary, it is power in repose. It’s not a nervous habit of doing your work under pressure, but the ease of self-control. Every person should have one great ideal in life toward which they direct their best powers.

By constantly keeping that aim before you, by bending your energies to it, you can hope eventually to attain to your highest goals. When a successful financier was asked the secret of his great success, he said that as a young man they made a strong mental picture of what some day he would become. Day and night he concentrated his powers upon that one goal. There was no feverish haste, no nervous overreaching, and no squandering of mental and physical power, but a strong, reposeful, never-wavering determination to make that picture of his youth a living reality. Such is the power of concentration; such is the secret of success.

Next month’s success trait: “Developing Self-Confidence”
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Ken

Take our famous 10 second survey (“What Do You Really Need?”)

• the discipline to follow
• the discipline to lead
• the discipline to give
• the discipline to forgive

The highly effective leader is the one who learns what his/her people need at any given moment and then actively seeks to meet those needs. You move your organization forward and in the direction of its mission, values and goals by serving those in your organization. By serving in a timely and consistent manner, you are creating a highly effective work environment in which others are led both by and to the vision of the organization’s future.

Ken Wallace will help you create and sustain effective leadership habits throughout your entire organization by:

• developing your people into leaders who are able and willing to take charge of an emerging situation to provide dynamic and shared leadership
• providing leadership scenario sessions to establish and strengthen decision making and problem solving instincts among your people
• helping people lead their own lives, not just other people’s time and efforts toward goal accomplishment
• creating a unique process of leadership behavior into which any personality can comfortably fit and function
• fashioning an empowered work environment in which everyone helps each other do their best jobs
• establishing work environments in which people can do “better than their best” and in which they experience professional and personal fulfillment and joy

Leadership Integration

Leadership in any organization needs to be fostered and developed at all levels and in all areas of the work environment. And not just any type of leadership skills, knowledge and attitudes, but progressive leadership. Pervasive leadership seeks to continuously improve itself as the model for change throughout the organization.

Ken Wallace helps you create and sustain clearly-defined and finely-tuned leadership skills, knowledge, attitudes and habits throughout your entire organization thereby integrating personal and organizational leadership with desired outstanding outcomes.

Ken speaks for NO FEE!

Call me now (866.586.5021)

or click here.

• Customer Service? You Decide!
• Foundations of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty – Make ‘em Successful!
• Customer Service or “Customers Serve Us?”
• The Optimal Process Design®
• What Your Customers REALLY Want and How to Give It To Them Every Time

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Customer Service? You Decide!

We hear much about customer service these days, specifically, how to treat customers in such a way that they keep coming back to you.

Customer service, we are told, if consistently done in the right way will increase the loyalty rate of your customer base; and this will lead to greater profitability because studies show that it takes six times as much money to acquire a new customer as it does to keep an existing one.

There are all sorts of seminars, workshops, classes and presentations that instruct participants how to serve customers in an outstanding, memorable manner. You’d think that with all these offerings and all the people attending them that customer service would be alive and well in this country. My experience is that true customer service is experienced less often than it should be, certainly less often than companies proclaim that it’s done.

More often than not, I get the feeling that employees are doing me a favor by even talking to me, much less providing for my personal needs and addressing the primary reasons I even showed up in their place of business. Occasionally, I encounter a person who treats me in a genuine, warm and helpful way – and this is a refreshing experience.

What I have concluded is that customer service is a process that can be taught – employees can learn the steps that are necessary to meet customer requirements, demands, and needs.

But customer service is also a disposition: just because you go through a process doesn’t mean that the result will be customer service that leads to customer loyalty. No approach or process can force a person to truly serve others in a helpful and courteous fashion if that person is not disposed toward being helpful and courteous toward others. Such a person would merely drag the customer through a pre-determined process in such a manner that the result would not be satisfying to the customer but rather irritating and perhaps infuriating.

So customer service is both a process and a disposition. But it is more than that.

Customer service should not be done merely to give customers reasons to come back. It should not simply be an attempt to provide for the material needs and wants of those who come into your business. Its intention should not be just to demonstrate a pleasing personality or a disarming disposition. Customer service, in other words, is not just a pleasant process that you put people through with the expectation that beneficial results – for both customers and the company – will be assured.

Certainly, customer service is all of that, but if it was only that then it would only be a means to manipulate customers into thinking well of us and buying what we had to offer simply by performing generic and expected civil behaviors. No, customer service is more than acting nice and saying that the customer is always right, even when clearly in the wrong.

Customer service is a purpose, not just a process; it is a decision, not just a disposition. The true intention of front line employees – those who deal with customers day in and day out – is revealed and demonstrated by the decisions they make throughout the day regarding:

1) how they will treat customers all day long

2) how they want to feel about themselves at the end of the day

3) how they want their customers to feel about themselves and about the company at the end of each interaction with them

4) how they see the purpose of their job and the steps they will take to accomplish it throughout the day

5) how they will work together with others on the team to perform at the highest level of caring and competence for their customers

This true intention is what customers are left with when they leave the establishment. It registers in their minds and hearts as a certain kind of experience, positive, neutral or negative.

The combination of decisions that are made individually by every front liner determines the effectiveness of the customer service process; and this process is the means by which the purpose of the organization is materially manifested and by which it either thrives or dies.

Any training in customer service processes must involve clarifying and refining the decision-making processes that front liners use in dealing with customers – and with each other.

Customer service is what everyone who is tasked with doing it decides it’s going to be. What you first create in your mind and heart with purposeful intention will work its way out through your behavior into your relationships and to the bottom line.

Customer service? You decide!

What You’ll Learn:

• This program will teach your management and front line personnel dynamic ways to discover what customers want, what they need (which could be something totally different) and the behaviors they respond well to that will cause them to allow you to help them in the most satisfying manner.
• You will learn a simple yet powerful decision making process that will be used throughout every work day that will ensure customer satisfying behaviors and attitudes – especially when it’s most difficult to do.
• You can expect that attendees will perform better with less stress when dealing with customers.
• This program will also help participants develop a written game plan to deal with difficult people by dealing with the most important issues first – and they do not include the customer’s complaint!
• You’ll have fun while learning and you’ll be motivated to take action as soon as you get back on the job. You’ll also be eager to share what you’ve learned with peers, management and staff.

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Foundations of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty – Make ‘em Successful!

Everyone is involved with customer service and satisfaction – even those who do not come into direct contact with customers. For any organization, satisfying customers consists of a series of steps in numerous processes in which all employees are involved.

Without a clear understanding of these processes, their interrelationships, and why they exist, this intricate “web of service” can become snarled and inadvertently create a less-than- satisfying experience for the external customer.

This program slows down the processes and those involved in them by using proven techniques that focus participants on what really counts for their customers.

Using a simple, yet powerful, four-step process, participants develop practical and effective plans of action to design and implement a customer service infrastructure that results in the same high quality, satisfying service experience for every customer every time.

Beginning with understanding current performance as measured by the client’s internal and external customers, the process moves participants through awareness of current obstacles and on to improved processes.

Each of the following components of true customer service is explored in depth and action plans developed to integrate each into a comprehensive customer service strategy and process.

• Attitude (courtesy, sincerity)
• Communication (listening, paraphrasing, verbal/non-verbal expression of care, negotiating, making the customer right)
• Integrity (honesty, confidentiality)
• Value (giving more than is usual)
• Involvement (making it a fun and worthwhile experience)
• Gratitude (true appreciation)
• Walking the Talk and Talking the Walk (acting to implement the vision of stellar customer service and consistently communicating that vision)

The bottom line:

1) your customers’ success in getting what they want by doing business with you is more important to them than their satisfaction with your products and services.

2) How you give is more important than what you give.

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Customer Service or “Customers Serve Us?”

Have you ever felt whenever you were in a place of business that the employees really didn’t care whether you were there or not? I have even felt as if I were being viewed by owners and employees alike as existing for their benefit.

Far too many times I have encountered service personnel that made no attempt to hide their annoyance at my questions and comments. More often than not, whenever I’ve provided feedback that was intended to be helpful and constructive it has been met with joking, excuse-making, patronization or obvious, even if polite, disregard.

What can be done to make the experiences we have with American businesses more enjoyable, satisfying and fun? In this program you will learn the seven “Fs” of making customers’ experience with your organization outstanding and memorable.

Participants will learn how to use each of these approaches at the appropriate times for maximum benefit for the customer. The various customer types will be identified and written action plans for each type will be devised for immediate implementation back on the job.

Immediate improvements in customer satisfaction levels will result.

• Focus on others not on yourself
• Feelings of others are more important than our own feelings at the time
• Following the customer first by listening and understanding, then leading them to the best product/service for them
• Fun – making the experience memorable by making it fun and interactive
• Forwarding information received about customers to other departments/branches/people so they can serve these customers better (None of us know as much about the customer as all of us know)
• Funnel the customer’s attention and interest into broader possibilities and opportunities
• Future state of the organization is linked to the way we treat customers right now

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The Optimal Process Design®

There are two sides to optimal performance. One side deals with structures, processes and procedures, tools and measurement. This side deals with management of “hard” objective data: facts, figures, charts, etc. that can be examined and “seen.” The other side has to do with attitude, creativity, commitment, buy-in and self-discipline. This “softer,” intangible side deals with leadership: when leadership is present, the right things get done in an efficient, enthusiastic way.

When leadership is absent, things get done but often without achieving the intended results. Optimal Process Design© (OPD) targets both the personal (leadership) and the process (management) sides of performance for immediate improvement and sustained progress toward better results.

Participants will learn how to use the twenty elements of Optimal Process Design© to move their organization and themselves forward faster by:

1) Identifying who current internal and external customers are

2) Clarifying current corporate assumptions and business objectives

3) Clarifying current personal assumptions, goals and objectives of employees

4) Determining what internal and external customers needs and want – currently and in the future

5) Measuring how well internal and external customers are being satisfied

6) Determining how external customers are using the organization’s existing products and/or services

7) Deciding who the organization wants as its external customers and determining the similarities and differences between these and existing internal customers

Determining the current processes for meeting internal and external customer wants and needs

9) Identifying opportunities for improvement within each of the existing processes

10) Conducting formal creativity sessions with all employees to generate ideas that will result in improvement in providing customer what they want and need

11) Structuring work schedules to include guided and unguided individual T2 (Think Time) sessions as part of all management and employee job descriptions

12) Devising an optimal management “shell” structure that serves as a guiding template for developing customized business strategies and tactics for both internal and external customers

13) Developing a focused approach to turning a subconscious negative mindset among employees into a positive mindset that drives the organization forward toward goal accomplishment

14) Developing pilot implementation schedules

15) Assessing pilot project(s) and communicating results to all employees in a timely manner

16) Developing short- and long-term plans of action for improving the identified steps of the processes

17) Devising a monitoring system to follow-up on implementation efforts and results

18) Designing corporate celebration, fellowship and recognition opportunities

19) Identifying and enlisting “Process Champions:” one for change, another for stability

20) Creating a supportive and encouraging work environment in which people can do “better than their best”

_____________________________

What Your Customers REALLY Want and How to Give It To Them Every Time

What are the “moments of truth” that your employees must manage with every customer?

What do YOUR customers really want from you and your organization?

Can you be 100% confident that you’re giving it to every customer every time whether it be on the phone, in writing, in person or via your marketing and advertising campaigns? You will be after you’ve attended this program!

You will learn:

• How to clearly determine what your customers really want
• How to give what your customer want to them every time you have an interaction with them
• Essential communication skills for consistently effective customer service
• Conflict resolution and prevention skills and strategies
• Attitude development and control
• Negotiation skills for “both gain” outcomes
• Developing effective customer service processes for increased customer satisfaction and company profitability
• Setting and managing customer expectations
• Service mission development and communication
• Service recovery strategies and techniques
• “Give ‘em the Full Q.U.A.R.T.®” (Query, Understand, Align, Raise, Trade) Customer Service Process Model

Ken speaks for NO FEE!

Call me now (866.586.5021)

or click here.

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.”

This is what makes change so difficult to make happen. Ken Wallace helps you identify everything that needs to be involved throughout your organization in developing a successful plan for change and a transition management process that ensures a minimum of disruption to the work environment and maximum productivity during the implementation of the change initiative.

It will be helpful to better understand some concepts of change:

Organizational Progress

An individual or organization progresses by effectively managing the process of transitioning from one state of existence to a more desirable one.

Transition is: “The process through which an existing circumstance, condition or relationship (real or imagined) is acted on in a manner that produces a new and different circumstance, condition or relationship.”

Progress is achieved when the “new and different circumstance, condition and/or relationship” is better able to help the individual or organization realize their personal or corporate vision and mission.

Ken Wallace, through his proven methods and tools, helps executives and organizations transition toward new and different sets of circumstances, conditions and relationships that enable them to accomplish better outcomes for their employees, customers, communities and nations.

He serves as a guide throughout the transition process ensuring that risks are minimized. His transition planning and implementation designs reduce the risks of performance and financial loss to the enterprise during and after the transition.

Ken is a transition strategy expert who is highly experienced in handling the challenges management teams face when confronted with the need for change in their operating environments.

He provides customized transition implementation planning and experienced leadership in transition management so that your outcomes are safely and confidently achieved with a minimum of resistance from and disruption to the operating environment.

Organizational Alignment

Alignment between management and employee perceptions of corporate strategy is critical for success in any organization. Also crucial is a mutual understanding of how the operating environment actually accomplishes (or fails to accomplish) corporate strategy.

Ken Wallace serves to bring into alignment the disparate elements of organizational life so that appropriate business strategies can be set in a timely manner and effectively and efficiently pursued at all levels of the organization.

Organizational Literacy and Core Competency Transition Skills

Ken instills literacy and core competency skills for management and employees at all levels in the following areas:

• Assessing transition risks and preparedness
• Transition leadership and management skills
• Accountability development and monitoring
• Managing differences between people to maximize teamwork and goal accomplishment
• Efficient communication between and among all levels, departments, functions and business units

Ken Wallace provides ongoing customized instruction and technical assistance that build clients’ internal capacity to regularly apply the principles, practices and methods that he teaches.

Call me now (866.586.5021)

or click here.