Sharing what you learn at convention with customers is key for employee engagement.
Going to “convention” and leadership conferences used to be just that, a time for the top 10% of leaders or managers in a company to go off for a few days to talk to the top 10% of leaders and managers from other similar companies – to network, to compare notes, to share ideas. Then all of those leaders would go back to their companies and keep plugging along.
So what about the other 90% of your staff? Especially the ones who have the most face-time with customers? Oh, yes, times have changed. Customers know whom they’re really working with, who provides the value to them. So business owners are encouraged to make the extra effort to share the professional industry with their main staff – the cleaning technicians in the field every day.
CEO Janine Popick offers these four reasons why you should bring/send your office staff and even your cleaning technicians to major conventions and regional conferences:
1. Learn: more than just performing rote actions in a customer’s home, your staff is delivering on the value promise you’ve made to the client, and they need to know why just as much as you do.
2. Network: just as business leaders need to know they’re not alone, middle managers and cleaning technicians can gain a greater sense of the industry at large and develop peer networks within the industry.
3. Content: in addition to learning, consider what knowledge and intelligent thought other members of your staff bring to the larger conversation.
4. Share: and more than anything, share with your customers that you and your staff are engaging in continuing education. Your customers know that the world is changing every day, so make sure they know that you’re keeping up for their benefit.
Read the full article at Inc.com.
