Leave the Hang-Ups To Us

Storytelling in the Corporate World

by April Karli, Corporate Communications

As I type this I’m waiting for a tech from our telecommunications company to come fix their service to our home. I could tell you one story related to my experience with their technology that might make you think twice before signing up with them. However, I could tell you another story about their customer service, both over the phone and in person, that might cause you to come to a different conclusion.

Stories are powerful. They draw us in, engage our imaginations, and can transmit timeless messages. Recently I’ve noticed many organizations are harnessing the power of story to help them grow. Evelyn Clark of Corporate Storytelling says,"More and more organizations-nonprofits and government agencies as well as leading businesses-are discovering the power of stories to persuade, to motivate...to achieve a number of their communication goals."

Another executive who understands the importance of storytelling is David Armstrong, CEO of Armstrong International. He has authored books and produced videos and CDs about storytelling. On his blog, Armstrong suggests steps to creating your own corporate story which include determining a purpose of the story, thinking of an experience to reflect the purpose, using an employee’s name and making them the hero, keeping it short and simple, writing it down, and looking for new stories as time goes by.

How have stories helped your business? Can you think of a story about someone in your organization and tell it to us here? We’d love to hear it!

The Cost of Hiring

by Colleen McCarty, VP Talent & Organization Development

Over the last year we’ve been tracking the cost of sourcing and interviewing contractors for Initial Call. And as we complete the stats each quarter, I’m reminded that it is all too easy to get caught up in the day-to-day activities of our work and forget about the big picture that statistics and analysis provide.

Now I’ll admit, our recruiting process is thorough. Perhaps we spend more than others here, but when you deliver professional services you must have great people. And recruiting great people is expensive, really expensive. The average Initial Call Contractor works months before we see a return on our recruitment investment. To find the best contractors we have to talk to a lot of candidates. And each candidate brings his or her own unique skills. So we take the time to find those which will exceed our clients’ expectations and best complement our project teams.

We look for:

• A strong, relevant background in sales and cold calling.
• People who can hit the ground running.
• People who ask “how can I best do that?” rather than “why should I do that?”
• People who sell us on the product, when in the interview, the product is themselves.
• People who can work independently, intelligently, and with humor.
• People who want to work with Initial Call because we fit their life, not because it will do until they find something better.

Knowing how carefully we screen our candidates, I am confident our teams provide tremendous service to our clients. We eliminate the often hidden costs of recruiting and save our clients time they might otherwise lose on untested resources. In essence, through our hiring process, we invest in people, so that we can provide exceptional lead generation and appointment setting services.

A Different Kind of Leader

by Catherine Brown, President

I love it when I read about a real, live business leader who is to be admired. I am sure there are many out there, but it seems that the media portrays two extremes: Leader A is the CEO who writes his own biography (or has his own television show) and seems to pride himself on his own accomplishments; Leader B is in the news because he’s embezzled money from the company and as a result his employees have lost a good bit of their retirement investments. I love to read about the third kind of leader: the Humble Leader, as characterized in Forbes magazine’s article on Micky Jagtiani, a CEO of a retail empire throughout the Middle East, the Landmark Group.

Forbes’ article is full of quirky quotes by the CEO that were reminiscent of the CEOs listed in Jim Collins’ book Good to Great: the “every man” leader- humble, hard-working, and modest. My two favorite quotes about Jagtiani are when he speaks about his wife’s help in the business. He says, “She was very clever, finished at the top of her school… I flunked all my exams.” My second favorite quote, when asked about his early struggles in the business is when he states, “The first thing I said to myself when I started this business was that I must be strongest in the area where I am weakest.” Many leaders are afraid to admit where they are weak. I am thinking about why it’s hard to admit where we are weak and the irony of the strength that it takes to admit weakness. 

 

Following Directions...

by Colleen McCarty, VP Talent & Organization Development

In a recent meeting, the Management Team discussed traits they want to see in future hires. Half jokingly, a response of “someone who follows directions” was tossed out. Group agreement was unanimous, followed by silence. Then another voice added, “Not just literally following directions…but strategically following directions.”

What a difference the word ‘strategic’ makes. We went from unquestioned and complete obedience to someone who:

•  Listens and really hears the meaning behind the clients’ request
•  Considers the obvious and hidden options to determine the best way to accomplish the goal
•  Gently, yet without fear, brings suggestions to the client to improve sales processes
•  Lather, rinse, repeat.

But how do you identify the thinkers in a crowd of candidates? One way is intellectual curiosity. I tend to favor candidates that ask lots of interesting questions – not the standard interview questions from every interviewing article – but rather the questions that demonstrate the candidate has spent time thinking about the job, the company, the competitive landscape. I’m looking for evidence of wheels turning behind their answers. Bonus points awarded if they follow a path alien, new, or even uncomfortable to my way of thought.