This is the time of year that many owners and managers are tasked with reviewing the performance of their team members. Many year-end reviews are not much more than a compensation review. How can you provide feedback that motivates your team members to up their game? Start with establishing goals for the review. Typically, performance reviews are designed to provide positive feedback on how well someone is performing and provide guidance that will help the team member develop professionally. Multiple studies have found that work experience is responsible for about 70% of professional development learning necessary to climb the career ladder. The other 30% is divided between formal courses and learning opportunities and life experiences or those activities people engage in outside of the workplace.
Have you wondered why your clients select your showroom? Is there a magic moment or zero moment of truth that puts someone over the edge and motivates them to sign on the dotted line? Decision-making is truly paradoxical says Duke University Professor Dan Ariely. Ariely is a best-selling author who also teaches psychology and behavioral economics and conducts extensive research on how and why people make decisions. Ariely claims that most Americans behave as if we have no objectives, goals or aspirations. A large majority of us don’t do what we should of what we say we want to do. We tend to overeat and don’t exercise enough. We don’t develop three-, five- and seven-year plans for our lives. We have subscriptions that we don’t use but don’t cancel. There are lots of don’ts in most of our lives.
With so many BKBG Shareholders and Preferred Vendor Partners celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday today, we offer the following fun facts to bring a smile or two to your Thanksgiving table. Enjoy!
The British have a love affair with tea that most Americans do not understand. When you start to research the reasons why, you discover that the tastes of tea, similar to beer (think Coors), coffee and other brewed beverages are influenced by the quality of water used.
Referrals and word of mouth are the most effective marketing mediums for kitchen and bath showrooms. To create a raving fan that refers your showroom to friends, families, colleagues and others that are considering a renovation requires exceeding expectations at almost all phases of the customer journey.
Attracting and retaining top talent remains a challenge for almost every kitchen and bath showroom. While most showrooms understand the need to recognize their team members, recognition has become increasingly difficult especially for businesses with hybrid work schedules. Reflective recognition is a new technique to provide a well-deserved pat on the back to outstanding efforts, performance and individuals.
The Great Resignation wrecked havoc on compensation and benefits for many kitchen and bath showrooms and design build businesses and just about every other industry, making it difficult to attract and retain top talent at all levels. Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Bank of America and others offered pay scales and benefits that most small and medium-sized businesses could not match, making it even more difficult attract and retain team members.
What does it take for a kitchen and bath showroom to go from good to great? You may believe that you need the best designers, a great marketing strategy, best-in-class production and exclusive product offerings. To be successful, those qualities are necessary, but they are not exclusive to one showroom versus another. Many showrooms have similar qualities and traits. The difference between a good showroom and a great showroom is how your team feels about working there. How many businesses do you know that their team members are only there to collect a paycheck versus making a difference?
Have you noticed that many extremely successful, high-profile, high-net worth people are not particularly happy. Lady Gaga sent her fans into a frenzy after she claimed that “fame is prison.” If money and fame can’t make you happy, what can? That’s a question that best-selling author and New York Times columnist Arthur C. Brooks answers in his new book From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.” Don’t let the subtitle mislead you. The book offers guidance to anyone regardless of age.
At the recent 2022 BKBG Conference, it was impressive to observe how the Gaylord National staff approached their jobs. An elderly team member who struggled to bend his knees, nonetheless, bent over multiple times in a short time period to pick up scraps of paper and trash. The housekeeping staff would say hello to every guest who passed by in the hallway with a smile and a warm greeting. The catering staff took extra care to remove dirty dishes promptly and quietly as to not to interrupt the program that was taking place. It was an impressive performance because everyone seemed to care about how the property looked, was maintained and functioned.
