Why the Best Performers Aren’t Always the Best Trainers
OK. How many of you are willing to admit that you’ve experienced this scenario: You needed someone to train a new hire, automatically chose the person who was the best performer in the job that needed to be trained—and then were disappointed with the results? Unfortunately, it’s likely that we’ve all done that at one time […]
4 Reasons to Consider Open Book Management
Open Book Management was a brand-new concept to me just four months ago. I hopped on the ZingTrain in October 2018 as the next-generation ZingTrain Concierge, a position responsible for coordinating ZingTrain’s on-site seminars and workshops here in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In addition to that, I report on, forecast and track ZingTrain’s public sales numbers […]
Making a Great First Impression: If You’re Only Going to Teach Your Employees One Class…
How do you welcome new hires into your organization? Do you hand them a uniform and point them in the general direction of the front counter? Do you have them attend several days of classroom training before they ever talk to a customer? Do they learn about your organization’s history and vision from someone in leadership? Or […]
Bring Your Best Self to Work
Back in 2007, when Zingerman’s wrote Zingerman’s 2020 Vision describing what the business would look like in the year 2020, we wrote that “we [Zingerman’s] have successfully quantified fun, measured fun, and improved our fun factor by at least 380% since 2007. We actively teach people how to have fun at work. We have games […]
Giving Great Service to Your Staff
We all know service is important—right? We’d be surprised if there were a company left in the US which hasn’t incorporated some version of “the customer is always right” into its employee handbook. Every politician and business leader can quote statistics about the pros and cons of the relentless move towards a “service economy.” And […]
6 Tips for Creating a Truly Great Customer Experience
What does a truly great customer experience look like? We spend a lot of time thinking about this at Zingerman’s. In fact, we actively measure the customer experience by way of the Zingerman’s Experience Indicator (ZXI), which is our adaptation of the more commonly known Net Promoter Score. As Ari explains in this article, “the […]
When Things Get Hectic… Appreciate!
When the holiday season rolls around, most of us have the ‘Busy Dial’ turned up to 10, or even 20 on some days.
Educating Your Customers: Using Every Opportunity to Teach and Sell
For those of us who sell specialty products, customer education has always been part of the selling process. Sometimes we’re offering products that most customers have never heard of. Other times we have items with familiar names but vastly superior ingredients or construction. Almost always the prices that we charge are higher than what is […]
4 Reasons to Write a Vision of Success
We’re big believers in visioning at Zingerman’s. We’ve seen firsthand how it can improve our organization and the personal lives of those who use the vision process.
Training vs. Consulting
When business owners run into challenges that they’re not sure how to address—or know they can’t resolve on their own—they often start looking outside their organizations for expertise and resources. Two common places to look are consultants and trainers.
Just Say no! Because sometimes, it’s the right thing to do…
“You can say ‘no’ to customers!” feels like an outrageous thing to advocate, especially when your organization is known for delivering great customer service…
