So how did you get started?
Okay, okay.
Well, I started as a consultant.
I'm a consultant, also a professor.
Alongside consultancy, I also teach
undergraduate or post-graduate level,
occasionally here in London.
And as a consultant, I started 30 years ago.
Before being a consultant, I was working as an accountant,
auditor, and also course analyst,
and also, well, a specialist in merchant and acquisitions
for a while.
And before this, obviously, I was studying at university.
But after being an accountant,
I started advising companies on international trade.
I have been advising company on import-export activity
for nearly 30 years.
Over the last few years, because I started searching
for my book, The Art of Compassionate Business,
on the non-traditional aspect of business,
such as generosity, gratitude, forgiveness,
kindness in the business environment,
we started training companies on non-traditional topics.
For example, how to become more playful
in the work environment.
Why playful is so important?
Because according to research,
playfulness brings about more creativity.
When people are more relaxed,
when they connect to one another in a much relaxed way,
in a much more informal way,
when they let their hair down,
and the kind of social life they connect emotionally
and mentally, according to research,
people are more prone to have creative insights.
So we started, over the last few years,
we started training companies.
And now what we do in practice is the two areas.
International trade, we keep this as a traditional training
and advisory and consultancy.
And the second area, second business unit,
is training companies on non-traditional topics,
such as compassionate workplace,
compassionate customer service.
Many companies are horrible with the customer service
approach, and this is probably a very interesting training
because it's one of the best selling training
because I see so many mistakes in business of companies,
how they approach customer in the wrong way.
And then instead of attracting this customer,
they push other potential customer away.
So I'm a bivocally international marketer.
I have a master degree and a doctorate in international
marketing, and so I like all this topic
about also customer service,
how to serve customer much more effectively and so on.
Nice, nice.
So you said you have a doctorate degree in marketing,
and what was the other one?
Management, management.
Management focus on international marketing
and the other, the master is in international trade,
international trade, international marketing.
Oh, okay.
Yes, but I wanted to comment about now
we are talking about marketing.
I wanted to mention one example
of how mistaking companies are.
We advise the other day a company that was,
it's very popular.
I don't want to give the name because we have
a confidentiality agreement, but very popular.
And this company that is successful in practice
have a very important mistake that we detected
and probably they are likely to correct.
That is a system of commissions,
commission that try to motivate employees
to get a percentage of their sales.
And this is up to them, it's okay.
Up to there, it's okay.
Commissions are very common in the sales team,
but what happened?
What we observed, we observed some members
of the sales team acting in practice.
And what we observed that they tried to sell
the most expensive product to customers,
not the product that customer need
in order to have a higher commission.
This has a name, the technical name called hacktourism
that is trying to focus on your own objective
of salesperson instead of trying to serve customer
more efficiently.
When we highlighted this defect,
defect, this mistake, the manager were a bit surprised
because they took this for granted.
This was the culture of the company.
I'm not sure they will be able to change.
But what is the approach that we suggest,
an alternative approach.
I told them, instead of selling product to customer,
in trying to selling product to customer
and trying to sell the most expensive one
that might not need, try to change the approach.
Try to adopt a serving attitude.
Instead of a selling attitude, a serving attitude.
Serving attitude is you focus on customers.
You focus on their needs.
First you discover their needs,
you support this need with your expertise,
your experience, your background.
And then you try to see there is a match,
a match for the customer.
So this means that you try to make customer feel satisfied,
delighted.
And if so, you recommend the product.
If you don't have any product,
you recommend that this company should go
to a competing company.
This is okay.
Because if you cannot serve this customer,
effectively other company will do.
But do not try to force this customer
into buying a product they do not need
because customer is prone to become resentful.
Regretful because they feel deceived,
they feel casual, they feel tantalized.
And this customer not only will run off your company,
run away from your company,
but will push other potential customer away.
Customer do not want to be manipulated.
They understood this very clearly.
As you see, there's very simple tips, but important.
And hopefully they will change,
but I feel also that they have a challenge
because this has been ingrained in the company's culture
for such a long time,
that in some cases it's difficult
to overcome these hindrances.
But this is a good example of a company that is popular,
but has a very important mistake
that can push many, many customer away.
And you know, that brings me back
to that quality over quantity.
Yes.
There should be a balance.
A balance because most companies focus on quantity.
What can be counted?
Sale, market share, productivity, and so on.
There is a famous thinker that observed,
not everything that counts can be counted,
and everything that can be counted counts.
That's absolutely right.
This means that in some cases,
things that can be counted are not so important,
and things that cannot be measured precisely,
for example, camaraderie, compassion, commitment, loyalty,
these are very important
because these are the basis of relationship.
We have to understand that the building brick
of any business project, any business endeavor,
is the human being.
If you do not care for this human being,
you are in big trouble.
Yes.
Caring for the human being doesn't mean,
I want to add one point that is important,
doesn't mean only meeting their economic needs.
Because this is also another mistake
that we observe in practice.
Most companies say, okay, I'm paying this employee
a good salary, that's it.
I'm done with this.
This is, I have this everything resolved,
but this is not enough because all the stakeholders,
including employees and customers,
are multi-dimensional beings.
This means that they have different type of needs.
They have economic needs, for example,
an employee, an economic need will be,
need to have a good salary for their livelihood.
But they have emotional needs too.
They need to be recognized.
They need to be appreciated.
They need to be supported.
They need to be supported so that they can enhance
and apply their skill, for example, through mentoring,
through coaching, training on the job,
but also they need to be appreciated for their jobs
and their work.
For example, a thank you note, handwritten thank you note.
But also they have mental needs.
This means that they need to have a stimulating workplaces
where they can see new projects, learn new things,
develop new abilities, and also they have social needs.
I see some cases, workplaces where employees
are so isolated, they're on their own,
they cannot connect to others even during the break
so that they get bored, they get demotivated.
Instead other companies try to develop most of their project
in a collective way.
In some cases they develop brainstorming meetings
where everyone can give their opinion,
they can develop a new project jointly.
So we have to understand that there are many types of needs,
emotional needs, mental needs, economic needs,
social needs, among others.
So most companies tend to focus only on the economic needs.
Yes, yes.
And you're right.
And it's also empowering the employees
to be able to say that they don't feel
like they're needed there.
It's that common statement that everyone is disposable,
but no one wants to feel disposable.
So since we are close to our 20 minutes,
and I'm not just debating the time or anything,
but I do want to know, I know you
work with the bigger companies.
And with our audience, I'm sure there's
a ton of employees that are listening to this.
What tips do you have for employees regarding
to the option?
Yes.
The tips are very actionable.
So first of all, very simple to apply.
Don't wait for others to change.
The change has started with you.
Doesn't matter your role, your position,
you can always generate positive change.
Try to ask yourself this self-reflection question
on a daily basis.
How can I be more generous with my colleagues
and with other stakeholders?
How can I be more supportive and kinder
with different stakeholders?
Why is so important?
Because according to research, generosity
brings about more generosity in the workplace
and brings about more trust and brings about more cooperation.
Some might say, oh, but I don't have so many resources.
I cannot be generous with, for example, if I am the manager,
I cannot be generous with my subordinates
because I cannot give a bonus.
Generosity implies giving.
Tensible things when you can, but also giving
intangible things.
Generosity could be that you give an ear
to listen to their problems, or you give some coaching.
These are intangible things.
Or you give some support, or you give some technical information.
Why is so important?
Because there is a principle in social psychology
of reciprocity.
When you are behaving in a generous way,
others are likely to behave alike in a similar way.
When you behave in a self-centered way,
you think about only your own objectives.
For example, these salespeople that
were thinking about their commission, other people
react also in a self-centered way.
So this question is very easy to apply.
How can I be more generous?
How can I be more compassionate?
How can I be much kinder and grateful
with different stakeholders?
And you will see that you can apply to colleagues,
but also you can apply to customers.
Can I be more generous with this customer?
Can I provide with free information, free training,
so that they can, for example, I can support them
after they bought the product.
They can call me 24-7 so they have any doubt,
any clarification.
Generosity, beget generosity, because when
you're generous with people, people feel indebted,
and they feel compelled to reciprocate.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.