Build A Team So Strong, You Don’t Know Who The Leader Is

We’re all in this together. We are all colleagues, regardless of job title. We all work together to achieve the same goal, to make a difference for our clients, make the company a profit and ultimately get paid. When people start feeling undervalued for doing the role they do, we have a problem. Have you ever heard a colleague say, ‘what does it matter what I think’ or ‘my opinion doesn’t count’? Your opinion does count and yes, I would like to hear what you think.

We want to know how our colleagues feel and what they believe would work better. Having this feedback means we can make a difference and help.

Loyalty and commitment come from feeling valued. Feeling valued comes from respect and inclusion. Yes, roles within an organisation vary and so does workload, but every single person is here for one common goal. We win together and sometimes we lose together, but we are a team.

Some of the best results I have seen have come from people who have felt empowered to make a change. Some of the best ideas have come from people who have felt their opinion counts. When we feel we are able to have an input and suggest improvements, we work with a different vigour and we push ourselves. Not doing this is a sure-fire way to lose your best talent.

Encourage feedback. What’s working and what isn’t? What will make the process better? From my perspective things might look right – but that’s just my perspective. Tell me how it looks from yours. None of us are perfect and we can all make mistakes or miss things, but as a team we can get it right.

In my opinion, Air has got this balance right. We have regular catch-up sessions with all of our team members to review performance and processes. Not just as individuals, but as a team. Everyone has the chance to input and everyone has the chance to challenge. Feedback is essential to ensuring we get things right. It’s not a dictatorship, it’s a company which nurtures and nourishes its staff to ensure we all give our best and strive to achieve. Every role is valued and every person within each role understands the impact they have. With this comes an immense sense of comradery – a team so strong that you wouldn’t know who the leader is.

Opinion piece by Account Manager, Michael Hepburn.

AIR’S CORE VALUES

Learn more about Air’s values in this post.

How our 5* incentives have contributed towards client success

Lost employees can cost a company up to double an individual’s annual salary.  The eye watering reality is that this cost alone is unlikely to address recruitment costs, the time lost through learning and upselling, and the detrimental impact that a high employee turnover has on the relationship you build with your clients.

Now, you maybe questioning why a telemarketing company, involved in an industry notorious for poor staff retention rates, has grounds to comment on improving employee turnover? Well, we know it pays to keep our team happy and encourage them to be the best that they can be. Not only for the benefits of our employees and our company, but so our clients can receive the best possible service from our team.

So, what’s the secret to creating the loyal, motivated and results driven individuals that have become familiar faces among our team? The truth is, we have always placed strong emphasis on recognising and rewarding individual excellence and creating a positive team culture. We have tried and tested many ways of achieving this, but our recent 5* incentive scheme is one that has allowed our individual team members, the company as a collective and our clients to really reap the rewards.

At the start of this financial year, our 5 Star incentive put a playful challenge in place for every member of team Air: showcase your outstanding performance or team spirit throughout the year and win a paid for trip to Edinburgh, Dublin or Paris – for you and a person of your choice, we’ll even throw in spending money. 

This scheme has not only drawn Team Air’s attention to what’s really important, awarding the people who outperform expectations and continue to win new opportunities for our business and our clients, it’s also delivered improvements in multiple areas:

  • Impressive results for our clients driven by the buzz of healthy competition amongst our team
  • Elevated team spirit and heightened sense of wellbeing created through employee appraisal
  • Our strongest team members continuing to progress within our company, ensuring our clients have a dedicated campaign team that are familiar and confident in selling their products and services
  • An electric culture which continues to encourage new sales talent to become a part of our family and our clients’ campaigns
  • Increased motivation that pushes our team to outperform competitors, better handle gate keepers and in turn secure the success of their team, our company and our clients’ new business.

Having started our incentives as a trial, we have experienced an overwhelmingly positive result. With 5 hardworking team members having won well deserved breaks with their friends and family throughout the financial year, the 5* incentive is measuring up to remain a deep-rooted tradition for Team Air. So, we pose the question – what 5* incentive will you be using this year? We’re already working on a new idea to reward our lucky 2019 winners. After all, it’s only right that our MD tops sending someone on holiday, isn’t it?

If you feel that your business could benefit from the support of an exceptionally driven outsourced telemarketing team, then get in touch today – Team Air are always on hand to help. Call: 03452413038

Morning Buzz Meetings – Demotivating or Motivating?

Motivation can be difficult to achieve in an office environment; hard work can often go unnoticed and the constant pressures of a competitive environment can begin to wear employees down. Research has shown, each day, 10% of employees are absent in call centres due to the lack of appreciation felt in the workplace. This research alone highlights the need, especially in my industry, for touchpoints which allow managers to show their appreciation to their staff, highlight individual achievements and deliver motivational objectives. In this blog post, I will share my experience and tips for achieving the above in one morning meeting.

So, how do you maximise your morning buzz meetings to encourage individuals and create high performing sales teams?

  1. Strategise

43% of highly engaged employees receive feedback at least once a week, however, employee reviews should be happening more often and take less time.

There’s nothing worse than a long-winded ‘motivational’ meeting that is set to demotivate from the offset. It’s therefore important that you plan and prepare; effective buzz meetings should be concise and last no longer than 15 minutes, be armed with your objectives, focus on team wins and pinpoint your collective areas of learning.

  1. Set the tone

Our physical behaviour influences our mental and emotional approach to the day.

Think of ways to get your team moving, have a walking meeting, introduce a quick-fire game or play uplifting music to get the blood pumping. Increased blood flow creates a positive mood, resulting in employees being more equipped to handle objections, take on new challenges and meet personal milestones.

  1. Spotlight success

69% of employees say they would work harder if they felt their efforts were better recognised.

This is the perfect opportunity to feature the activity which you want to encourage. Celebrate your teams wins, even if they don’t lead to a direct sale and avoid focusing on losses. Recognising individual and team achievements has become my common practise, as I know this makes the individuals in my team feel more confident and in turn, pushes them to set bigger targets.

  1. Support and encourage

41% of companies that encourage colleagues to support one another experienced a significant increase in customer satisfaction.

If you want to create a great support network and boost team morale, encourage employees to praise fellow team members, this assures no one’s hard work slips past management and brings the team closer together. If your team is feeling positive it will show in their client conversations, resulting in better relationship building, more sales and higher ROI for the company.

  1. Strengthen from learnings

92% of employees agree that negative feedback, if delivered appropriately, is effective at improving performance.

Remember, the key for creating a great buzz meeting is positivity. Take negative feedback from the day before and turn it into takeaways and learnings for the team to overcome together. If a client isn’t happy with an element of your team’s performance, encourage your team to think of tactics that will better engage them and the people they are selling to.

  1. State the day’s focus

90% of business leaders believe that an engagement strategy could positively impact their business, yet only 25% of them have a strategy in place. It’s therefore no surprise that only 40% of employees are well informed of their company’s goals, strategy, and tactics.

It’s time to hit the reset button and introduce a new action plan for the day. Ask each individual team member, “what do you want to achieve today?” I have found that when the whole team acknowledges personal targets, that individual immediately feels more accountability to meet their goal, success is more likely to be achieved and goals are more likely to align to the company’s bigger picture.

 

At Air Marketing, we have experienced great success from our initiative to focus on our internal company culture. Achieving £18 for every £1 our clients invest, we are performing higher than the industry’s £11 average. I personally believe this success is down to the time we take out of selling to promote appreciation, individual achievements and team objectives. The culture at Air is one that I haven’t experienced anywhere else, our team’s positive and supportive nature is infectious, thanks to our daily buzz meetings we continue to deliver fantastic results for the companies we support.

Opinion Piece by Annie Blundell – Account Director, Air Marketing

We’ve been shortlisted for the BESMA Awards 2018

The British Excellence in Sales Management (BESMA) Awards are an annual event held by the Institute of Sales Management. With the purpose to recognise and reward the most successful companies and individuals in the sales industry.

We’re delighted to be shortlisted amongst some of the industry’s biggest players …

This time last week #TeamAir took to the bright lights of London to present in front of the BESMA panel. We demonstrated the success we’ve achieved over the past 2 years and how this has been made possible due to the hard work, commitment and passion our team continue to exhibit.

We’ve been shortlisted for the four following categories:

Best Telesales Team

Best Sales Employer

Best Rising Star – Marco Alfano-Rogers

Best Key Account Manager – Shaun Weston

We were excited to share the presenting stage with some of the biggest names in the country, companies which include:

Yell, Gamma Telecom, McAfee, PwC, Indeed and SSE Electricity Limited.

Reflecting on our growth …

Writing the BESMA Awards have truly allowed us to reflect on how much we’ve all achieved, not only in the last year but since our inception.

Having started with a modest fund of £25,000 in 2016, we first operated out of a boardroom within someone’s office with a total of 1 employee!

Now recognised as the fastest growing companies in Exeter, in the last 12 months’ #TeamAir have grown from 11 to over 50 employees and continue to acquire an increasing number of clients, and household brand names. We are currently operating out of two offices in Exeter’s city center and are soon to be moving into a new office with 100pax capacity.

We are extremely proud of our own growth and the growth we continue to achieve for our clients’. Our success is measured by the fact our team implements telemarketing campaigns that perform at twice the industry average. This allows our clients to achieve an average return of £18 for every £1 they spend with us.

What’s next …

With a strong team driving us forward we are confident that we will continue to evolve our company and elevate business for our clients.

Our office move comes with exciting new internal structures, new areas of expertise and even more possibilities for our clients.

BESMA’s well-deserved winners will be announced on 26th October 2018. Overwhelmed by the recognition our team has already received, winning the BESMA Awards would give solidarity to our team’s loyalty and hard work. It’s safe to say #TeamAir have every finger crossed.

If you would like to find out more about Air Marketing Group and how we can help you achieve your business goals visit our website: air-marketing.co.uk or call us on: 03332505686

Are you struggling to execute a rewarding telemarketing campaign?

We know there’s nothing better than building a healthy sales pipeline, and one of the most effective methods of doing that is by making calls and starting conversations with your key target market.

Implementing a successful telemarketing campaign is a process that many businesses struggle to achieve. A telemarketing campaign can often be seen as complex, time-consuming, or outdated. To eliminate this misconception, Air ensures all clients follow a campaign process which will lead your business through an achievable, step by step process, designed to deliver rewarding results for your business. Take a look at our Air process here