One of modern life’s nuisances is the telesales call. You get home from a hard day at work, start thinking about a relaxing evening and the telephone calls start. Many of them are apparently surveys, but if you resist the urge to hang-up, you find you are being asked whether you would care to meet a salesman, or, in the case of companies with whom you already have a relationship, to buy something else from them. Perhaps, the most annoying calls are those which involve answering to find nobody there. This is one of the problems caused by automated dialling, where you are called, but there is no-one to speak to you when you answer.

However, whilst there is undoubtedly a downside to outgoing telesales calls in terms of public perception, the fact is that it works and is a cost effective way of increasing business.

The desire to carefully target sales drives and the requirement for the latest in monitoring systems has led to many companies outsourcing their telesales operation. This also enables a company to use professional telesales people, who have received thorough sales training, as and when they need them rather than having them as a permanent overhead. Before outsourcing, one should carefully weigh up the full cost and consider whether the job could be done better in-house with a little capital investment.

Managers need to ensure the personal development of their team members and one of the most effective ways of doing this is regular review meetings. The more frequent these meetings, the greater the opportunity for improving team performance.

Any review meeting should relate to specific projects. The agenda should start by looking at how much of the task has been achieved and how that relates to where you have aimed to be at this time.

Make sure that everybody contributes to the meeting. The following are some of the areas which may repay consideration.

Ensure that both the team and the individuals who make up the team have a complete understanding of the task objectives.

Are the team member’s skills correct to meet those objectives? Is there any mentoring within the team or short term training needs which can be addressed?

Is communication with the team open and complete? Is information given as required? Is there any information that needs to be provided sooner or more regularly?

Is the balance of responsibility within the team fair? Are there individuals being underutilised?

Make sure that the necessary resources are in place to satisfactorily conclude the task.

Finally, remember any review is an opportunity to discuss what has gone well and how you can repeat those successes.

Many managers feel that they need to be so focused on their career development that they, ironically, end up forgoing true personal development. Managers spend a large amount of their time fire fighting, that is, dealing with day to day problems. This means that they often forget to foster their creative skills.

In fact, managers need to nurture creativity so that they can think ‘outside the box’. This means that they are able to look for and recognise opportunities for new products or services. They might be inventing something brand new or improving on a current concept. The important thing is that managers, and indeed entrepreneurs, have a pro-active attitude.

Everybody can benefit from greater creativity. There are a number of ways to tap into it. One suggestion is to take time out every day to meditate. Spend the time somewhere quiet where you will not be interrupted and try to clear your mind of everyday concerns. Picture your mind as a blank canvas on which to paint your creativity. Don’t try to steer your thinking in any way. Allow your subconscious full flow.

There are many training courses which focus on creativity and many methods which will repay time spent investigating them.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that individuals do not always perform to the standard expected of them. Often, their managers will find ways to avoid confronting the problem head-on. They will decide to leave matters alone in the mistaken belief that the situation will improve. This is not helpful to anyone, least of all to the employee whose personal development needs to be considered. The simple fact is that poor performance is most commonly caused by a lack of skills or motivation.

Whatever the cause and solutions considered, the first thing to do is for a manager to meet with the individual and make it clear that there is a problem. Whilst the manager should be sympathetic to the explanations offered by the employee, they do need to ensure that the difficult message that the individual is under performing, is delivered and understood by the employee.

If somebody needs training, the time scale for completing the agreed courses needs to be set and an assurance should be sought from the employee that once their skills are updated, there are no other obstacles to their performing satisfactorily.

If the individual who is failing to deliver is not motivated, then the manager may wish to examine their own part in that and whether there is anything they can do to improve matters. However, if an employee is not performing it is ultimately that individual’s problem and they need to understand the dire consequences if they do not improve.

There are an increasing number of pressures on managers. Many of these are financial. After all, business is concerned with maximising profits and ensuring that the shareholders can see the results of this in their dividends. However this can be short sighted. The most expensive item on most businesses’ profit and loss accounts is staff costs. It is vital therefore to invest in the personal development and soft skill training for these individuals.

If you follow football, you will know that the most highly praised managers are the ones who develop home grown talent and bring them to the forefront of the game. Most premiership teams recognise this and have state of the art training facilities and networks of scouts looking for raw talent. This is not done out of altruism. It is an economic necessity in the long term. By bringing on young players, a fortune is saved in transfer fees further down the line.

If we take the most successful and profitable football club in the country, we can see how true this is. Alex Ferguson has guided Manchester United to a dominant position. Whilst this is in part achieved by dipping into the club’s large coffers and buying players like Ronaldo and Tevez, his most notable successes is bringing on players like Beckham, Giggs, the Neville brothers and Scholes.

Reciprocity is a strong instinct. In fact it is so strong that charities spend huge amounts on ‘gifts’, which they send to members of the public. When you receive yet another appeal from a charity, you may not actually want the biro, calendar or diary enclosed, but somehow it makes you more likely to make a contribution to the charity’s coffers.

The fact is that most people’s response to a gift is a feeling that they want to return the favour. This is why corporate entertaining and gifts can be so effective even when they are used in a very subtle way. Some of the best gifts are extremely cheap. If they stay on the customer’s desk and have the contact details for your business in a prominent position, you more often than not likely to hear from your customer.

Sales training does not always focus on just how much value for money can be obtained in this way. This is particularly so when you target the right person. That is, the individual who is most likely to order whatever it is you sell. Remember, this will not necessarily be a senior buyer, or manager.

However inexpensive the gift, make sure it doesn’t look cheap and use a little imagination to suit the gift to its recipient.