A breakdown in communication can be seriously harmful to any business. Not only does it influence your productivity, it also affects team morale and can be detrimental to your company culture. To answer this question from an “insider's view,” I called Linda Kelley, Corporate VP Sales and Marketing for Orleans Homes. Linda has a unique talent with communications and team building, and I have had the opportunity and privilege to experience some of her meetings and processes first hand.
Linda recommends starting pretty simply with an open conversation. The objective is to meet with your sales and construction management teams to understand their top three challenges. Most likely, they will highlight different challenges, so it’s important to hear from both teams.
Linda points out that it’s always beneficial for people to recognize that their opinions are valued. By bringing the sales and construction teams together, you can break down the issues by organizing sales/construction teams in smaller groups, sharing the obstacles and asking for their group to provide ideas and solutions.
This empowers the groups to address the challenges they have outlined, but more importantly to bring solutions to the conversation.
If processes need to be changed, sales/construction manuals should be changed (or written, if there isn’t a manual in place) so that everyone is on the same page. It also provides future training for new employees who join the team.
Linda also notes that a nice follow up and thank you for their time and efforts are always appreciated. You can even take it a step further and show appreciation with a gift cards, recognizing and thanking them for their contribution.
In her new column on probuilder.com, home builder marketing consultant Mollie Elkman will gather advice from the experts to answer your questions on a variety of home building topics. Got a question? Send it to Mollie at melkman@grouptwo.com.
