Monthly Archives: June 2010

I  was having a very casual conversation with the VP of Sales  from one of our pharma customers.  He was sharing with me his observation of their sales team during a recent sales conference.  His group has sales offices across Canada and there was representation from each of the provinces at the conference.  Most of the sales people were women.   He was disturbed by the fact that he could tell which province the sales rep came from by the way they were dressed.  He said he couldn’t help but think that as an organization they spent thousands of dollars every year on their company branding and what message was the reps sending when they were wearing mini-skirts and showing too much cleavage.

I shared with him that one of the Alliance partners does an excellent job of taking both groups and individuals through a personal branding process.  His eyes lit up and asked me to introduce him to the partner.  They ran the program a month later.  He was delighted with the new professional image projected by the sales people.  The participants commented on how much more confident they felt.   This program goes beyond just the physical appearance and helps people connect with their authentic self and define who they want to be known to be.

I too have gone through this Alliance partner’s branding process and I know what they mean by more confident.  Actually a friend who I hadn’t seen in six months  met me for lunch after my process was completed and she said it was not like it was a “new” me, it was more like the “real” me.

It is hard to believe it has been five years since I started the Athena Alliance.  Time has flown.  Since the beginning there has been one customer who has embraced the alliance concept fully. This particular client has created their own in-house university and continually accesses the resources within our alliance to deliver customized solutions for their unique environment.   They have a very strong focus on building leaders and leadership development.  This has paid off for them as they have almost zero turnover.

This particular client has commented many times how easy we make it for her to offer her employees training from some of the best trainers, coaches and facilitators in the business.  They have offered their employees some of the most cutting edge training and coaching available.  She is delighted that she can call me and we can provide her with a “Perfect Fit” partner.  This company is committed to the continuous development of their employees and our trainers often comment on what a fabulous experience they have working with this client.  We are all truly grateful for the opportunity to work with this client and other similar organizations.

I thought this was a great story to share because often when we think of Customer Service, we think of providing service for external people only.  One of our clients in the communications and marketing industry called to ask if I could suggest some ideas to address an internal concern they were experiencing.  The employees in the finance department were in constant conflict with the other departments within the organization.  There was a lot of frustration with the way the finance folks were being received.  After doing a little research, I learned that there was a need to provide the finance department with some new tools by which to deal with their day to day situations.  The finance department lacked both the customer service skills and the understanding that the other employees they were dealing with were actually their internal customers.

I connected this client with our Alliance partner who is highly skilled at customizing customer service solutions.  The initial program helped shift the perception of the finance department to create a customer service attitude toward everyone they dealt with.   The subsequent program provided them with the tools to respond consistently in a professional manner to both internal and external people.

I recently spoke with one of the participants and she shared with me how much more pleasant it was to work in their department now.

Recently one of our clients contacted me for a need they had for an instructional designer in their Missouri office.  The HR Director was new to her position and was delighted to find out that through the Athena Alliance I could connect her with one of my alliance partners, who would be able to provide her with the resource she needed.

The process took several weeks as they spent more time further defining the need.  The chosen candidate was very much the Perfect Fit for this six month assignment and our customer was amazed at how easy we made the connection for her.  We are delighted with our global partnership.