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Qeep is Gazelle 2015

In Qeep, we like to celebrate success and it lies deep within us to acknowledge positive results and the energy that it brings.

Once more, we at Qeep can place a statue on our shelf. This time it is Børsens Gazelle prize 2015, which is awarded to organizations that have experienced continuous, growth in revenue and/or gross profit.

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We are proud to receive this reward, especially because it comes on our 13th business year, which shows that it is always possible to improve. This prize does not stand alone; it reflects the will in Danish companies to succeed in what they set out for
— Lasse Hansen CEO, Qeep

To acknowledge positive results and the energy it brings lies deep within us. We consider it a fundamental part of our process to reach ambitious goals, and to stop and reflect on what we have succeeded with. For us it is a healthy motivation. That’s why we name a” result hero” every year, in order to acknowledge those in our company that has succeeded particularly in reaching the goals they set out to.

With ambition, courage and stamina, we will turn our eye towards a 2016 full of new existing tasks and goals to be accomplished.

Qeep has previously won the DI consultant prize 2004, 2009 and 2011.

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You have to challenge your surroundings to get results!

If you want to get results, you have to create good relations with the people around you. Our experience shows that a certain amount of tension is beneficial to drive execution processes forward quicker. You get better results if you challenge each other and make imperative demands.

In the years after the financial crisis, the consultants Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson asked themselves the question:
”Why did some sellers create top results while other couldn’t sell anything?”

The answer surprised them.

Relations lose

They conducted a research of more than 6.000 sellers from different countries and industries and discovered that sellers can be categorised in five different types:

  1. The lone wolf, the cowboy without respect for rules and with an astounding confidence
  2. The hard working seller, that constantly tries to conduct more calls and visit more customers
  3. The relation creator that tries to build strong, professional relations ahead of the sale
  4. The reactive problem solver, whose focus is on the after sale. He keeps himself updated on the customer and whether he/she got what he/she wanted

The challenger, that uses his/her knowledge about the industry and solutions to challenge the customers’ mindset – Even when the customer finds it somewhat controversial

The survey produced a very clear winner and loser.
40% of the sellers who created extraordinary results were challengers and they were also the ones who did best in the overall scores by far. The worst sellers were the relations builders which surprised the consultants, because for many years, the focus has been on teaching sellers to build good relations.

The Problem is tension

At Qeep we aren’t surprised about the result. The same things go for our work in business execution. It’s about getting people to decide to change the status quo. 
That’s why we weren’t surprised that the challenger accomplishes better results than the relation builder. For a person to work goal oriented on creating results, there has to be a certain amount of anxiety and uncertainty. It’s scary to do something new and to tread on deep waters, but if you’re constantly operating within your comfort zone, you will never do things differently.
On behalf of input from over 100 firms, we have developed 9 principals for good business execution leadership. Here are a few of them explained.
First and foremost, you have to have an ambitious approach to business and leadership. This means that you have to set yourself goals out of your comfort zone. This is where relation builders often fail because he/she will focus on doing things in a way that feels familiar and safe. 

Furthermore, you have to be courageous and ready for change. If you wish to achieve high goals, you often have to break out of your current ways of thinking. Here, the challenger is great as he is always using his insight to challenge the existing paradigms and status quo.

The challenger

To sum up, the challenger focuses on pushing the costumer out of his/her comfort zone. It makes sense, because there is no need to buy a product if everything is perfect. Why do you need it then?

The challenger does this in three ways that the author calls:

  1. Teach
  2. Taylor
  3. Take Control

First and foremost, the challenger uses his insight knowledge to teach and challenge the customer. For many years, sellers have focused on covering the customers need, but what if the customer doesn’t know what he/she needs? Dixon and Adamson argues that this is often the case. Therefore, the challenger focuses on getting the customer to realise and learn about a problem or opportunity they didn’t know beforehand. He doesn’t merely focus on covering the customers known needs.
At the same time, he is able to tailor his message to many different types of people. Most selling processes are more complex today than earlier. Therefore, many different decision makers are often involved. For example, The IT-man, the CFO, and the Sales Director all have to acknowledge the idea if you want to sell a new CRM-system to a corporation. The challenger is able to create consensus all the way around.
Lastly, the challenger takes control of the sales process. He is persistent and drives the process forward. It’s about making a sale and not just about having a good meeting. The challenger knows that he has challenged the customer’s paradigm and therefore he also knows that the particular solution will create value. This means that the challenger is not afraid to talk about money and therefore is constantly pushing to make the sale.

The Challenger is a good execution leader.
The challenger has the values and mindset that creates good execution leaders- in other areas than sale as well. He is able to create the necessary uncertainty and tension necessary to work goal oriented.

At Qeep we celebrate this type of humans. It is central that corporations reach their goals.

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Interview with Rebecca Homkes

In this exclusive Qeep Interview with Rebecca Homkes we talk about her article in Harvard Business Review.

 

Everybody knows that strategy execution is central for a company to reach its goals. Here you can read about what it takes and what disciplines the leadership should master.
The insight that Rebecca Homkes brings forward concerns how the interaction between alignment, activity, coordination and adaption to change should be handled for successful strategic execution.

The article is written in cooperation with Charles and Donald Sull who over 9 years has interviewed more than 400 global leaders about strategic execution.

Among other things, the article challenges the myth that if something is implemented, then the execution comes naturally.

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Perfomance Management Updates

9 Principals for good execution leadership!

It is important to have the right strategy, but the ability to set ambitious goals and act on these is what separates the ones that succeed from the rest.

It takes ambitions to set high goals out of the comfort zone.

It takes courage to constantly challenge the previous way of doing things and to mobilize the necessary resources to change status quo.

It takes persistency to keep motivated and not to give up before the goal has been established.

The bottom line is that it’s about conducting business in a specific way and about taking on a certain mindset.


Qeep's 9 principals for good execution leadership

Qeep’s 9 principals for good execution leadership

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Where is the focus of your strategy?

 In many companies’ strategy is something you put forward…… and forget. It’s like the CEO said;” Of course we have put forward a strategy, we just forgot where vi put it.”

The organisational leaders go to strategy seminars and discuss the vision, mission, goals and plans of the organisation. Everything gets turned into beautiful PowerPoint presentations which are presented to employees with great enthusiasm.

But when it’s back to everyday life, the leaders and employees do what they always have. They go back to their old ways of working. They reach the results they always have and nobody follows up on the strategy.

That’s a really bad way to work.

At Qeep we work with what vi call, executable strategy.

It all starts with the goal. Organisations have to force themselves to put forward ambitious goals that commits the entire organisation. Unfortunately, a lot of companies adopt the same strategy as the previous year by extrapolating the financial results of the previous year. It doesn’t challenge the existing way of doing things.

Qeep challenges organisations existing ways of thinking and doing things. An ambitious goal, parred with a sufficient strategy is what we call executable strategy.

If you want to achieve results in your organisation, then contact us.

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Are the ambitions big enough in your organisation?

The late summer and fall period is the time for conducting financial statements, but is this process in reality a prevention for realising the companies’ ambitions? Qeep has experienced time and time again, that the courage and ambitions gets to small in small Danish companies.

The traditional top-down budget process rarely creates commitment and motivation for real result creation. Instead it inspires sub optimisation in specific departments and protection of resources and influence.

Let goals and ambitions be created from the bottom, get employees committed to their own goals and then involve the management. Our experience is that the goals become significantly higher when they are set by employees and at the same time, it is easier to stay on budget.

DDC Energy realised their ambitious and” unrealistic” goals by activating the entire organisation.

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Can your organisation create better results?

As a leader, do you put ambitious goals forward and manage to realise them? Studies shows that only 15% of Danish middle line managers do this resulting in many organisations not reaching their full potential. Are you a result hero?

A result hero has to be able to do two things:

  • He has to able to set forward ambitious goals both for him/herself and the organisation
  • He has to be able to realise them

Often it goes wrong already in the goal setting process. Way too many leaders look at yearly results from the previous years and hope to perform slightly better the coming year. Maybe increase sales by 5% or cut the costs with 10%. That is not what vi call ambitious goals. Therefore, our work often starts with helping organisations set goals that are more ambitious than ever before. This is nearly the most important part.

What goals has your organisation sat for the coming year?

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If we had more employees, then…..

You probably know it from your own organisation. All the good excuses and justifications as to why they haven’t reached their goals:

  • We don’t have enough employees. If we were five more people, we would be able to develop the new product
  • The marketing budget is too low, if we had more money we would sell more
  • It’s impossible to sell that much when we don’t have better brochure material

I don’t think we need to state more examples.

We call it The resource paradigm”. But here is a fact: It’s mostly about leadership, not resources. You have to break certain paradigms if you want to achieve the (hopefully ambitious) goals set forward.

Qeep has helped many companies to break the resource paradigm. The reality is often that the organisations have sufficient resources, they just have to use them more sensible and goal oriented. Our approach is to break the paradigms that exist in your organisation and to create a result centred, executable strategy where you put forward ambitious goals and reach them.

What paradigm stands in the way of the success of your company?

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You have saved, now it is time to sell

For a long time, the general focus of Danish companies has been on the bottom line and on minimising costs. Now we have to start talking about the top line again. We need to start focusing on sale and turnover. The economic crises have put pressure on sales in many companies and forced them to focus on costs optimisation. Before the crisis, many companies had become too” fat”, because in good economic times it is easier to:

  • Give a little bit higher wages
  • To hire an extra person, when the existing staff feel overwhelmed with tasks
  • To upgrade the cantina, when employees consider the lunches to boring

During the crisis, many companies reduced the redundant” fat” and adopted a leaner company structure. Now it is time to take on more ambitious sales strategies again. A crisis always gives fantastic opportunities to win market share for the companies that are courageous enough to focus on sales before others does it.

Our challenge to you is: set an ambitious sales goal for the next year and put forward a strategy that ensures that you reach that goal.