We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Brad Federman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Brad below.

Brad , appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.

We had a client, a financial services company, that faced a very difficult moment. The market impact. For both environmental – a three-year flat spot in the market – and behavioral reasons – a strong, independent, sometimes complacent team – the activity level of the team was not consistent with what the company wanted or was accustomed to.

We introduced a new model for behavior change, laying the groundwork for a plan to improve sales and revenues from this team, at all times consistent with the highest integrity and client service.

The first step was to understand the team’s perspective and existing practices. So, we began field research, looking at past practices, how the team tracked their business success, previous activity levels for business areas they were hoping to expand, the way people viewed the culture, and how the team worked together.

Two important areas of focus for the team emerged:

1. Team versus individual. The team needed a clear sense of individual accountability. Because it was a familial environment there was a group mentality in the way they handled things. They needed to keep the teamwork but emphasize each individual’s contribution.

2. Clarity in roles, including leadership and member accountability. In this team’s operations, no one team member “owned” a client.

Note: Prior to the field research, the team’s feeling was that their challenges were related to the market and the company’s product areas. “It was clear from research that while those were factors, each person had the ability to have an impact regardless of those issues. The question became, “What can they change?”

The second step was work with the group itself to define what being an extraordinary financial advisor looked like.

A vital part of the launching pad for the program the time we took making sure the group was aligned in core values and from a core moral perspective based on integrity, trust, and doing the right thing for the client.

In that context, the group decided on two goals to leverage sales growth:

• Create new revenue for the firm; and

• Grow relationships within its existing client base.

Using a proprietary tool, the team looked at what each step to achieve these goals would looks like. They decided on three ways the team could increase business and revenues:

• Through referrals;

• Through professional relationships where no business presently exists; and

• Through expanding opportunities with existing accounts

Keys to success. Most development programs stop with a list of development goals and some steps to achieve them. Unfortunately, people frequently do not know what they’re undertaking or how to accomplish the goals.

To move past that standard, we helped them “behavioralize” goals such that the group knew who would do what, how they would do it, what they would say, how often it would happen, and the potential outcome of each team member’s actions.

These were then included in an “change blueprint,” a roadmap to the future of sorts, delivered to each member. This gave them a behavioral strategy that they could see, touch, and feel commitment to.

The third step involved in our proprietary change process. There are specific strategies people can use to change their behavior. The problem is that they don’t always work because people who are successful use each of those strategies at a particular time. Change management is actually a personalized coaching process with accountability built in to the broader process.

Each team member would report in a formatted way how they were going to use these new activities and behaviors and incorporate them into the core work they were already doing, clearly announcing up front what they intended to accomplish.

At week’s end, each member made a clear reporting of results so there was a sense of accountability. People began to hold themselves responsible and the team leader assumed the role of coach.

What about varying degrees of success? One individual in the group was an early adopter. He became the trendsetter. People got motivated because they did not want to be left behind and because they felt inspired.

Encouraging stragglers. Specific strategies were employed for those who were not on board and struggled.

Attitudes and beliefs. Another important piece of the process addresses beliefs and attitudes and why they may help or hinder the behavior change process.

This is more than focusing on a skill set-driven process. If you try to build the skill set without dealing with those other things, it typically fails.

Incentives and rewards. The group was motivated by the fact that after a few weeks, they started to see results.

The company also layered in a rewards for specific levels of achievement, another carrot for those who were slow to motivate and change. When they hit production numbers, there were bigger rewards.

The team was very effective at what they did. They just had to increase their activity.

Results. After about 45 days of detailed tracking of activity – how many calls, who answered, how many people they talked to, how many meetings were set up – the team had empirical data that said they needed to call 150 people a week to generate three new clients.

Within six months, the team realized these business-impact results:

• 350% increase in calls to initiate new sales cycles.
• 130% increase in referrals.
• 150% increase in contacts with new prospects.
• 112% increase in number of initial prospect meetings.
• 56% increase in revenue from new accounts.

Brad , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Brad Federman, CEO of Performancepoint, has a mission statement for his life: “to help others discover and live their possible.” From his earliest days it seems that he was, in a way, set apart to do just that. He has held various leadership positions in some of the best and brightest organizations; he has spent a lifetime learning at the feet of the best minds available about the value of a great workplace; he launched a successful company to help him hone in with laser-like focus on his stated mission. He is unwavering and undistracted from his work and what he feels is important in this world. He has all the tools to successfully accomplish his goals.

His serendipitous path would almost lead one to believe that his career in leadership development was somehow foreordained.

Many years before he was born, the high value Brad places on education was forged in the fires of an event that touched everyone who came near it in some way: The Great Depression. Circumstances dictated that Brad’s father work two jobs to help his family survive this cataclysmic event. Even with their best efforts, increasingly scarce financial resources meant that only one of the children would be able to attend college. “When it came time to send one of the kids off to college, my aunt and uncle chose my dad,” Brad says, “because they thought he had the most potential. So they worked two jobs so that he would only have to work one and be able to attend school. “An unselfish sacrifice, but one that is still yielding benefits today. Mr. Federman made the most of the opportunity. He got a degree in Electrical Engineering, and eventually a masters Degree as well. Brad’s mother also got her Master’s Degree in social work. In Brad’s home, education wasn’t an afterthought-it was and is a gateway to a better life.

Even as early as junior high school, the harbingers of Brad’s career direction appeared. Because he was involved in student government, he was able to attend a weekend leadership development seminar at a nearby camp. The director of the camp, Mike Michaelson, recognized that even though he was much younger than most of the attendees, he had a zeal for the subject and the ability to intuitively understand the sometimes complex issues presented there. Mr. Michaelson would take him under his wing and become an important mentor in his life and in his professional development. Brad was inspired by what he heard there at the camp and says “I realized that I wanted to do that for other people.”

Indeed he has. Brad graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in Organizational Communication and immediately landed a job with Accenture. Feeling he needed more preparation, he would soon return to the classroom, securing a Masters degree in Human Resource Development from Vanderbilt University. He would eventually go to work for Norell Services, primarily because, in his words, “it would give me a chance to learn even more about compensation, interviewing, hiring, and other more traditional HR issues companies have to deal with.”

Then, with the necessary intellectual arsenal carefully collected and catalogued, he launched Performancepoint with this overarching strategy statement: “The company I form is going to be something I know about, and it’s going to be about people and helping them solve their problems.”

Performancepoint has been all of that, and more. With many successful engagements and glowing accolades from satisfied clients, it appears that Brad is exactly where he is supposed to be.

PerformancePoint focuses on designing, building and sustaining winning cultures, improving leadership, strengthening employee engagement, and driving memorable and positive customer experiences.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Covid created a chance to close our doors or remain relevant. We were a consulting and training company. Almost all of our business in-person. When the shut down occurred, we had to quickly shift our thinking and approach. We decided on three actions to take:

First, we gave away products and services for free. We supported business with resources, virtual training, and assessments to help them work through their own Covid challenges such as going remote, hybrid, etc. We not only offered these services to our clients, but through organizations like the chamber.

Next, we quickly shifted our typical work to a virtual approach in order to meet client needs during this time. We had played with much of this technology already, but we did not use it consistently because there was not an appetite from our clients. That had changed.

Last, I made the decision to invest in my people and in our service capabilities. We had employees going through training, certifications and more. We added technology and alliance. We invested. We invested even when that meant I was impacted. We never laid off anyone. In fact we bought a building and renovated it during Covid and I made sure my folks received pay increases.

All those risks and effort have paid off. We have not lost any of our team and our business is growing.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

We develop client relationships through speaking and writing. We believe our best approach to marketing is through thought leadership not sales. If people like our perspective, models, and approach they will reach out to us. We have also utilized more traditional approaches along the way.

The biggest rule of thumb for us is to never engage in sales and marketing efforts that are pushy and about quantity over quality. We believe our methods should build relationships and trust. Working together will come eventually if it makes sense. It is a longer term view that is built on relationships and value.

However, the best source of new clients comes from referrals. We are so proud of that! Our clients market for us because we have done right by them. Who could ask for more.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.performancepointllc.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/performancepointllc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PerformancePoint
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/performance-point-llc
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/PerfPointLLC

Image Credits
All images are owned by me.