The Sandstone Team Building Blog

I toyed with the idea of titling this entry A Nightmare on Google Street, but figured that the casual reader may not immediately gather what the subject of the entry is.  So I opted for something a little more meaningful if less evocative.  Google is great in all sorts of ways – not the least of which is that a significant percentage of our all-new business starts with someone using it to find us.  So if I stick to a Sandstone perspective, I’d probably  also stick with “Google is great”.  However, part of our philosophy is to always try to understand our client’s viewpoint on things and, whoever you are, if you are reading this you are my client for this blog entry’s purposes.  So, if you are using Google to try to find a team building provider for a requirement that you have in mind, I’d have to say that rather than great, Google can be bewildering.  For such a searcher, I’m going to assume that he or she is interested in something different to what they have done before – otherwise why not simply use an existing supplier?

It may only take 0.2 seconds, but a search of the UK Google site for the phrase “team building” brings up “about” 36 and a half million matches.  I know, because that’s what I’ve just got upon putting that phrase in.  As I type this, on that first page, I see 21 links – 10 “natural” searches (ones that Google thinks are relevant to the search phrase) and 11 adverts, or “sponsored links”.  We’re at the top of the page, which is nice, but only because of our advertising policy.  Basically, it works for us so we’re happy and we are pretty good at what we do so our clients are pleased as well.  If you are looking for someone to run your team’s event, you might be disappointed to hear that of the 10 natural results, though it isn’t obvious, only one actually has their own team delivering the events.  The rest are either directories of varying quality, general sites of varying quality or companies who are “middle men” (of varying… you get the picture), taking commission but not actually delivering anything themselves.  Things do improve but not by as much as you might think when you look at the sponsored links either.  Of the 11 that appeared for me (advertisements appear and disappear over time), only 5 actually deliver their own events, including us.  In case you are interested, our site does not currently appear in the natural search lists until page 3.  Few searchers have the tenacity to get that far.  C’est la vie.  Google is as Google does, I guess!

On the up side, we are number one for many other related phrases that people do use to find us in the natural listings.  And, I like to think, number one with our clients as well.  Certainly, the level of our repeat business bears that assertion out.

Anyway, just on the first page alone, two-thirds of the links that come up are not really what you were looking for.  Of the third that are, look close enough and you’ll discover that most of them are pretty much the same.  The same old thing with different names.  Which is fine if you want something that is very similar to what your people have done before.  I struggle to understand why someone might want that but I have no problem understanding why some people settle for that.  Even on just the first page of Google, we’re only one in 21 links and not many people have the time to search 21 web sites when the first one or two look as though they might have what they are looking for – or at least have an easy (if less than ideal) option to select.

You though, however you got here, now know about us if not yet our options.  They are genuinely different, designed by us, delivered by us, cared for by us.  However you found us, your nightmare could just well be over.

Alan

Not many people can claim on their CV bar flair trainer, gunslinger, circus skills performer, bubble specialist and caterpillar track supervisor.  I’m one.  I suspect every other person able to claim that particularly unusual combination of job skills works here too.  I’m more proud, though, that I can also write on my CV ‘team player’.  Our team activities appeal to our clients because they are all inclusive – by which we mean that there is something for everyone within them.  Nobody sits on the sidelines, nobody ‘opts out’.  For us, effective teams are those that harness the different strengths that their members have.  You don’t get that if one or more team members aren’t committed to the cause, whatever that cause is.

I’m convinced that means that each and every event team that we send out is an effective one.  We certainly have considerable differences in terms of our skill sets and approaches, if not our attitudes – which are all geared to giving every client the best team building session they have ever experienced.  My strengths are hands-on practical ones, as you might have gathered from my opening sentence.  I’d like to think I’m good with people as well – no, this is no time for modesty, I am good with people!  But I can’t spell – yes, I had help with this blog entry – and my adding up isn’t so hot either.  Academia pretty well passed me by at arm’s length, if the truth be told.  And occasionally the length in question was a cane rather than an arm, but this is not the time or the place to develop that memory further!

But I don’t need to be good at matters cerebral.  We have others here for stuff like that who are brilliant at it.  Most importantly, we’ve developed processes here over the years – and we’re continuing to develop them for that matter – that help us to combine our different strengths to make us an efficient and effective team from the moment a client first contacts us to the time they are thanking us for a great job well done.

As we so often help clients understand, great teams don’t just happen.  Putting individuals together and calling them a team isn’t enough, by some distance.  You have to work on how they collaborate to make them deliver day in, day out something that is greater than the sum of their parts.  I’m proud that our processes do that for us and that our events not only enable every participant to have a good time and leave with big smiles on their faces but also help teams develop their own processes and, thereby, deliver increased team effectiveness.

And in case you were wondering, I’m also proud to have such a unique CV.  Especially the bubble specialist bit.

Steve

I went for a drink last night with a mate.  We went to a local hostelry – a pub in our village which has recently experienced no less than 3 changes of management within the past few months.  The first of those changes was by far the worst.  I was not alone in declaring that I would not return until the new Management had either left or offered a written apology for the awful attitude they brought with them into a previously well-renowned establishment, preferably the former.  Apart from several other customers venting similar frustrations to mine, I knew I wasn’t alone because the entire staff got up and walked.  In the end, the management did leave.  They were replaced at first by two temporary managers, one after the other, who each clearly focused on the word “temporary” rather than “manager” in their titles.  It has taken until now and a permanent manager appointment for me to relax my self-imposed exile.

I was amazed at the changes in the place in just the few short months since I was last inside.  The furniture and fittings were the same, the decor unchanged, the beer identical.  But the staff, well, someone had clearly done some kind of a reverse “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” job on them.  They looked the same but acted totally differently.  They seemed like they were pleased to see us and served us as though we were the only customers they had.  In fact, we almost were.  What was once a thriving, bustling, busy establishment is now almost derelict of customers.  But it won’t be long before that changes.  Word of mouth is a wonderful thing and I, for one, am playing at least as strong a part in encouraging people to go back as I did in keeping them away.

I’m a stickler for service.  When I get it, I am the most loyal customer anyone could hope for.  I don’t demand perfection – just that someone cares about it when something goes wrong and acts accordingly.

In many ways, the whole thing reminded me of one of our key strengths.  We have a fabulous portfolio of unique and effective team building activities that are, we believe, the envy of our industry and the delight of our clients.  But those are like the decor in the pub.  We have the very best equipment for those activities, whether that’s the computer equipment that lies at the heart of most of our options, the authentic Colt 45 replicas and holsters for Wild West, the fabulous 1950s-style skittle alleys we use in Memory Lane or our mobile TV broadcasting kit as used in Liberation.  But I guess those are our furniture and fittings.  We have a superb list of optional gifts to present to winners or every participant, such as our cute little 2x2x2 Rubik cubes that are replicas of the main centrepiece itself in Cube.  But they’re the closest thing we have to beer – if you don’t count the alcohol in Romanbar that is!

Nope – the real heart of this business is the same as that of the pub down the road – the attitude of the staff.  Most of our blogs are written specifically for people interested in what we do, whether that interest is casual, a precursor to considering us as a supplier or as an existing client.  Whilst I hope that all three of those types of reader find this entry of interest, I also hope that you will forgive me for aiming it mostly at our own team.  It’s about time I said “well done” in these pages to them for not only having, but also for continually improving, the world-class attitude they display in our client-facing work.  And that “well done” extends to and includes our managers, of course!  As the pub showed me, superb service and great staff attitudes do not happen by chance – it requires good management and we have it.

Alan

Wow. So much has happened since my last entry to our combined blog, which was back in August of last year now. A Conservative victory at the next general election is no longer an odds-on bet. My house is worth considerably less. And, of course, we have the credit crunch.

I am not in the least bit qualified to comment on the first of these things and I can only silently weep about the second, but the third – the credit crunch – is a topic worthy of a Nikki blog entry if ever I saw one. We have such a wide spread of clients by sector, by industry, by discipline etc. that it is bound to affect us. Some of our client base will undoubtedly find their purse strings tightened – especially when it comes to non-essential expenditure. At the same time that very breadth of the base is likely to give us a fair degree of protection as well.

However, our most important protection comes from the characteristics of our portfolio. We come from a learning and development background, so all of our activities combine participant engagement, enjoyment and genuine team and individual learning. Some of our options offer the most fun of any team activity in the world, yet the money spent also brings with it as much learning as our clients want to achieve from the time spent. Our options naturally offer two big hits for the price of one – participants love them and teams and organisations see real improvement that positively affect their bottom lines through increased effectiveness.

So if you need to justify time and money spent on team building in these difficult times (and surely everyone should do that anyway?), then here are some quick reasons for you to consider:

• The team is working harder than ever and needs to feel important.
• It’s not just a “jolly” – yes it’ll be fun but it’ll also improve us as a team and make us more effective.
• We have a supplier who understands our challenges and will deliver against our objectives.

That’ll be us, by the way…

Nikki

On behalf of everyone here at Sandstone, and hot on the heels of Barbara’s Christmas message, I’d like to wish every reader of our blog a wonderful 2009. We’re looking forward to it. We have new activities in the pipeline that we’re very excited about and we continue to develop our existing options, making them ever better. Most of all, we look forward to renewing friendships with regular clients and making brand new ones with people we have yet to meet. Happy New Year everyone!

Steve