22nd Century Management With Ken: Recent Episodes
Ken Edmonds
What You Need To Do Sell Your Own Business - Interview with David Barnett
How can people better prepare their business for sale?
Why should you prepare now vs. later?
What if I'm not ready to sell?
Barnett loves to say that it took him 10 years to un-learn what he was taught in business school. University had trained him to be a middle-manager in big enterprises, he was totally unprepared for the realities of small business.
Get Your free pdf copy of "12 things to do before you consider selling your business":
https://dbarnett.gumroad.com/l/12thingstodo/KenEdmonds
Connect with David here:
www.davidcbarnett.com
Twitter is @dbarnettmoncton
Linkedin is http://ca.linkedin.com/in/davidbarnettmoncton
Youtube is https://www.youtube.com/user/DavidCBarnett
Retaining staff is an urgent issue as turnover rates have experienced an uptick to 57 percent. Research shows that a lack of communication between managers and workers is a leading contributor to employees leaving. Creating a workplace culture of transparency and fairness can help buck this trend.
Building a great organization where people want to work comes down to instilling the elements of an effective corporate culture across the organization — from the front-line worker to the department manager to the CEO. The four essentials include: 1) determining your principal objective; 2) establishing your corporate character; 3) developing consistent management systems; and 4) conducting business ethically.
One in four workers plans to look for a new job in the coming months. Many are unwilling to give up their newfound autonomy and flexibility. Disenchantment with the way company leadership responded to the pandemic and the way in which companies put financial health ahead of employee health and safety also adds to the reasons for departures. Additionally, the pandemic made workers rethink their career paths and they’ve made up their minds to find work that’s satisfying and with a company whose mission aligns with their values.
The Big Idea: The importance of human connections to work satisfaction became evident during the past pandemic year of working remotely. As employers bring staff back into the office, they have an opportunity to build on those valued workplace relationships. Yet too often leaders reduce interactions with employees solely to measurements of their performance. As a result, many organizations feel sterile and void of passion.
Research indisputably supports the impact of love in the workplace — and no, not the romantic type, but the compassionate and caring type of love. It promotes teamwork, engagement, and employee wellbeing. Yet, creating a loving organization is a conscious choice that requires deep introspection and intentional work. It demands a strong measure of self-awareness — recognizing and understanding one’s self and one’s emotions — and removing the cloak of formality behind which many leaders hide.
Darrell Amy is passionate about helping great companies grow
revenue. He's the author of the best-selling book Revenue Growth
Engine, How to Align Sales and Marketing to Drive Accelerate
Growth. he is the host of the Revenue Growth Podcast on the CSuite Radio Network and the co-host of Selling from the Heart
podcast. He is a member of the Forbes Business Council and a CSuite Advisor. As A Revenue Growth Strategist, he gets behind the
scenes, rolling up his sleeves to help company owners, sales leaders,
and marketing teams build revenue growth strategies. Welcome to
the show
The big idea: As bleary-eyed workers return to “normal life” back at the office, many are questioning what their new work-life will look like. Leaders now face a dilemma: How do we keep our people—and attract new talent? The answer, according to two acclaimed human resources and performance experts, is deceptively simple. Have more fun.
The so-what: “Work” and “fun” have historically been considered polar opposites of each other. But a quick look under the hood of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work for in America list reveals an undeniable fact: 81% of surveyed employees say the best companies are all fun places to work. Deloitte has gone so far as to label the 2020s as “The Era of Workplace Fun.”
The key message: Incorporating fun at work is integral to business success today. It’s simply easier to attract and retain high-performing talent when everyone is enjoying their work, say, Bob Nelson and Mario Tamayo, authors of the new book Work Made Fun Gets Done! Easy Ways to Boost Energy, Morale, and Results (Berrett-Koehler Publishers; May 11, 2021).
The source: BOB NELSON, PH.D., president of Nelson Motivation Inc., is the world’s leading authority on employee recognition and engagement. He’s worked with 80% of Fortune 500 companies, is a Senior Fellow for the Conference Board, a top thought leader for the Best Practice Institute, and was named a top-five management guru by Global Gurus. Fondly known as “Dr. Bob,” he has authored over 30 books on employee motivation and engagement, which have collectively sold over 5 million copies and been translated into more than 30 languages. He is co-author of the new book Work Made Fun Gets Done! Easy Ways to Boost Energy, Morale, and Results. Learn more at drbobnelson.com.
The so-what: Despite leaders giving themselves gold stars in communication, only 13% of U.S. employees say their leaders communicate well, according to Gallup research. And that’s a colossal problem: 93% of workers surveyed by the Brunswick Group report that “leadership that communicates directly and transparently” is what keeps them on the job, bested only by pay and the ability to move up.
Joel's Book: The Language of Leadership https://amzn.to/3k026zX
Joel's Contact Information
GUEST WEBSITE: www.joelschwartzberg.net
SOCIAL MEDIA:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheJoelTruth
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joelbschwartzberg/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelschwartzberg/
The key message: The most powerful tool you have as a leader—to inform, engage, and inspire—is your voice, says veteran leadership communications coach Joel Schwartzberg. Yet all too often, our words fall flat; we get caught in our head, fail to truly understand our audience, or simply flub the landing. But it’s our words and awareness of their impact that make the difference between simply managing teams and inspiring them to do their best work.
Your presentation skills are critical. Joel Schwartzberg discusses how communicating effectively is vital as a leader.
The Language of Leadership - Interview With Joel Schwartzberg
The big idea: If you’re in a leadership role today, you surely didn’t get there by accident. You have vision. You’re confident. And you’re at the ready to offer support and lightning-quick responses. But if you don’t effectively communicate these qualities to your people, how will they know you embody them? Frankly, they won’t.
00:00 Introduction
05:30 How to identify and make a clear point
08:25 How to present effectively in virtual meetings
14::45 How to listen effectively
18:15 How to tell stories and share case studies effectively
21:14 How to communicate authentically as a leader
Why you should focus communications on your team and audience, not yourself
The Zen of Successful Negotiation - Live Interview with Matthew Moseley
The big idea: Active listening is a key skill for successful negotiation, but doing it effectively requires getting out of your own head and developing empathy.
The so-what: Negotiation is a crucial skill for everything in life, from career to relationships.
Book Link - https://amzn.to/3nz1PEO
GUEST WEBSITE: www.IgnitionStrategyGroup.com
SOCIAL MEDIA:
https://www.facebook.com/matthew.l.moseley
@ShowUpMatt (Twitter)
MatthewLMoseley (insta)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-moseley-131b6b6/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Moseley
Key messages:
Negotiation is “communication with results.”
Active listening requires paying full attention and being mindful of everything that is happening at the table, from who is paying attention to whose body language says confidence and power.
The goal is listening to understand rather than listening to respond.
The expert: Matthew L. Moseley is a communication strategist, author, speaker, and he holds three world records for long-distance swimming. Spending his career at the intersection of public policy, business and government, he is principal and CEO of the Ignition Strategy Group, which specializes in high-stakes communications and issue management for organizations of all sizes, including American Rivers, Xcel Energy, the AFL-CIO, and the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar. He served as communications director for the Colorado Senate and press officer for the United States Olympic Committee at the 2004 games.
You will learn:
How to be a good listener
Negotiation Skills
Successful Negotiation essential strategies and skills
So today, uh, welcome to 22nd century management with Ken. I have with me, Steve Friedman. And we're going to have a very interesting conversation. If you're new to the show, every Tuesday, two o'clock, we have a live broadcast, a variety of interesting guests. Uh, today Steve is with us is a I'm going to call it semi-retired.
The note you have is it's you retired from corporate. Yeah, well, and I'm retired from corporate America too. I just didn't stop work. And I guess that would be a fair way to describe him. And he's heard it in the book and we're going to talk about some of the things in the book. It's, um, the title of his book is the corporate introvert, how to lead and thrive with confidence.
And I'm going to guess based on our previous conversation, Steve, that you had some experience being a corporate. Uh, I certainly did well, Ken, thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat about, um, about the topic, because I think it touches so many people and yes, I think the book or the concept of the book started, um, Because that was my history.
I spent 30 years in corporate America, uh, over half in leadership roles. And, uh, I'm an introvert from my earliest days. Although it took me a long time to figure that out and even longer to figure out how to use that to, to, um, avoid the struggles and, um, have a more successful career. And so after. After that start, I just felt like, um, it was an opportunity to combine that with stories from others and put some, put some ideas together that can help people turn the corner and have a more successful career.
So that's where the book came from. Okay. Yeah. And it's really interesting because I've had another guest I spoke about introversion and you don't have to talk to, you know, month or so ago, setting the show up. I have learned so much about introversion that I didn't know in the conversation. Um, you know, it's interesting because I'm very much an extrovert as an extrovert.
I hate the sound of silence and that's counterproductive in when you're, when you're holding a meeting with people that might be introverted. Um, you know, so I learned a lot. I think that there's a lot of people that were in the same situation I am, that may be in a leadership role and they're extroverts and they don't even understand what's going on.
Uh, why in the book you made the point that introverts are poised to help fill the, the leadership gap. So why didn't what makes you say that? Well, first of all, um, let me just introduce the leadership gap concept because it really surprised me when I ran across this. So there's a gap in two different ways, quantity and quality.
So today and over the last several years, About 10,000 people a day are retiring from the corporate workforce, baby boomers, largely. Uh, but you also have people that are saying, you know, the corporate world is not for me. I'd rather run my own business or go into a freelance sort of, um, Uh, economy, uh, certainly on top of that 10,000, you can look at the effects of COVID and see many people, millions people that left the workforce, and many of them have not come back or certainly not into the same role.
So there's a big gap for leadership roles and companies are recognizing that probably belatedly, but they're recognizing that the funnel they have for leaders for the future is drying up. So how do they fill that? And, um, and so I think what they're doing is they're looking largely at a concept that started decades ago, but has gotten a lot of steam over the last decade and that's diversity and inclusion.
So you hear that a lot. And certainly it's, um, also, uh, very late in coming and still has a long way to go. But whether you're talking about people of color or females or. Other people that aren't in the mainstream, um, those people have, are starting to get grounding and companies and moving up and larger numbers into leadership roles.
Interview - Steven Howard discusses Mindful VS Mind Full Leadership
Book: Better Decisions. Better Thinking. Better Outcomes.: How To Go From Mind Full To Mindful Leadership https://amzn.to/3zC9ruv
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenbhoward/
https://twitter.com/StevenBHoward
https://www.facebook.com/StevenHowardAuthor
So in your book you have a section about, uh, brain myths. So what are some. Brain myths as you're surprised to discover in your research. Well, the first one and I, I swear, I learned as a nice girl, my high school science teacher taught me that our brain stops growing somewhere around age 25, and now scientists proved that that's not true.
We continue to grow new brain cells well into our sixties and doors, seventies, perhaps even dark eighties. There's just not that 80 year old and 90 year olds around the test. So. Our brains can get G to grow. And, um, and also what also amaze me is this concept of being right brained or left brained. And it's not true.
We use both parts of our brain, not all the time or we'd burn our brain up. Right. Frankly. But, um, you know, for instance, you know, you and I talking today, language I had, I had left part of my brain. Listening to your words and translating your words. And then the right part of my brain is putting into context.
So both sides of my brain have to work together in order to have a conversation. Okay. Yeah. I think that a lot of times people use it in the term of left brain dominant, right. Brain dominant. Not necessarily that you're not using both, but there are people that are artists. And I am not one of those.
Those are people that can deal with putting words and ideas together, which is more of the thing that I'm, let's say reasonably competent at. I wouldn't say I'm great at it, but I'm reasonably competent. My mom would say I couldn't draw a straight line with a rulers. The other interesting meth, um, is, is, is, is actually true. mindful leadership training - mindful leader meditation
The big idea: In our new Zoom era, businesses are funneling millions into global collaboration technology, now projected to reach a stratospheric $45 billion. But the slickness of Big Tech only masks—and exacerbates—the real issue: doing business across borders has less to do with technology, and everything to do with being culturally agile.
The Book
Build Your Cultural Agility: The Nine Competencies of Successful Global Professionals https://amzn.to/3hxroUR
GUEST WEBSITE: www.TASCAglobal.com
SOCIAL MEDIA
https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulacaligiuri/
@PaulaCaligiuri
The so-what: When working with people from different cultures, global professionals must gain trust, build credibility, and communicate effectively. Sound easy? It’s not. The skills and behaviors that make this happen aren’t universal; what makes you wildly successful in one culture can cause you to quickly crash and burn in another—even via Zoom.
Dr. Paula Caligiuri, an award-winning author, distinguished academic, and leading expert in cultural agility, offers proven, research-backed approaches to help professionals succeed and thrive in any country, and with people from any culture
Simple ways to gauge your skill and comfort level in working with—or in—different cultures
Surprising everyday behaviors that can immediately send the wrong “cultural signal”: from eye contact and facial expressions to communication styles and levels of formality
Nine competencies culturally agile professionals must have, and how to develop them
How to use these critical cultural agility competencies to navigate situations closer to home, from multicultural teams and organizational subcultures to generational differences between coworkers
Interview with Helen Yu on Preparing for the Unexpected: Build a Foundation for Better Decisions.
Business leaders need to build a foundation to prepare their company for weathering surprises. When that foundation is solidly built, it enables leaders to make better decisions. For start-up founders who have never run a business before, there are simple guardrails that can make a key difference.
Book Link:: https://amzn.to/2X0nxYF
Twitter: https://twitter.com/yuhelenyu
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tigonhyu/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClZX2qjIQaEgjUnOMycBDog
Helen Yu is the founder and CEO of TigonAdvisory. She drives growth for tech companies from start-ups to global titans like Oracle and Adobe, and helps CEOs achieve multi-billion-dollar revenue growth and record profitability. She’s a board advisor to fast-growth SaaS companies and is on the board of the Global Cybersecurity Association. She’s a top Twitter influencer with a 10M+ weekly reach and was ranked a Top 10 thought leader by Thinkers 360, and a top 10 digital transformation influencer by IBM. She’s spoken at SXSW, TiECon, DMS, and Money2020. An avid adventurer who trekked to Mt. Everest base camp and ice climbed glaciers, her new book is Ascend Your Start-up: Conquer the 5 Disconnects to Accelerate Growth. Learn more at tigonadvisory.com.
Rob and Steve Shallenberger, Founder and CEO of Becoming Your Best Global Leadership, are devoted to helping individuals and organizations achieve their maximum potential.
Steve has successfully led companies in four different industries and has a keen understanding of how to thrive in business.
Rob has trained and coached hundreds of companies around the world, including many Fortune 500 organizations, in leadership, planning, and time management. Previously, he served as an F-16 Fighter Pilot in the Air Force for 11 years
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How did Do What Matters Most come about?
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You talk about three habits that less than 1% of people do, that you call life-changing. What are the habits?
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What are two of your biggest lessons learned that came from the time-management/productivity research?
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Which of the three habits would you say is your favorite and would have the biggest impact in someone’s life?
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You mentioned that these habits will increase productivity by 30 – 50%, can you expound on that?
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Do you have a couple of examples of how these habits impacted a person’s life or a team in an organization?
So welcome to this edition of 22nd century management with Ken. I am glad that those of you that are here are here with us today. I am really fortunate that I have a fascinating guest. Uh, Steve Shallenberger. He is the, uh, founder and one of the, uh, partners, I guess we'll call it cause it's he, uh, he and his son in becoming your best global leadership and that company is devoted to helping individuals and organizations achieve their maximum potential.
Uh, Steve is a successfully led companies in four different industries. He has a keen understanding of how to thrive in business. So that's a brief introduction. Steve, tell us a little more about you. It's a delight to be with you, Ken. And first of all, I just want to take a moment because Ken is so impressive.
I mean, this is one of the most organized guys I've ever met. Uh, he is so prepared to provide a really quality show that he takes the time in advance. To get together. Like we got together a month ago to go over everything and, and I don't think I've ever had that happen. And then we touch bases again this morning.
And so congratulations. He cares about you and, and, uh, I know your listeners know this Ken, but Ken is one of the best and helping service manager. No, how to manage people like at the very top level of treating them right. Get in the bath out of people and managing this through. So it's an honor to be with you and your listeners today, Kim.
Well, thank you. And by the way, the check is in the mail.
I was raised in San Francisco bay area as a young man and grew up there. Uh, we had there. Uh, eight of us that lived in a 900 square foot house. My parents were divorced at 14, so I had to learn how to work and, and help out with the situation. I, uh, actually was a garbage man, worked for the Vallejo garbage company.
We'd get up at four 30 in the morning and go stand in line. And hopefully somebody wouldn't show up and I could take their place that day. And, uh, it was quite an experience. Uh, but I learned a lot. And then when I was 16, my grandpa, uh, never underestimate the influence of a grandparent. Uh, introduced me to a wonderful man who became my first mentor, really?
Uh, I didn't know the word mentor existed, but I was about to meet one. And his name was Dave conquer is a real estate. Broker in Northern Kelly had real estate offices in five cities and he took me under his wing. He taught me how to, uh, about the importance of reading books. He introduced the richest man in Babylon to me and how to win friends and influence people.
The Rise of the A4 Device and What it Means Interview With Rick Lambert
Discussion with Rick Lambert on the changing nature of the office equipment business and why A4 may make a significant impact on your business.
The rise of A4
- Resistance from traditional A3 sellers
- How to sell A4 to WIN
We will discuss the reasons why it will continue to accelerate, how early adopters will benefit
SALES TRAINING
www.selltoWIN.com
DIGITAL MARKETING
www.IN2communications.com
POPULAR IMAGING DEALER COURSES
Rick Lambert’s 30 Day LinkedIn Bootcamp:
LinkedIn Bootcamp – selltowin
Selling A4 to WIN
Selling A4 to Win – selltowin
Selling B2B to WIN
selltowin eCademy
So, um, and then on my digital marketing side can, and, you know, we've, uh, we've a division great team that goes in and takes over the agents.
Uh, dealers, you name it website does websites, social media on a managed, uh, program for customers. So we're a sales and marketing. Uh, organization and I've got experts on my team. Put it that way. Yeah. Okay. So I just have to, I don't know if you've heard this definition of expert, but an ax is, uh, has been, you know, something from the past and a spurt would be a drip under pressure.
Well, I'll tell you there's an old saying it probably hasn't made it down to you yet, but they say, uh, those who can do, and those who can't teach, I don't know if you've heard that. So I got my backup on that one. It was just, uh, just before COVID, uh, one of our clients, I broadcast to them every month and I said, look, rather than this month, we talk about how to do it.
Why don't I just step on the ice and do it? And so I literally traveled for a full day in the field. With one of the top reps in the country. And, uh, he gave me his list of 30 accounts the night before, less than 24 hours. And we called it Canadians in cars, making cold calls, and we had GoPro cameras in the car.
It was all phone-based. Um, but it was just hilarious. How. Um, the conversation, the banter, and, uh, it turned out really, it was a great production. It was exclusive in this case to Xerox, but, you know, I'm hoping that based on my hit rate, um, you know, they showed, I still got a couple, uh, you know, games left in me anyway.
Well, you know, it's interesting because I first ran across you. You did a webinar for the BTA. On LinkedIn and how to do to LinkedIn, to when was the class you were teaching at the time. And I took that class and I, it really opened my eyes and helped me level up my game on LinkedIn because my profile wasn't very good.
And none of the things were the way they should've been. So I learned from you. So I followed you since then. I appreciate you being on today, but we're going to talk about something that's near and dear to both of our hearts. And that is a force. Uh, I have railed for, oh, most of a decade now about the fact that dealers continually over sell equipment.
And because I come from a service background, what a lot of dealers don't realize, and we did an analysis when a west McDonald and I were doing the, the, uh, flat rate, uh, challenge. And there was a case where in the same volume ban, it costs more than five times as much to have the eighty-three. In that volume man, as it did to have an a four device and the a four device was much less to acquire.
So from a TCO perspective, and from being able to sell a deal, make money in it and still meet the client's. Uh, you know, what their budget was. They could have made three or four times as much profit by going with the . So, you know, a couple of pieces there just as I unpack what you said, uh, west McDonald and you do a great job.
I've always been. Into marketing, marketing, myself, marketing different parts of my life. And as well as the company, you know, I've been on LinkedIn now for about six and a half years trying to get attention. And that's what branding is all about. But back in the day, you know, I was 16, 17 years old and a long time ago, like 30 something years ago.
But anyway, we had a band and throughout this. This thing of having a ban, I wanted to market our band two major record labels, and that's where it kind of really took off. I had so much enjoy. I got so much enjoyment out of marketing this band. And so I pulled something up. I'm going to show you real quick.
This is how we use the market back in the day. Now we have social media, but everything you're going to see here is something that I created again. Still in junior high school, but that was our band name. It was called. We were called fellows. Okay. Were band members of five and I pulled this up and what I would do.
And you can notice here. Everything is on a dot matrix. That's how old this is. I still have it. And, uh, I would pull all of the record labels throughout the country. The top executives record producers, you name it. And here I would jump on the old traditional phone, no email at the time. And I would contact them and I would market our band.
Like we are the next greatest thing that we want to be a part of your label. And I would set up appointments for us to fly to New York, fly to Atlanta at the time, fly everywhere. To meet these record labels, these top executives, and I had so much fun doing it. And again, you know, back in the day, we would have resumes of who we are, how old we were so on and so forth.
And that's kind of where it took off. And from that point I realized. Hey, you know what? Getting attention is the ultimate goal. How do you get attention here? We are 35 years later, and now I'm doing it from a company standpoint. How do I get attention from different people out there, but more importantly, how can I give a shotgun approach through social media, but also give a rifle approach that everybody on LinkedIn, they don't see my rifle approach, but that's kind of the secret sauce.
How do I get attention? How do I set appointments with top executive? By targeting them through LinkedIn. Okay. Yeah. And as I mentioned, I see you everywhere. And of course you, and I know each other, we've known each other for a while, but one of the things that you probably do more than anybody I've ever seen is you go live on LinkedIn.
And so what got you started doing that and how's it working for you? Yeah. So, I mean, Y Y has been a great thing in my life. Uh, shows are pretty much off the cuff. It's something that, uh, may have happened the previous day or even that day. And I just want to kind of get it out there because I think it's critical to share and help educate customers on my industry.
At the end of the day, Ken, I want to be the expert. I want to be the brand here in Chicago. You know, there's much larger competitors out there, just like any, anywhere else. However, if you were to ask anybody on LinkedIn, who's the guy in Chicago, that's selling hardware, selling technology. Nine times out of 10, it's going to be, they're going to say Earl out of Chicago.
Right? And so even though sometimes they may deal with me directly and they may not. But at the end of the day, they're still doing business with elite documents, solutions. They're still getting Xerox technology again, Xerox the best in the business, as far as branding. That's why we wanted to partner with those guys.
I
Leveling up your Marketing and Public Relations Process Interview with Shannon Procise
Her book MEDIA MAGIC: Instantly Get Radio, TV, Print, and Internet Press to Give you Limitless Publicity. can be found here:
https://amzn.to/3l4sTwi
Learn more here:
https://shannonprocise.com/PRDistribution
Yeah. So that's one of the things is that I've found is getting people ready for media is what attracts free publicity.
And so in a press kit, part of being ready is having your expert power bio. Another is having a press release that's ready to go for submission. A third thing is anything that has been already written about you. Maybe you've been in the media before. Maybe you've been on TV or on the radio, whatever that might be. They love seeing where you've been before and the successes. That's something that's written about you.
The fourth thing is articles that you have written or things that you have published, things that you've gotten in the [00:04:00] media. Also, it's great to have your company marketing materials and collateral in place. And that's a lot of people know business cards, brochures, all of those things that are, uh, essential to share who you are and what you're doing.
The fifth thing, and I actually have a sixth thing. I think I said five of the big, but there's actually a six thing. The fifth thing is what I think is great. And you don't submit this to everybody, but if you're looking to get booked for a speaking event or something like that ,is having your order form ready or at least what your offerings are. I know a lot of times people want to know that when they bring you on or you're getting your press kit together, they don't necessarily want you to sell. They're usually telling a story, a new story, but they want to know what is it that you do? What is your business?
And the last thing is action photos. And I'd love to share a quick story about action photos. Do you mind Ken?
Ken: No, go ahead.
Shannon: Action photos are different than headshots. And I learned this the hard way. After I had the surgery, I was so excited to share with people this story. And so I [00:05:00] reached out to the media and I submitted a press release about how a paralyzed woman heals with ancient Chinese exercise. And so they said, "Hey, do you have a photo?"
And I sent them a headshot and. And I thought, what am I ugly? Like they didn't print the photo. So they printed the article and it was this really small article. And then I realized that an action photo is when they see you in action.
Ruth King is well known as “The Profitability Master.” She is passionate about helping small business owners get profitable and stay profitable.
Ruth is a serial entrepreneur having owned 8 businesses in the past 37+ years. One of her businesses, Business Ventures Corporation, began operations in 1981. Through Business Ventures, she coaches, trains, and helps contractors and others achieve the business growth and goals they want to achieve.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruthking1
Twitter: @ruthking
www.ruthking.info
Understanding and reacting to financial statements are critical to success
You can be profitable and still go bankrupt
Balance sheets are more important than P&L's
How to tell if your financial statements are wrong in less than 97 seconds
Dr. Karen Semien-McBride on the New Leadership Language - this interview explores the following areas and so much more.
https://www.instagram.com/drkarenexecoach/
https://www.facebook.com/drkaren.semienmcbride.7
The New Leadership Language
What is the New Leadership Language?
How do you recommend people use and apply the language?
How do people get the tools to start using this method of leadership in their professional and personal lives?
Dr. McBride answers these questions and we talk about the application in the real world. She also shares the story of how she was able to help one individual change the narrative and change his life, in the company where he worked.
Dr. McBride's executive coaching programs have produced a generation of exceptional leaders who have transformed industries using sustainability and innovation while maintaining a healthy work-life balance. “The focus is on building emotionally intelligent leaders and helping them understand and conceptualize the concepts of emotional intelligence with applying self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-motivation,” Dr. McBride says.
Her upcoming book explores the psychological theories and their applications of the operational style assessment, making it the new ‘Leadership Language’ of the 22nd Century. “It gives you a deeper insight on how to utilize the theories to benefit how you engage others, communicate, make decisions, and how to fully show up in your professional and personal life.”
That's a crazy story, so I'll try to do it as short as I possibly can. So like you said, I work across industries, I worked globally and I work with everybody from people you'd expect to have a publicist, like TV people, movie people, musicians, authors, public speakers, but I also work with entrepreneurs.
A lot of what I do is educate entrepreneurs and small business owners and executives on how to build their own brand, their own personal brand, their reputation for thought leadership, [00:01:00] which, helps them, whether they're looking for investment, whether they're looking for another job, whether they're looking to attract customers, whether they're looking to elevate themselves above their peers, whatever it is that their goals are.
Getting some media attention, that you're not buying, is what does it. So that's what I do. And on the entrepreneur's side, my client list currently includes luxury real estate agent, personal chefs, forensic expert in marketing expert, neuroscientist, psychologist, integrative medicine specialists.
So anybodywho has a message,, which is really all of us, either a message or a story or something to get out there. I don't like the term public relations, and I need to have a new description of what I do. And it just kind of popped out at me once in the podcast, and since then I've been using it like a tagline, but elevate and celebrate. So basically what I do is elevate and celebrate what everybody's doing.
So I point a spotlight, whether it's the entrepreneur doing something neat, or whether it's a singer, an actor, I'm like, look, look what they're doing over here. Because that's what you need in this noisy crowded world to get attention.
So instead of people [00:02:00] buying advertising, they hire me and then I spend the whole month or the three month period or whatever it is finding opportunities to get them on stages, to have them lauded at awards shows, to get them interviewed that kind of thing.
he Corporate Introvert empowers introverts in their quest to lead and thrive in a corporate environment.
Steve has 2 quizzes for introverts that are quick, confidential, and free. I provide scoring and a customized report with each.
- Introvert Talents: https://bit.ly/3fUy1Od
- Introvert Leadership: https://forms.gle/d9h1n4jPeS3NRTyK8
All too often, introverts feel belittled by the need to conform to a more outgoing, spontaneous culture found at most corporate workplaces. They are compelled to conform by donning a more extroverted mask at work and then return home exhausted and unsatisfied.
This book incorporates the analogy of a tree in our journey. We often gaze at the strength and beauty of the tree, yet its structure begins with a strong root system which, when nourished, supports sturdy and expansive branches. If the tree is in a healthy environment, it blossoms and shares its seedlings to form the next generation of trees.
The Corporate Introvert is composed of four sections, each packed with stories and models to guide you to apply your authenticity and build your confidence to flourish at work.
Section I - Building Your Roots: exploring your strengths, values, and mindset so you can grow and succeed with confidence
Section II- Flexing Your Branches: applying your strengths to convert uncertainty, communications, meetings, and networking from your struggle to your strength
Section III- Reaching for the Sky: cultivating the right work environment
Section IV- Blossoming Leader: harnessing your authenticity and confidence to lead your way
The Corporate Introvert will be available for pre-orders in September and full release in paperback, hardback, and e-book on October 6th.
Interview with Steve Friedman discussing
Demystifying Introversion
-How to Accelerate Through the 5 Phases of Introversion
-How Introverts Can Lean on their 4 L’s of Leadership
-Top 10 Tips for Introverts That Work
Bill's Book on Amazon
https://amzn.to/366B42m
https://www.chestnuthillassociates.com/
https://www.putsis.com/
I have with me today, Bill Putsis, and Bill is a professor of marketing, economics and business strategy at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and teaches executive programs at Yale University.
He's also president and CEO of Chestnut Hill Associates, a strategy consulting firm. His new book is The Carrot and The Stick: Leveraging Strategic Control For Growth. So Bill, we got that intro out of the way. Tell us a little more about your background,
Bill: Ken, thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here with you. I'm an economist by training, so I got my master's undergraduate, and PHD, all in economics. My graduate degree is from Cornell. I've been all over. I grew up in the New York area, spent 11 years upstate New York in graduate school. And two years on the Cornell faculty. I was out in Michigan for a couple years with General Motors.
I was on the faculty at the London Business School. So I lived in London for six years. I spent a year in Sydney at the University of Sydney. And now I've been full-time at UNC Chapel Hill in addition to the executive programs that I teach at Yale. But I've been at UNC Chapel Hill since 2003, full-time.
. So I understand that the stick and the carrot and stick is something called a strategic control point. What exactly is a strategic control point and why should we care about it?
Bill: Great, great question.Ken, it is, I argue the most fundamental aspect of business. Whether it be from main street to small startups, to Alphabet and Google and Apple, Amazon, many of the companies that we know now as household names have built the business around a point of strategic control.
And I'll give you a real quick example is a classic one I've used for a number of years. Now that I start off talking about this in the book, but the best example I can think of, of a point of strategic control is the Softsoap brand.
So, Soft Soap, we all know the liquid soap that we wash our hands with. Back in the day in the 1970s, everyone used bar soap, liquid soap wasn't commonplace. Well, there was a small company, the Minnetonka Corporation up in Minnesota. And they had the idea for a liquid soap, but there were a small startup and wanted to go national.
The problem they had was twofold. One, they didn't have a great name for it. The name of the product originally was Creme De La Soap on Tap. It doesn't exactly roll off your tongue now does it, right? And the number two is even if they were to be successful in getting it in the Walmart's, the Kroger's of the world, they would simply be spotting a new opportunity for the Colgate's, Unilever's, Johnson and Johnsons of the world, to push them out through advertising and buying shelf space.
So they would have just had a great category that someone else would have taken over in a matter of time,. But they felt if they had a year's lead on the big players, a year where they get the big players out, in that year, they can build up enough of a brand presence, enough of loyal customer base that even with the big players in a year later, they can keep a reasonable, maybe a third, of the market.
The question that they had is how do they keep the big players out? Now liquid soap was originally patented back in the 1890s, so they couldn't patent it. So they had to think about how they keep the big players out and what they did was absolutely brilliant. They went up and bought out the world supply of. pumps.
So they went around every business and tried to buy and they pretty much, at that point, since pumps weren't as commonplace as today, wasn't difficult thing to do. So it took some time for the big players to eventually build a factory, which took about a year and gave them that year's lead time that they needed.
The Art of Alignment - Interview with Art Johnson
Okay, so you talk about alignment in the book. You talk about how alignment results in measurable KPI changes. Then one of the most striking stories in your work with Medtronic and how you achieved double-digit growth in a flat sales environment. Can you tell us a little more about that?
Art: So the overall market was flat and in order to grow, that means you got to go take market share. And that's a difficult thing to do when you already have 55% of the market share. So we had to really get busy, get creative and figure out specifically what we needed to do to perform at a higher level.
So earlier on in my tenure at Medtronic, I was given some tools [00:02:00] by human resources, to just kind of measure where the employee base was- like employee satisfaction surveys, also employee engagement surveys. But Ken, I quickly realize that engagement is just one aspect of it, because at the end of the day, we have to be engaged in the right thing.
So that's where this idea of adding purpose to engagement to create this entity or this measurement called alignment and the entity in which we use to measure that is called orga metrics. So we began the process of measuring how aligned my organization was, since I had responsibility for sales and I had some ancillary support around it.
We had to figure out where we were and what we found was something startling. The further we got away from headquarters, the more disconnected or more misaligned we were, and it became pivotal to get greater levels of alignment throughout the organization.
So we measured it. Brought my leadership team in, identified the areas of misalignment, and went to work on those things. And in about eight months measured again and found that we had [00:03:00] made significant progress. And the outcome of that is what you described 13% year-over-year growth in a flat market.
Ken: And that's absolutely amazing because if the market's not growing, as you mentioned. Now you've got to take it away from somebody else and that's hard to do.
And so how can an organization judge if they are in alignment or not?
Art: Well, that's what you've got to go measure it. It's like as Deming said, " You can't manage it if you can't measure it." So part of the exercises is to measure that. And in the book, The Art of Alignment, we specifically talk about the nine pillars of measurement. This is to take the time to find out specifically where the areas of occlusion are, where the opportunities lie, where misalignment may be prevalent, but also where alignment exists.
So that we can continue to, you know, bolster that, that piece of work that's going on, share it more liberally throughout the organization so that we can all learn from those best practices. Which by the way, is one of those pillars of organizational alignment.
Ken: Okay. So [00:04:00] you worked for many years with many different kinds of organizations. What is one thing that unaligned organizations have in common?
Art is a management consultant and shares what he has learned during the management consulting process.
Camilla shares Nature’s secrets of living a life of greater harmony and fulfillment. It is a guide to pursuing personal goals that require willing cooperation from others by influencing at the instinctive level, rather than the intellectual.
It is a guide to pursuing personal goals that require willing cooperation from others by influencing at the instinctive level, rather than the intellectual. It helps us understand the hidden motivation of others, reveals how to affect change in their behaviors toward us, and sheds light on why there is so much failure and frustration when Nature’s methods are not followed.
Cracking the Harmony Code reveals how, by understanding universal instincts and Nature’s unwritten social rules, we can anticipate behaviors in those around us and cleverly redirect them to achieve the results we want without undue conflict or argument. Humans are unique in the animal world, not because we have evolved beyond our instincts, but because we have the unique ability to either override or capitalize upon them.
A tale of pyramids, secrets and archetypes, Cracking the Harmony Code holds the answers to our personal success at work, parenting and love. It reveals Nature’s ancient, unwritten code for social interaction which has allowed animals to live in harmony for millennia, getting what they need from others regardless of their station, using influence through instinctinstead of aggression or fighting. As human animals ourselves, this can be our code for peace and cooperation as well. After reading Cracking the Harmony Code, you will never look at your relationships – or your world -- in the same way.
Camilla Gray-Nelson’s farm-girl roots and “natural” approach to communication, leadership and power has launched her to success with a wide variety of clientele. She has taken her unique brand of wisdom to the masses, sharing the secrets of power and influence from the animal world with corporate leaders, women, parents and couples alike. As North Bay Business Journal’s 2012 Woman Entrepreneur of the Year, she’s an innovator, thought-leader and woman on a mission.
Camilla coaches, cajoles and commands her audience, teaching important life lessons on leadership and personal empowerment with lessons learned from the animals that have shared her life. Drawing upon years of studying animal behavior first-hand, Camilla discusses the similarities between animals and humans and the subtler side of leadership – why bigger and louder isn’t better and how universal social cues can be applied to all of life’s important situations. It’s a powerful but pragmatic approach designed to help audiences better achieve their goals – not only with their animals, but with their staff, their clients, their children and partners alike.
What employee engagement is all about—and what it’s not—in our post-pandemic environment (hint: perks and prizes are out)
How to raise your head from technology and connect with your people using simple yet innovative practices, including HeadsUP High 5 and 1.5.30 Connect
How to systematically map and address the festering employee gripes that cause teams to disengage and quickly lose confidence
5 simple principles you can start using today to boost workplace connectedness—and profits
In this interview, Susan Linder and I discuss why innovation storytelling is important for your business. Please subscribe to my channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmcq4i3fPqzkfKfznnPIGnQ?sub_confirmation=1
Susan's contact info
https://www.facebook.com/SusanLindner
https://www.facebook.com/SusanLindner
https://www.facebook.com/SusanLindner
youtube.com/channel/UCId9xpyIaSwD25Z9ZsiZ3-g
So innovation storytelling has five critical elements. So the first one, when we learn to tell a great story around innovation, we have to paint a picture of that future that nobody else can see, or at least this very ancient product.
I mean, Ken you've been in the copier business, you know what that multifunction printer life looks like? How do you keep making something that's so ubiquitous, interesting to people? Right? I mean, the copiers are certainly not 10,000 years old, but it's pretty old in American business life. Right? So we need to make it exciting.
So the first place we start with is a shared history. That's step number one. So where can we all get on the same page about what this product or service is and what it's been in our lives, whether it's been great or awful. Tell us about that shared history, where it comes up for us, where the memories are associated with that product, that shared history.
And great story telling as a reminder starts with great listening. So do we even know what our prospect or our customer or a team member, what matters to them? What's interesting or painful about let's call it a copier. Like what are some great memories about printing out invitations to your three-year-old's birthday party?
Or maybe it's making that, you know, not so, um, safe for work copy, you know, late at night when you just can't get the damn toner to function or whatever that may be. What are the funny poignant, painful elements of our shared history? Step one.
Step two is our purpose and values. So what are we hoping to achieve with this machine, this product, or service? What are our core values around it? Do we want to make more money? Do we want to be more efficient? Do we want to be more productive? Do we want to get a raise or a promotion? What are the values and our purpose around this product or service?
And again, that takes asking the prospect or asking your team member, why does it matter? Why are you even invested in this? Why do you care?
Step number three is the hardest part in innovation storytelling. It's saying a new message. Something is going to now fundamentally shift that wasn't here before. So I think of the greatest viral storytellers of all time, ken are the prophets: Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad,these are the guys who were able to tell stories that 5,000, 2000 years later, we're still telling these stories.
When we have a message, that is a breakthrough message, right? When we go for an eye for an eye to turn the other cheek, that's a message that travels around the world with 12 guys telling it.... you know, it's not Twitter, it's not Facebook. It's a story that says we can't go back to doing things the old way.
And for any of your listeners who are trying to inspire change, you need a message that says we're burning all the boats. These were great memories and great history we had together, but it's time for something new and we can't go back to doing it the old way anymore. And we will not, we cannot go back that way.
It doesn't work for us anymore. And in fact, on either side of that equation, there will be winners and there will be losers. And this new way of doing things is where the winners live. So that's part of innovation storytelling.
Interview with Ron Karr about the Velocity Mindset
The Velocity Mindset on Amazon https://amzn.to/3io7TPG
Ron's Contact information:
FB- Facebook.com/RonKarr1
Twitter- Twitter.com/RonKarr
LinkedIn- LinkedIn.com/in/RonKarr
YouTube- YouTube.com/RonKarr1
Instagram- Instagram.com/RoKarr
https://velocitymindset.com
During our interview, Ron and I discuss the following subjects.
- What does it mean to have a Velocity Mindset®?
- What are the three results one can expect from The Velocity Mindset?
- What are the self-imposing limitations that will create drag on one’s VELOCITY?
- How does the law of focus work?
- What is the Art of the Pause and how does it affect our Velocity?
Interview John Meese
Video version of interview:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmcq4i3fPqzkfKfznnPIGnQ?sub_confirmation=1
Survive and Thrive Book on Amazon
https://amzn.to/3yIGFJd
You can find John here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-meese/
https://johnmeese.com/
Let me ask you about your book. What inspired you to write your book, Survive and Thrive - How to Build a Profitable Business in Any Economy (Even This One))?
John: Well, you know, like many people I've been meaning to write a book for a while. So my wife and I opened a business together called Co-Work, well now it is called Co-Work Inc. At the time it was just Co-Work Columbia, but we started a co-working space and an entrepreneur center in our hometown and walking distance from our house. January 15th, 2020 had a big grand opening, you know, hundreds of people in the space, dozens and dozens of memberships it was a great start.
And 58 days later, there was a declaration of a national or a global pandemic. There was the executive orders closing our business. Like we were just 58 days after being open. We were closed. By executive order we stayed closed for 48 days, which is not a great start. And so when that happened, it would have been very tempting, and it was very temping, to just kind of sit back and be like, wow, I guess, well, this was really frustrating. I guess I'll just wait for all this to blow over.
But I've never been very good at sitting still, you know, like I'm very much a man of action. And so I, I just, I took some time to really just like close out all distractions and reflect on like, what is going on right now. And right away, I realized that there were actually three, there was a triple crisis. There were three crises going on at the same time in the world.
One of them is a health crisis. Right? COVID-19 you may have heard of it. Uh, you know, it's, uh, it's uh, it was a real health crisis. This is a real health crisis all over the world and that's very serious and I'm completely unqualified to help.
And so I was like, okay, there are people working on that problem, but there's also a mental health crisis, right? I mean, you think about the PTSD of, and the grief of life as we knew it being just, you know, dying day by day overnight. And you know, and so people just craving what used to be. Um, that's going to take a long time for us to recover, as the human race to recover from that. But again, I'm kind of, I'm pretty much on qualified to help with that one.
So the third crisis that was going on at the same time, it was an economic crisis where all of a sudden you had 30 million Americans, just in the U.S., 30 million Americans suddenly promoted to entrepreneur. Right? Which is a nice way to say, without a job and they're going, like, what do we do now?
And that's just in the U.S. I mean, that's where we have the most readily available data. But if you think about it, the same lockdowns that happened in the U.S, where it's inconvenient for us to sit at home and work off of our computer, and next to the dishes. The same lockdowns happened in third world countries, all over the world.
Only there you've got day laborers who live, literally, normally live off of a $1.20 a day. Now, all of a sudden they can't leave their house and the streets are being patrolled with armed militia to make sure they stay inside and quarantine. Oh my gosh! Talk about an economic crisis! I mean, we went back, we went back several decades in progress in global poverty. So that's going to be, that's a big problem. It's going to take more than one person to solve, but I thought, well, I have a little something that I think I can add to that. And so that's the crisis that I chose to devote my attention to.
GUEST WEBSITE: www.rubenugarte.com
SOCIAL MEDIA:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ugarterd
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rubenugarte/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Practicoanalytics
Book Amazon https://amzn.to/3ou6Vm1
So Ruben is an expert in data decision-making and the author of the Data Mirage. He helps medium-sized and large enterprises, including the fortune 1000, find their hidden treasures and use them to boost performance, significantly increase profitability, dramatically lower costs and make their teams world-class.
He's done this globally across five continents with some of the most innovative companies. So that was a mouthful Ruben, tell us a little more about yourself.
Ruben: Well, it's a pleasure to be here Ken. Thanks again for that intro. You know, I guess I would add that I got into this field as an engineer. When I was a kid I learned how to code. I taught myself how to code and to me, data is fascinating because it's very technical, but it's really mostly used by non-technical folks, marketing teams, sales teams, and on.
And I realize companies have a lot of potential in using their data, which they have tons of, right. Companies are drowning in data, so be able to turn all that into insights. And I think that's what I fundamentally do with companies and readers who read my blog and newsletters and things like that.
Ken: Okay. So why did you write this book, Data Mirage?
Ruben: Well, you know, after five years of working with clients, I thought, you know, there's so many questions that keep coming up over and over again. There's only so many people I can actually work with. I think there's probably something here for a book or enough for a book. And I also thought when I looked at the sort of book space, of the data, there wasn't really anything that covered what I wanted to talk about, which is really the sort of psychology or the human element of data.
And I think the technology portion, vendors, CVPs, BI tools, whatever we could talk about here, it's mostly straightforward. It gets easier year by year, as technology gets better, but the people, you know, how people actually consume data, do they trust the numbers? Can they make a decision on those numbers? And then how the companies turn their data into insights?
I thought that was underserved. So I thought, you know what? I'll write the book. I'll focus on that. I'll have a little bit of technology, but the bulk of the book is focused on how to work with your team and get more insights from your team.
MIke Seaver is on a mission to unlock human potential, to help people uncover and live their purpose. He has a new book:
I KNOW A Practical Guide for Awakening to What's Within and Finding Work-Life Integration
You can find the book here: https://amzn.to/3w3y4Pg
Click to Subscribe https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmcq4i3fPqzkfKfznnPIGnQ?sub_confirmation=1
And so what I started to do was crashed together five different things. And the first thing is the disc assessment. So maybe people that are listening or watching have done the disc or Myers Briggs, or Emergenetics, or the Predictive Index or Enneagram. There's a lot of personality assessments that are out there.
So there's many that we could pull from, but the disc is important because it really focuses on our observable behavior. Now the second piece is what the company that I use is called the 12 driving forces. And it's really about these underlying motivators that we all have. So number one is disk it's our observable behavior. It's how we show up in the world.
But number two is our motivators, right? These kinds of subconscious things that guide our choices.
And now the third thing is our core values. And so there's a number of activities that I use with people to help them understand what their core values are and our society just really doesn't talk about values much in that way. So I'm glad that I have some resources that we'll talk about in a second that really do help with that, that help us understand what our core values are.
Now the fourth piece is a kind of a 10 question Q and A that I developed over the years, that really helps people to see some of the challenges and the hardships that they went through in their younger years and how they can then help others overcome those same challenges for themselves.
And in the fifth piece, and this is a hard one because we live in a pretty humble society, is that I really want people to talk about what their authority is, right? What their strengths are, the things that they're great at and the wins that they've had.
And so if we can find those five things and we can get those five things about a person, we can find some patterns across all five of those things. And then based on that material. We can now find a way to write the individual's personal mission statement, know what their top five or six core values are, come up with like a unique value or selling proposition for them as a person, and then design the right goals that help them accomplish those things. Right, that help them really exude that leadership brand out in the world.
Interview with Mark Herschberg on Career Toolkit - Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You
Book synopsis https://www.thecareertoolkitbook.com/synopsis
Book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3tsXNyK
I have Mark Herschberg and Mark draws on the nearly 20 years of teaching at MIT's Career Success Accelerator Program, and a career spanning half a dozen industries. Mark distills the key skills for a 21st-century career into the Career Toolkit, Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You.
Sure. Let's think about negotiating for a moment. Suppose you're 30 years old and you're going in for a job interview. They offer you the job and they offer you $70,000. But instead of taking the job, you've read a book on negotiation, mine, or a different one, you say, "Okay, I'm going to negotiate this."
So you go back and you negotiate for $71,000. We can all imagine doing that. That's not a huge lift. And so the manager says, okay, 71. Now, if you do nothing else in life if you sit in this job for 30 years, you just made a thousand dollars more. For the next 30 years, you made $30,000 for one single five-minute negotiation.
Mark talks about personal development, career development, and how to be an entrepreneur. He is a great book writer and this book is well worth the read. His advice will make money for you and help in your self-improvement.
Story Intelligence : Master Story, Master Life on Amazon https://amzn.to/2QOwUbn
And so I've been sort of plowing land myself over the last 30 years, looking at ways to use storytelling in a very applied way. To help leaders become more effective, and organizations to better reach their goals. So that's been pretty much all the work. There's been a few little detours in there. Worked with a small company that used to be part of the Disney organization called Ideas that was on the backlot of MGM Studios in Orlando for a few years as their Story Analytics Master, which was the best title I think, in the universe.
You know, these are all concepts or constructs that people thought up. The notion of intellectual intelligence was a new idea in the early 19 hundreds. And someone devised a test for trying to assess that. And for a long time, we thought that IQ was kind of a fixed thing. You know, you've got your number and that's what it was, but it turns out that's also not true.
Then in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a lot of this research was being done on the power of emotions. And this sort of new idea was emerging around emotional intelligence, that it's our emotions and our ability to connect to people and read people and read ourselves emotionally. That had a lot more to do with success than your intellect, and how smart you were.
And then over the last 15 years, there's been an all-new body of research coming out and people have been looking at how our brain's wired and it turns out our brain is wired for story. And it is so integral to who we are.
We think that we have a thing that we call a story intelligence and that it pervades every facet of our being. It pervades our relationships, it pervades the way we see ourselves in the world and others. And it's something that we can also enhance because we think it's part of what we would call our native language.
But the first is to transport and we know that stories can take us someplace else into another place in time.
They can take us in the past. They can take us to the future, that we can walk in another person's shoes through stories. So stories do that. And then there are some more fundamental things like communication, which you're very aware of, is that we're all talking all the time. And, it turns out, that we are much more effective when we're telling stories than we are just conveying information or facts.
And there's a lot of data on that, that demonstrates how our brain works and why it works that way. I think it also enables learning, that's the third power, that we can learn better through the power of story and native peoples have known that forever. They have used stories is an integral part of the way they raise children.
The fourth is to create meaning. And I think in past times we had sort of what I would call meta-narratives, big stories about our place in the world. And those aren't as effective anymore for helping us figure out what it means to be a human being and especially in the 21st century.
So that's the fourth one. So let me pause there and see if you've got any questions about those. And then it's three more. Maybe we can get to those when we have time.
We talk about the power of stories in business and why you should master business storytelling. One example of storytelling in business is storytelling marketing. Storytelling for business is a very important tool.
Richard talks about Using the 7 Powers of Story in this interview.
Davids Book: https://amzn.to/3dWmIq5
David's Website:https://www.clevelglobal.com/
Link to interview on YT: https://youtu.be/Vxu4hpQhxvY
How did you get your entrepreneurial start?
- Have any mentors?
- What drives you?
- What holds people/leaders back from being bold
- Why the book... Overcoming The 15 CAtegories of Rejection? Why seek to be the 1st person to categorize rejection (The sources of Yes versus No)?
- What is Renaissance Methodology?
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What is the Theory of Accelerance?
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What is an awkward situation you've faced with executives?
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Have you seen anything in business that breaks your heart?
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What are Modes-to-Market?
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What makes or breaks transmogrifying a business
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Why do they say cashflow is the #1 reasons business fail
David: And envision it. Is it a possibility? Yes. How great can I make it? How much greater can I make it? Okay. I bet it can be even greater, but now I have to commit to it. Tell my people. You have to then make an emotional connection to your people. And then you step back.
Leaders aren't going to do it all. People are going to do it well beyond any leader's wildest imagination. If you get them emotionally engaged and they want it, we all want to be emotionally engaged.
I truly believe Ken, I learned this from mentor Jim Kerridge, people wake up with the best of intentions.
I really believe that. Almost everybody wakes up with the best of intentions. And you want to do good things, but then we go out there and we're held back by certain process malfunctions, communication issues, mental blocks in our head. In my book Overcoming the 15 Categories of Rejection, mind block is the first category of rejection. We're held back by these types of things.
And the truth of the matter is a good leader, a really good leader, can harness that power and rally so much effort behind him that he could almost be invincible with his goals.
Ken: I agree with that. Okay. So tell me why you wrote the book Overcoming the 15 Categories of Rejection.
David: Oh well, looking back I had a couple of manuscripts written. I used them as training material for my Renaissance Methodology for my teams. And I thought you know what? I need to sharpen these up and make a book because it's gonna help the business keep growing and continuing to make money.
But then some wild idea hit me, Ken. I was asked to speak for a publicly-traded company and they wanted me to speak to an executive crowd focused on selling and somehow it came up with, talk about rejection. And I said, "sure."
So I go online to look up the categories of rejection. It's about 14 years ago, you could do that 14 years ago. You could go online but still didn't exist. Wasn't there. I go to the library to find the categories of rejection, Ken. Should've got her name, biggest mistake, I didn't. But the picturesque librarian, very well-kept older lady with the beehive hairdo, horn-rimmed glasses. This is what you would picture in a movie, of the librarians just helping me. I knew she could find the categories of rejection out there in the world of books. Couldn't do it. Dewey decimal system, her computer, nothing.
I go talk to Dr. Sager, the Dean of the Business College at the University of North Texas at the time. Working with him, ask him for help. He whistles down his hallway, all these deans flood in. My guys help me. I'm all looking all over for the categories of rejection. I'm preparing for this speech I'm going to give, help me. One professor says, David, yeah, that doesn't exist.
Driven by his desire to expose the talent of quieter
businesspeople, Jon Baker has become known for
activating introverts.
His book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2OPRN4S
Running meetings that make things happen: How to get your whole team involved, whether introvert or extrovert. Paperback
Twitter: https://twitter.com/@divingjon
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonbaker/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/activateyourintrovert/
Email: jon@jon-baker.me
With his quietly confident attitude to challenges and vision
of balanced teams, alongside his enthusiasm for action
and helping others, Jon inspires business leaders to take
action.
Balanced teams allow introverts and extroverts to flourish
individually and as a team, improving productivity,
creativity and diversity of thought.
His business growth and networking knowledge (has
written two books on the subjects), combined with
leadership experience allows Jon to show leaders how to
change their habits and get more from their introverts.
Jon talks about developing leadership skills,. the power of introverts, and introverts in business.
In this podcast, Tom Corner discusses why leaders need to lead with love. He also talks about why many leaders find this a challenge.
Contact Tom here:
https://www.tomcorner.net/
In the interview, we talk about how to improve employee engagement and why managing with love and improves employee motivation. We discuss why employees leave companies, and why that is so expensive.
Too often, leaders develop the attitude that turnover is inevitable and unimportant, but nothing can be further from the truth. Leaders need to lead with love, and doing so will improve the bottom line.
Questions we discussed include:
Why is leadership, as you say, often too ego-driven?
Describe what happens to an employee’s mindset when leaders brow-beat or reprimand them?
With companies struggling to survive, how can leaders of those companies put people before profits and survive?
Why should a leader, as you suggest, lead with love? And how can leaders implement that approach?
Do you think that with all the talk over how work environments will become more sensitive to workers as a result of COVID-19, more leaders will be open to softening their approach?
In your upcoming book you address the many parallels between our childhood on the playground of life to our adulthood in the boardroom of life. Does the root of this dysfunctional relationship between bosses and employees stem from the anger that leaders and/or employees carry from their deep past?
You worked for large corporations. If you were leading one today, what would your approach be to the employees with times as challenging as they are now?
If you could change one thing in business leadership, what would it be?
I talk with Cheryl Johnson on Ambition: The Missing Attribute in Your Employees.
Contact Cheryl
https://www.smartlearningforbusinesssuccess.com/
Cheryl's book on Amazon:
https://amzn.to/3wtFaxm
The five key Ambition Quotient attributes
How leadership can develop these qualities
How to create resilient employees
Simple to implement strategies for developing
Ambition Quotient attributes
Personal experiences in her triumph over
adversity
Cheryl Johnson has more than twenty years of
experience in coaching, learning, development, and
workplace training with a focus on improved
performance.
With her pioneering attitude, Cheryl has
made strong contributions in the areas of learning with
an emphasis on behavioral change.
Cheryl has been recognized as a leader in the architecture and
design of interactive multimedia learning systems and strategies.
She is also published by well-known educational psychologist, Michael Allen in his 2012 e-Learning Annual.
Cheryl has dedicated her life to developing learning solutions that drive
performance at work and in one's personal life.
In this interview Cheryl talks about the role ambition plays in employee engagement, She also shares employee engagement ideas and employee engagement strategies. Both of which will improve employee engagement.
I interview Jennifer Flizen on The Give to Ge Principle and Rockstar Marketing.
Click to Subscribe https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmcq4i3fPqzkfKfznnPIGnQ?sub_confirmation=1
Jennifer's contact information:
http://www.rock-star-mktg.com/
The Give To Get Principle: How Relationships & Reciprocity Build Raving Fans https://amzn.to/31xmWwB
Jennifer has an interesting background. She is a bonafide rockstar who learned digital marketing while promoting and selling her albums. During our interview, she talks about internet marketing and in particular about how she uses social media marketing to help her clients succeed.
We discuss marketing 101 and how to be effective in marketing your products. We also talk about the value of storytelling in marketing and why it is such a powerful force in getting your message across and impacting future customers. She discusses content marketing and the value of email marketing.
In this interview, I talk to Naresh Vissa on 50 shades of marketing whip your business into shape and dominate your competition
Here is the link to his book: 50 Shades of Marketing Whip Your Business Into Shape and Dominate Your Competition.
https://amzn.to/2PfNTSO
Here is Naresh's website.
http://nareshvissa.com/
He is the number one best-selling author of 50 Shades of Marketing Whip Your Business Into Shape and Dominate Your Competition. And he has a new book From Nobody to Bestselling Author, How to Write, Publish, and Market Your Book. He's the co-host of the Work From Home Show. He has a master's degree from Duke University, a Fuqua school of business, and has been featured on USA Today, Yahoo, Bloomberg, MSNBC Huffington Post, Business Week, MSN Money, Business Insider, India Today, Hindustan Times, and other domestic and international media outlets.
So we have a real expert with us today. And we're going to talk about is his first book, uh, 50 Shades of Marketing. And we're going to look at ways we can apply that in a business today. Uh, welcome to the show Narresh.
Thanks a lot, Kenneth. It's really a pleasure to be on. Okay. So let's start with this question. Tell me what led up to your book. 50 Shades of Marketing, Whip Your Business Into Shape and Dominate Your Competition.
Well, I had been running my company, Krish media and marketing for only about two years before I started writing the book.
50 shades of marketing. The reason the Genesis of the book was I felt like I gained a lot of knowledge, a light bulb, a light switch just went off in my head when it came to the online and digital economy, online and digital marketing, and philosophies behind effective marketing. So I said, I need to put, put my ideas, put some data and research, put some strategies and resources.
Down on paper and share it with the world. So that's what I started doing in early 2015. I just got in front of my computer and every day spent about 30 minutes writing and writing and writing, maybe just writing half a chapter. And by the end of that summer, I would say by the end of August of 2015, I completed the book.
I went through the editing process. I got Dr. Philip Kotler and one of the world's greatest marketing academics to write the forward. And the book released in October or November 2015, it's gone on to sell extremely well. It has incredible reviews on Amazon. You can get the book fair on Amazon. I go back and reference it from time to time because you just can't remember if it's close to 250 pages, I believe, and you just can't remember everything, even if you will, hard to the author and the writer.
So the main reason why I wrote the book again is to help people get started. Would their business or help them be an entrepreneur within the company that they work for and utilize the marketing strategies and techniques to either keep their jobs or to make more sales or to sell more product or to just take their careers to the next level.
Naresh and I talk about marketing analytics, content marketing, and online marketing. You could say it is a marketing 101 discussion
Okay. Yeah. And it's kind of interesting because I talked to a lot of people in the brick and mortar industry. My background is in the copier business. And the one thing that I would say about a lot of the ones I see is that they're maybe not as effective in digital marketing as they could. So let me ask you this question.
Mike Cameron is a TedX speaker, author, and consultant. During the interview, we talk about the impact of emotion on the sales process and in leadership.
His book on Amazon https://amzn.to/3qRwhtv
https://www.mikecameron.ca/
So I'm fortunate, to have with me today, Mike Cameron, and he's the author of the book Becoming a Better Man, When Something's Got to Change, Maybe it's You. And he gets going to talk to us about the impact of emotions in the business environment
And, what I realize is, that I literally went from bagging shit to building, running, and ultimately selling a multi-million dollar business. So it just makes a great story. But when I, talk about that, I started my career working at a garden supply wholesale company as an 18-year-old. And I was literally bagging steer maneuver and not exactly a fantastic job at 18, it paid the bills. It bought me a case of beer on the weekend. It did the job and ultimately I worked my way up through the warehouse, ended up driving a truck.
And that's when I first realized that nobody buys a bag of steer manure because they want to own a bag of crap. They ultimately buy a bag of steer manure because they want that feeling that they'll get when they grow that beautiful Rose Bush or that, that vegetable garden, or what have you. So that was kinda my first taste into the fact that my customers don't buy the thing they buy the feeling, the thing is ultimately going to get them.
And as business leaders and as salespeople this is especially true. Again, for me, the context now, a lot of the time is in violence prevention. But I also do a ton of work in sales and leadership because the things I talk about are the same, it's just, the application is a little bit different.
Because for me as a salesperson, there are three big pieces, that's ask questions, tell stories, and be authentic. And that would be my overarching framework. But of course, in order to be authentic if I'm giving you a prescribed methodology that doesn't necessarily jive with who you are, either as an individual or as an organization. That's not authenticity.
And again, how we create neural pathways One of them talks about when neurons that fire together wire together. And so we talk about asking the right questions to help change the thought patterns of our customers. So telling isn't selling. I can tell you all day long that my product, this, my product, that my product can do this. My product will solve your problem.
When I tell you stuff, it's eh, maybe, but whereas if I flip that into questions and I ask you the right questions that starts creating new action it actually starts to physically change your customer's brain and create new ways of thinking.
So when I again, as simple as do you see how this might change things for you or your organization? What would it look like if you were able to do this again, ask those questions, get the customers to come to their own conclusions?
Mike talks about developing leadership skills, leadership motivation, and the theory proposed by Rene Descartes.
Brad's Website - https://braddude.com/
Quick, I Need To Be A Leader in 30 Days on Amazon, https://amzn.to/3qGe16x
Okay. So I have to ask you about the title of your new book. Your new book is Quick. I Need To Be A Leader In 30 Days. What, led up to you writing that book?
Scott Blanchard, the son of Ken Blanchard, who is a noted author on leadership, he was kind enough to write the forward to my book and his research revealed that over 50 million millennials are in the workplace today throughout North America, ten million in management with about two million adding to the management stream every year.
But unfortunately he also found that about 60% of them fail during their first year on the job and that's [00:02:00] failing in terms by their own measures, by the expectations of themselves or their organizations. So I felt there was a need to address that failure and my work through the years with a variety of clients, especially new managers . I thought it's a great place to start.
And so I, began to think about why is it that there's that failure? I've been in the training business for many years. And what does Scott reveal? That most of these managers don't even get training until they're on the job about seven to nine years. The habits that you try to develop your very first year, they kind of stick with you throughout your career, often.
And if you're not doing the right things to begin with that's not going to be very helpful to you. So I thought what's needed is a practical, handy-dandy kind of course, because I felt that somebody could really get running with management and leadership in a good month if they really focus.
And that got me thinking about what needs to go into a course like that, [00:03:00] which I developed into that book.
Okay. That's very good. And it's interesting because a lot of the things you say are things that I've seen in my background in the copier business where I dealt with copier dealers and I saw them so often walk up to their best technician, they would say, "Congratulations!"You've been doing a good job. And by the way, you're the service manager." They would turn around and walk away. And that was the end of his training.
And I saw a manager struggle and fail because they didn't get the help. And you and I have taken a similar path because I started teaching service management because I saw there wasn't anybody that taught a complete course. It is interesting also that Ken Blanchard's book, The One Minute Manager, is required reading in my introduction course.
Yeah Ken's great. Ken and Scott wrote the forward to my first book. What Makes You Tick and What Ticks You Off? , all about temperament and how it influences leadership. The Blanchard folks have been a real supporter of my work in writing about [00:04:00] leadership, through the years.
That's very nice. Okay. So would you do me a favor and describe the four step process that you believe is important for new leaders to have in their toolbox?
Yeah. And I, do use that metaphor of the toolbox that there's not one correct way to be a leader. My experience has been that there are a lot of tools and concepts out there, and I think that's the first step in terms of my approach to this course that I've written up, was to learn some of the leadership concepts and basic tools that anybody would need to hit the ground running.
In my interview with Christian, we do a deep dive into the power of targeted FB ads. Christian describes the process to target a specific potential client, a specific territory, and we discuss targeting a specific vertical market.
Christian has a YouTube channel where he teaches people how to run targeted Facebook ads, a marketing podcast, and has consulting businesses to help select businesses to improve their processes.
Christian provides some powerful insights on how to spend small amounts to have huge success. He also outlines a strategy that is simple and powerful.
You can connect with Christian as follows:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDgXJpL26EpZsC-OkdrOxiw
Website: https://www.pixlfeed.com
Gerald J. Leonard is an international Keynote Bassist and Culture Change Expert. His program integrates music, productivity, workplace culture, and neuroscience. He is the author of “Culture Is The Bass: 7 Steps to Creating High Performing Teams,” listed on Entrepreneur magazine as one of the “Top 15 Books on Business Culture That You Need to Read Today," and the book, "Workplace Jazz."
We talk business and how to transform business cultures. He draws comparisons between a band and a business and why changing leadership styles impacts both success and culture.
Link to free template
Link to free course
What is it
A PEST analysis is an examination of four different external forces that may act on your business. These four areas are the political environment, the economic environment, the social environment, and the technological environment.
When performing the evaluation you will want to look as far out as you can, so that the analysis is useful for your long term pan and in the near term, you should be able to be more accurate.
Political Environment
In the Political environment, we want to think about what issues may shape future elections. What would the different parties most likely do that impact your business? Which candidate is most likely to win the election, at each level?
In addition to the politics involved in the elections, what are the other factors from the political environment that may affect your business? Will taxes go up or down? Will the minimum wage change? What about changes to environmental laws? Will customer protection rules change?
Economic Environment
When we start to analyze the Economic environment, we have more questions to think about. What is the economy like now? How will it change? Where are interest rates headed? Is the economy shrinking or growing and will that change?
What is the prospect for inflation? What impact will inflation have on your ability to sell your product or service?
If you deal internationally, you want to think about the exchange rate? This will impact you if you buy products made overseas, or sell into foreign markets.
What does the labor market look like, and what will the trend be? Tighter labor markets usually mean higher labor prices. Higher unemployment usually makes hiring easier, but it may affect the potential sales of your product or service.
Social Environment
When we talk about the Social environment, we are talking about people, what they are doing and thinking. This can be a huge factor in your success, or contribute to your failure.
How will changing cultures affect your market? Is your product something that people need and will always use or buy, or will changing attitudes affect your sales?
As people’s views on health change, will that impact you? Will the change in age of your target market affect sales? As new generations enter the workforce, how will that affect your business?
Will attitudes about environmental concerns affect your business? If so what it the most likely change in attitude that will occur.
Is the demand for your product more likely to increase or decrease?
Technological Environment
Changes in technology can have a huge impact on businesses. For example, the advent of computers and printers into the office, decimated the typewriter industry.
Where is the product you sell, or the service you provide in its lifecycle? Most technologies have a limited life span, and so if what you sell has been around for a significant period of time, ask what might replace it?
Think about what opportunities new technology might provide and be ready to pivot if something disrupts your current offering.
Do your competitors have a technological advantage? Will the infrastructure change in a way that will help or hurt your business?
What new products or theories are the universities and other research facilities exploring that might have an impact on your business?
I share the story of a company I use, and how their failure to have a viable disaster plan caused problems. I used their example to illustrate the necessary steps to form a disaster plan that will help your business survive in the event of a disaster.
I am sure that you have heard the adage, Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail. Yet too many businesses don’t have practical working business plans. Most have a fanciful fairy tale they use for the bank, filled with rosy projections.
I am talking about plans that will guide their response to the ever-changing business environment. I am talking about real plans with actions to take for the entire company. A plan will serve as a real roadmap to the success you want to achieve for your company.
There are seven subjects we will discuss in this series. I will give a brief description in this section, and we take a deep dive into each in later chapters.
Disaster Plan
This is the plan that you hope you never need, but I am placing it first in the list because if you need it, your company’s survival will probably be at risk. Failure to have a good plan, when something happens, can cause you to lose years of progress and good will.
PEST Analysis
I am not talking about calling the exterminator. This is detailed look at the business environment in 4 areas that may impact your businesses future.
P is for the political environment. The impact of the political environment is more variable than the others. Some business can be hugely affected, other business may not be affected at all.
E is for the economic environment. 2020 and the pandemic have shown us that events can have severe, long lasting impacts on the economy and on most business sectors. You will want to take a long look at what the experts are saying about the economy and forces acting on it.
S is for the social environment. There are constant shifts in what people think and feel, and those changes could impact the sector of the economy that your business operates in. We can think about the increasing concerns about global warming and how that is changing the business environment for multiple sectors, some for the good and some for the worse.
T is for the technology environment. We can all think of items and businesses that have faded away because of innovation in technology. For example, the cell phone has eliminated phone booths. Printers and computers have decimated the typewriter industry.
SWOT Analysis
This is analysis of both the internal and external forces that will shape your future. Completing the PEST Analysis first will help you be more thorough in your SWOT Analysis.
I highly recommend doing SWOT Analysis on a regular basis. It is especially important if you are looking at adding new products or services.
S is for your company strengths.
W is for your company weaknesses.
O is for opportunities.
T is for threats.
Five Year Plan
Having accomplished the analysis, then it is time to stick a pin in the map for your businesses destination. One of the premises in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey is to “Begin with the end in mind”
So decide what you want your business to look like in five years. How many customers will you have, what will your revenue look like, what products will your sell and service?
1 Year Plan
Now that you know where you want to be in 5 years, the question is what do you need to accomplish this year to be on course for my 5 year plan. What has to change in the next 12 months to get where you want to be?
Link to
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (30th Anniversary Edition)https://amzn.to/36f1YWi
Once upon a time, there was a young woodcutter, and he was sure he could cut more wood than any other woodcutter. He came into a logging camp and asked, "who was the best woodcutter there?" Everyone agreed that it was this one older gentleman.
The young woodcutter said, "I can cut more wood than he can; I want his job." The foreman said, "Sure if you can cut more than he does, you deserve the job."
So the older gentleman agreed to the challenge, and they decided that they would each go into the forest and cut down trees, and when the day ended, everyone could see who cut the most.
They both went out into the woods, and you could hear the saws cutting. But pretty soon, the older woodcutter stopped for a while, and when the younger one heard that, he thought, "I have this won, I don't need a break" That pattern repeated several times during the day, and by the end of the day the younger woodcutter was sure he won.
Yet, when they measured the wood, the older woodcutter had cut significantly more wood. The younger woodcutter was desolate. He went up to the older woodcutter and asked how he could take those breaks and still win. The older woodcutter shook his head and looked at the young man and said, "Sonny, I wasn't taking breaks; I was sharpening my saw."
Are You Sharpening Your Saw?
Now you are thinking, what does that have to do with anything. To succeed in life and management, you have to sharpen your saw.
Sharpening your saw can come in several forms. First is taking time for rest and relaxation. If you keep diving yourself without the needed breaks, you may be successful in the short term, but you will burn out.
A second form of sharpening your saw is working on improving your skills in different areas. Most highly successful people are readers, and they buy out the time to read books that broaden their perspective. I will link to several good books below that I have used to sharpen my saw.
A third-way w to sharpen your saw is to make sure you get exercise regularly. Spend a little time every day doing something to get the blood flowing.
A fourth tool is meditation and planning. When you spend a little time every day in silent contemplation, your mind will become sharper, and you may be surprised by the answers you find.
When Sharpening Your Saw – Start By Analyzing Yourself
When you are trying to get better, you need to start by looking in the mirror and asking yourself, "where can I get better?" And don't focus on just one area; someone trying to get stronger doesn't only exercise one muscle; they have a routine to train their whole bodies.
The same should be true of our skills; we want to improve in every area. It is easy to get fixated on one challenge and fail to address other issues.
One Tool To Help
One process that I found helps me sharpen my saw was describe by Hal Elrod. He is a gentleman that has overcome significant adversity to triumph far beyond what event the experts thought possible. He uses the label "The Miracle Morning." I have found it helps me.
Here is a link to his book The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8 AM) https://amzn.to/34ZOZqH
I also recommend Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't by Simon Simek https://amzn.to/3n2Ku4T
When someone gets promoted to a supervisory or managerial role, they might think they automatically become a leader. Nothing could be further from the truth. They may have become the boss, but that doesn't make them a leader, and acting like a boss can ruin the team.
Definition of leadership
Leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others towards the achievement of a goal. There are three separate points in that statement that we will consider.
It starts by saying that leadership is a process of social influence. It doesn't say anything about title or position. A leader can be anyone that can influence others.
The second point is that a leader maximizes the efforts of others. Because they have influence, other individuals are willing to be led by them, and they listen to them.
The third important point is that the leader is heading toward some goal. People won't follow someone who is just wandering around and not going somewhere.
How do you become a leader
I believe that leadership is a personality trait that you can learn. Most leaders are not born leaders; they work on becoming the kind of persons that others want to follow. It starts with being interested in and caring about others.
An old proverb says, "People don't care about how much you know until they know how much your care." This includes how much we care about a cause, a project, and about other people.
To be a leader, a person needs to learn to be sincerely interested in others. When people see that you care about them and their success, they will respect you as a leader. You cannot fake this; it has to be genuine. You have to care sincerely.
Show your interest by actively listening to people. Rephrase their comments back to them. Ask questions to clarify what they said. Be interested in their ideas, their goals, and how you can help them.
The phrase "Servant Leadership" is used often. I believe it captures the essence of what makes a person a true leader. Make it your goal to help your team.
What makes a person successful as a leader
Lead by example. I worked for a person who used the phrase "People See." His point was that others see what you do and how you do it. When you set a powerful example for your team, you inspire them to follow you.
Be enthusiastic. Your attitude will affect the attitude of those that are following you. When you have a positive, enthusiastic attitude, it will rub off on others.
Be willing to take the blame and give credit to others. Your team will feel valued and safe when you do that. They will want to follow you further
Lead your team rather than driving them. Asking people to do something with you rather than telling them goes a long way.
One goal of every good leader is to help his team become leaders. Empower your team to make decisions and show them how to make them.
Give a person a fish and feed them for a day, teach them to fish, and feed them for life. That proverb is so applicable when leading a team. Do you feed them, or can they feed themselves? Teach them to fish.
Becoming a good leader is an unending process
No matter where you are on the journey to becoming a good leader, there is room for improvement. Recognizing this fact is an intrinsic part of being a leader.
One book that I learned a lot from was "Leaders Eat Last – Why Some Teams Pull Together and Some Don't" by Simon Sinek. Here is a link to it on Amazon. https://amzn.to/3n2Ku4T
How to create fantastic customer service – what should you do?As a business owner or as a manager, you should want to create not just good service but amazing customer service. Yet, most businesses provide mediocre service. Why?
To create the kind of customer service that turns customers into raving fans requires focus and effort. It is worth the expenditure of both.
Ask the hard questions
I encourage you to ask the hard questions. Ask questions that generate answers that are difficult to hear. It is these questions and these answers that can transform your company.
You see customers that talk about their unbelievable customer satisfaction scores. Those scores could be the result of asking easy questions. But those scores don't help the company improve.
I will share the two questions that you need answers to if you want to get better. But understand, if you ask these questions, you may not like the answers.
The first question is one; you ask customers that no longer do business with you.
Here is my suggestion about how to ask the question. "We noticed that you are no longer purchasing from us, and that means we may have failed to care for you in some way. Can you share with us how we might have done a better job in serving you?"
You may need to change the wording to match your business, but that is the underlying question you need an answer to.
Think about how much better you can get if you know why every customer leaves. Some of the answers will not be helpful, and they may no longer need your product or service. Some will have gone to the competitor, and knowing the reasons why they left is priceless. It shows you where you can get better.
The second hard question you ask when someone fails to buy from you. This is a question primarily for those in the B2B sales arena. This question needs to be asked by the owner or the sales manager. Here is how I would ask the question:
"I know that you decided to purchase from another vendor, and I respect that decision. I am not calling/writing to change your mind. But I am concerned that we failed in some way in our sales process. Can you share with me what we could have done better?"
If you ask a sales rep why they will usually tell you the competitor had a better product or price. It is knowing the reason from the customer's perspective will teach you how to improve.
Ask the Difficult Customers
Another source of helpful information is inviting your customers in for a lunch and learn session. In this case, you are the one doing the learning. Invite some customers that are happy with you and more that are likely to complain.
Ask them what they don't like about doing business with you. Make notes, ask questions, and listen, don't defend.
When you learn what your customers don't like, you can identify areas to change. This constant negative feedback will show you your weakness and help you improved service.
Close the Net
Many businesses spend a great deal of time and effort in attracting new customers. They offer specials and give things away to attract new clients.
In many cases, they successfully generate new clients, yet their businesses may not be growing.
Too often, this process is like fishing with a net that is open at both ends. They bring in new customers at the same rate they lose existing customers.
Asking the hard questions and asking the problematic customers helps you close the net. Closing the net reduces the customer churn, grows your business, and improves your profitability.