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Month: November 2017

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

You Always Have Control

“Change is ever occurring. Thus, you can embrace change and control it, or you will be controlled by change. The choice is yours but if you don’t make a choice, change will make the choice for you.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

www.TheMasterNegotiator.com

No matter what occurs in your life, you always have control. That’s true because you have the power and ability to change anything that doesn’t suit you. That change may be limited and limiting, but there’s a degree that you can influence change, you just have to seek what it is and what it means to change.

So, when you don’t like the outcome of a situation, seek to change it or the way you view it (i.e. change your mind per the meaning it has). Once you realize that you don’t have to be held captive by the outcome that change thrust upon you, you’ll feel better about how you can control the change that has occurred. That will allow you to see the perception of negative change from a more positive perspective … and everything will be right with the world.

 

 

 

 

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Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Personal Development

A Lot of Talk About Leadership, But…

I recently saw of list of what an organization considers the top 50 leadership gurus in the country. There were several familiar names on the list. Scott Love was not on the list. In this day and age, I see and hear a lot of talk about leadership, but I don’t see that much real leadership taking place.

Scott is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. When he was a twenty-two year old Ensign in the early 1990’s, he was in command of a U.S. Navy minesweeper. Yes, a minesweepers job is just what the name says. Scott Love has gone on to a successful career.

Leaders don’t become leaders because they write about the topic. They live it. They model it. They have followers. They are TRUSTED. They make positive things happen.

Yes, we do have leaders in our families, communities and in our workplaces. But don’t get confused with all the rhetoric – a real leader has a history and a life that clearly shows WHY we should follow them.

I think you will enjoy my conversation with Scott Love.

Categories
Growth Management Operations Personal Development

Your Brand is Only as Strong as Your Weakest Link

Your Brand is Only as Strong as Your Weakest Link

Recently I was flying to a speaking engagement. While waiting for my flight to board I bought a yogurt parfait. After paying for it, I looked for a spoon. There were forks and knives, but no spoons. The little compartment next to the forks and knives was empty. I asked the cashier if they had any spoons. She pointed to where they weren’t. I told her they were out, and in an effort to get rid of me, she suggested that I could go to the restaurant next store and ask them for a spoon.

I walked by the first restaurant a few minutes later and there were plenty of spoons. Obviously, there were spoons somewhere. The employee just didn’t want to get them, when a customer needed them.

I didn’t want to make a scene over this, but I thought I’d mention something to the manager. He wasn’t there when I bought my yogurt. He apologized, but then said something interesting. He mentioned that the restaurant was managed by a group at the airport, so I really shouldn’t expect the same service or quality I am accustomed to at this company’s regular restaurants.

This was a major brand with locations throughout the US. The airport restaurant had the same signage, the same logo and looked just like any of the restaurants you would visit outside of the airport. I’m sure that any executive of this brand would cringe at the response the manager gave me… “I really shouldn’t expect the same service or quality I’m accustomed to…” Really?!

And, that is where our lesson begins. You see, it doesn’t matter if it is an airport restaurant, a small kiosk or a full-service restaurant. There must be a similar experience across all locations, regardless of size or where it is. The logo is the logo, and the brand is the brand!

Let’s switch industries and talk about an icon in the world of customer service. When Nordstrom decided to move into the online world, many of their customers were concerned that they would erode their reputation for amazing service. Management thought long and hard about how to create an online experience that matched the expectation of a Nordstrom customer, and they delivered. Regardless of location – instore or online – Nordstrom will always focus on making sure the customer has the best experience.

Now we move to an employee within a company. If there are 100 employees, and 99 of them are amazing, but one is not, what happens when a customer encounters the one who is not? You know the answer. That one bad employee just created the reputation for your brand – at least with that customer.

The old saying is that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Well, the brand is only as strong as its weakest location – or weakest employee.

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Management Personal Development

7 Ways Entrepreneurship Can Be Incorporated into Your Company Culture

Company culture is the foundation of relevancy for your business. A positive company culture fosters creativity, outside-the-box thinking, and imagination. Changing your company culture is not easy, but the benefits speak for themselves.

While building Barefoot Wine into a bestselling brand, we relied on seven steps to build a positive company culture:

  1. Remove Roadblocks: Structure can be limiting. If an employee’s great idea has to pass through more than one pair of hands, they can become discouraged and may even lose recognition for their work. At Barefoot, employees were able to present their ideas directly to management, avoiding unnecessary compliance processes.
  2. Acknowledge: When creative, thorough, and efficient work is recognized publicly, all of your employees are more likely to respect others as team players. On every employee’s work anniversary with Barefoot, we sent out a memo that outlined their accomplishments during their last year. Recognizing employees’ efforts sends a message that good work does not go unnoticed.
  3. Have Fun: Vendors, employees, and consumers alike all want to do business with fun people. Going along with the Barefoot brand, Michael was “Head Stomper” and CEO; Bonnie’s title was “Original Foot” since her foot was on the label. Doug McCorkle was our Controller and “The Cork”—because who else but our Controller would put a stop to it? A fun environment allows creativity to flourish.
  4. Make Mistakes Write: Don’t just make your mistakes right—make them write! Mistakes happen. Establish a culture that embraces this, as long as all of the blunders are identified. Allow any mistake to be an opportunity to put processes in place that will prevent it from happening again. Identify which documents need to be updated for the future, whether that’s a checklist, a new procedure, or a new policy. Establish a culture of permission—a culture that says, “Be creative and make mistakes as long as you hold yourself accountable.”
  5. Have a Two-Division Company: What set Barefoot apart was having two divisions, compared to a vertical structure with the CEO at the top and numerous departments on the bottom. We had Sales and Sales Support. That’s it! Product development, marketing, accounting, and the CEO were all part of the Sales Support division. If your company is all about the consumer experience, sales should be on top with everyone else supporting sales. Think of where your company would be without sales—it wouldn’t be!
  6. Pay for Performance: Paying your employees right will not only keep them there—it will keep them motivated. We established our pay structure with teamwork in mind. Since our employees’ bonuses and employer’s contribution to their 401k were partially reliant on performance, they were determined to excel, and to encourage their teammates to do the same.
  7. The Money Map: Set the precedent for your employees right when they start. We distributed an infographic that showed exactly how the money traveled from the consumer’s pockets into their In that moment, the sales process became transparent to the employee, and the stage was set for a positive sales culture.

Making changes to company culture starts at the top and radiates through the rest of the company. So, take a look at your management’s attitude toward everything from pay, to making mistakes, to having fun, and you will soon see where the changes are necessary.

For more, read on: http://csnetworkadvis.staging.wpengine.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

 

Categories
Entrepreneurship Management Marketing Personal Development

Strategy and Strategic Thinking

When starting or expanding a business, having a strategy is important. A strategy is simply an action plan. It may be as simple as how will I get my first paying customer or how will I / we penetrate a new market with an existing or new product or service.

To develop a strategy – you need to continually get better at strategic thinking. This simply means how does your community, region, state and the country perceive your product or service. What’s in the news – real or fake – what are people believing and talking about? Understand what is going on around you. Then decide if you want to join in the flow or you want to “go against the grain”. Strategic thinking is what you will build your strategy or action plan around.

Learn for many sources. Ian Bremmer is a great source to learn about global issues, Tom Friedmann has his finger on the pulse of world and the United States politically and culturally, Mark Sanborn helps you become a better leader, NPR delivers great news updates and Ari Weinzweig is the best in the world at helping you develop a vision for your future. And, of course choose your own industry information sources. All this will help you to join in the flow with your startup or business expansion, or to decide to stand out from the competition by going against the tide.

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

You May Not Be As Influential As You Think You Are – 4 Steps to Increase Your Self-Awareness

Click here to watch You May Not Be As Influential As You Think You Are – 4 Steps to Increase Your Self-Awareness

Have you ever given thought as to how your communication may be sabotaging your influence without you even knowing it?

Most leaders haven’t given thought to this question, much less taken the steps to increase their awareness of how their listeners hear and see them rather than what they believe to be true.  That is why self-awareness is the first step to greater influence Monday to Monday®.

To enhance your influence, you need to evaluate your communication based on facts, not feelings. You need to get to the heart of what is really going on by experiencing your communication through the eyes and ears of your listeners and readers.

Categories
Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management News and Politics Personal Development Taxes

What I’m Thinking

I’m concerned with Inequality. Chuck Collins, great grandson of Chicago meat packer Oscar Mayer has been a great teacher for me. Too many of us only read and listen to Twitter feeds, or the talking heads on radio and TV and never really understand the economics, let alone the human dignity involved in racial, gender, and income inequality. Chuck’s book is “Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good”. Great read. Bill Gates, Sr. is part of the story.

As an executive coach, business consultant and business journalist I work hard to help my clients and Business Builders Show subscribers to go deeper on the issues they face today and will face tomorrow. I recommend they go beneath the headlines to understand what’s really happening in our system of governing. For instance – do you really understand the Estate Tax?

Click here to listen to my latest interviews with Chuck Collins. You can follow him at www.inequality.org.

Love to hear your feedback.

Categories
Entrepreneurship Management Personal Development Women In Business

Good Times or Bad – You’re Still the CEO

Good Times or Bad…You are Still the CEO

Imagine coming home after a long day at the office as a mid-level manager in a small busy company. You are one of 175 employees, and it is hump day – the week is half over. Work is stressful and you are looking forward to decompressing. You stand in the entry of your home totally stunned by the notice in your hand. Your bank has sent a notice that the paycheck you deposited in the bank on Friday has bounced. What would you think or do?  In a company with a consistent degree of transparency this might be annoying but not a surprise. Your CEO may have warned you that times were rocky. You might be asked to reduce your salary but because of your belief in the company’s cause and your contribution to a cure, you stay the course. You believe.

In another home just down the street a different scenario is at play. Another bounced check another manager but the reaction is different. This manager had no idea what was happening behind closed doors. His imagination started running rampant and he is getting angrier by the minute. He goes to the phone and calls one person after another to vent and check if their checks bounced too. He goes to his computer and resignedly finds his last resume. He has had it!

Which type of CEO are you?  Not all CEOs are created equal. Some are hired guns others are the genius who came up with some bright idea in the first place. Some CEOs, the ones we usually hear about, are public CEOs whose high incomes are reported in good times and bad times.

There are many challenges that keep a CEO up at night.  As a CEO or C- Suite member you always have a choice of whether to be proactive or reactive.  What’s your plan?

 

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Entrepreneurship Management Personal Development Women In Business

Discovering Your "Why" Is An Inside Job

Discovering Your “Why” Is an Inside Job

Does the thought of your company becoming extinct keep you up at night?

Do you wonder how to motivate and keep your people engaged and focused?

The answer to the challenges that keep leaders anxious is in having a simple but highly effective business tool – know what you stand for. Know your “WHY”. The concept is simple; understand, accept and articulate your own purpose and that of your enterprise.

The path to discovering your Why begins with “I”. It is a reflective process and requires self-examination of your belief systems and where they originated. The clues are easily found. They are in the stories you tell about your life. They could be moments that deeply affected you in your childhood or in your school years.

Many years ago I was coaching a wonderful young doctor.  I asked him to share his challenges and successes from the age of 21. As I listened to the peaks and valleys of his life I suddenly felt I was missing something in how he formed his decisions. I asked f anything significant had happened earlier in his life that guided his decision making. His response changed the way I asked the question forever after – he told me that his father took his own life when he was 19. Now I ask YOU, wouldn’t that change how you behaved and how you would make decisions with such a traumatic event influencing your thinking? That story was a big clue to finding his Why.

Influences don’t have to be traumatic but they are usually formed by young minds. Examining the stories that you tell your friends, your children, or your employees is therefore the logical place to begin to discover you Why, your purpose for existence.

You may wonder how your personal Why can then relate to that of your business. When you are authentic and passionate about what you do, you will find that they are in complete alignment. People will follow you, not because they have to but because they want to. You will attract those people whose beliefs are in alignment with you.

The bottom line is that in communicating internally or externally everything you say and do will be better served through the filter of your Why.

 

 

 

Categories
Best Practices Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development Women In Business

Listening – A New Approach to Quality Communication

Listening – A New Approach to Quality Communication

In our corporate worlds, there just isn’t enough listening going on.  This has been made abundantly clear with the vast amount of sexual harassment accusations we are hearing.  One aspect that is leading this cry for honesty and transparency is that the victims finally feel like they are being heard.   Unfortunately, they needed the masses to feel that way.

Scandal is not necessary for you to learn this essential skill of listening.  Don’t you dare call it a soft skill.  If you want your company to grow from the inside out, for every stakeholder, then clearly comprehend why you have two ears and one mouth.  Specifically, listening can afford you valuable information from recruiting to exit, from design to sale, from start up to IPO.

When you are recruiting, assuming you are looking for a workforce that plays well with others and wants to grow with you, listen.  Ask questions that will open a dialogue to expose what that person would do when circumstances aren’t perfect.  Ask and then listen.  Don’t negate or manipulate what they are saying.   Be still, stop thinking about what you want to say and listen.  Ask what they want to be doing in 1 year, 3 years, 5 years.  Under the right conditions, can you give them the pathway to meet those goals?

When someone leaves, find out why.  You may be surprised.  They may have changed priorities, goals or skills.  Simply, they may not be a good fit for your particular organization anymore.  You might be able to help them find a better suited position and keep what might become a loyal customer in the future, because you listened.

Just as you listen to your public, your customers and clients, for feedback on your newest services and products, do the same for the people that carry out your business goals.  In the C-Suite you don’t know what it is like to be in the trenches every day.  Just because you come up with a great idea it doesn’t mean it will work.  You have to include those that will be utilizing that idea in design, preparation and modifications.

Listening.  It’s the new primary skill that has found its celebrity in time to be taught, nurtured and practiced.  See if you can just listen in your next conversation.

Julie Ann Sullivan’s focus is on employee engagement and creating workplace cultures where people want to come to work.  Julie Ann works with companies to develop people who are engaged, productive and appreciated. She hosts the Mere Mortals Unite and Businesses that Care podcasts on C-Suite Radio . For more information go to http://julieannsullivan.com/

Copyright ©2017 Julie Ann Sullivan – Used with Permission

 

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