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Leadership

Does your team try the coffee?

January 18, 2013

If you owned a coffee shop, you would have your team try the coffee. Not once, but everyday. The daily sip would help them correct problems quickly and be familiar with what the customer was experiencing. If your organization provides tangible goods and services to customers, it is easy to try the coffee. Far too many organizations ignore this simple routine, but it can be done with little cost or effort. What about all the intangible customer experiences such as interactions with your team that reveal an organization’s attitude, vision and values? How does your team get a taste of the intangibles everyday to make quick corrections and be familiar with the customer experience? This is where effective leadership come in. This is where culture makes a tremendous difference. An organization must find ways to parallel internally the intangible experiences they aspire for their customers to experience externally. If you…

Leadership Podcast

Roy Spence interview part 1 – “Make a difference, they’ll pay you money”

February 18, 2013

Roy Spence is an Austin advertising legend. He’s a founding member of GSD&M, one of the most celebrated and impactful advertising agencies over the past few decades. Along with his work in advertising, Roy has found time to create The Purpose Institute, write a WSJ best-selling book, It’s Not What You Sell: It’s What You Stand For, and start a hot sauce company out of an airstream trailer. Roy’s passion is helping individuals and organizations find their purpose. He’s also a board member of the Conscious Capitalism movement. We dived into both topics during our interview, broken into two parts for you to enjoy so be sure to also listen to Part 2: Be great at what you’re good at. Listen below or on other podcast players.

Leadership Podcast

Roy Spence interview part 2 – “Be great at what you’re good at”

February 18, 2013

This is Part 2 of a two part interview. If you have not listened to Part 1, please do so before continuing… Roy Spence is an Austin advertising legend. He’s a founding member of GSD&M, one of the most celebrated and impactful advertising agencies over the past few decades. Along with his work in advertising, Roy has found time to create The Purpose Institute, write a WSJ best-selling book, It’s Not What You Sell: It’s What You Stand For, and start a hot sauce company out of an airstream trailer. Roy’s passion is helping individuals and organizations find their purpose. He’s also a board member of the Conscious Capitalism movement. We dived into both topics during our interview, broken into two parts for you to enjoy so be sure to listen to Part 1: Make a difference, they’ll pay you money. Listen below or on other podcast players.

Leadership

It’s time to build a recruiting pipeline

January 25, 2013

You have to sell to stay in business. To have steady sales that generate steady cash flow, you have to develop a strong sales pipeline. It takes time, attention and skill, but the goal is to build a pipeline full of leads that get converted into customers and produce cash flow. Why not approach finding future employees the same way? Most small and mid-sized companies only think about recruiting talent when they have an immediate need. When an opening or new position comes up, they initiate the process of posting on job boards, getting the word out to their networks and employing recruiters. What if you pursued prospective employees like you pursue prospective customers? What if you built a strong pipeline of great talent that you wooed and cultivated even when no job openings were within sight? When an opening does arise, how much more effective and enjoyable would…

Leadership

How to create a recruiting pipeline

February 1, 2013

Last week I wrote about the importance of creating a recruiting pipeline with the same urgency and intentionality applied to sales pipelines. If you are intrigued or persuaded, but looking for some practical how to’s, this post is for you! The problems to be solved: Over the long-term, you want to flip from having to chase mediocre talent to being sought out by the best of the them. When you have an opening, you want to be able to immediately schedule interviews from a list of candidates you have previously screened and cultivated a relationship with. You are tired of wasting time interviewing candidates that are a bad match for your company, let alone the job description. In addition to wasting time, it dilutes the pool and you are concerned that you may be hiring the best of the worst. You are losing the talent war to companies with more…

Leadership

Where would you invest?

March 28, 2013

Let’s say there are two companies you are considering investing in and that besides the differences described below they are identical: Company X: exceptional products, marketing and execution unhealthy company culture, which is failing to attract and retain exceptional talent (employees) Company Y: average products, marketing and execution exceptional company culture, which is attracting and retaining exceptional talent I would put my money on Company Y. Subpar products, marketing and execution can be corrected if the company is attracting and retaining exceptional talent. Company X’s unhealthy culture and the resulting talent drain are more difficult to correct. Without talented, motivated and engaged employees, Company X will struggle to innovate, penetrate new markets and execute in changing business climates. Would you invest in Company X or Y? Share your answer and reason why in the comment section below.

Leadership Podcast

Donavon Roberson interview – “We believe in people and their dreams”

March 13, 2013

How would your employees respond if you told them you were going to help them achieve their personal dreams? How would you respond if fulfilling a dream pulled a good employee away from your organization? In this podcast interview with Donavon Roberson, Dream Manager at Infusionsoft (a CRM provider for small businesses), we discuss what it looks like to get behind employees’ dreams and the impact on employees, customers and the bottom-line. During the interview, Donavon references a couple of books and resources, all of which are linked to below for your convenience. Enjoy! Resources: The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelley Peak by Chip Conley Dream Manager training by Floyd Consulting Listen below or on other podcast players.

Leadership

Why transparency in the workplace is so threatening

November 26, 2012

We have a natural aversion to being naked. We love to wear clothing fashioned from our many strengths, accomplishments and victories. We shy away from exposing our weaknesses and explaining the real reasons we behave like we do. Being transparent gives other people leverage. They can exploit us. They have seen us naked. So how do you overcome the threat and fear? Mutually assured destruction. Organizations that want to enjoy the benefits of a transparent environment, one in which team members extend trust, collaborate around strengths and interact based on reality, must be transparent from the top down. Leaders must be transparent first and ask their teams to follow. Once leaders prove their commitment to transparency, those who fear it have all the assurance they need to know that transparency will not be used as leverage or to exploit or embarrass them. Doing so would expose the leaders to the same. If…

Leadership

The ripple effect of company culture

November 1, 2011

Are you struggling with your team consistently delivering the right sales or service experience to your customers? How do you feel about how your vendors are treated and what they would say about your company or people if you weren’t paying them? If these are challenges in your organization and the solution has been more training, rules, policies, monitoring, etc., you’re solving the wrong problem. The first Jurassic Park has a classic scene where a few people in a jeep feel the dreaded trimmers of a T-Rex fast approaching. On the dash, a glass of water begins to ripple. While trying to film that scene, the special effects department was tasked with making the water ripple from the bottom up, no small feat without CGI. The team searched long and hard for a solution. One day they tried flipping a guitar over and plucking a few strings. To their delight,…

Leadership

Pursue talent like you pursue customers

October 24, 2012

Pursuing customers is common sense for any business. Without profitable customers, a business cannot exist, but customers cannot be acquired overnight. Everyone knows it takes a lot of time and effort to advertise, market and cultivate relationships to turn prospects into customers. So why do so many businesses assume acquiring talent is completely different? Too many business only worry about finding good candidates when they have a job opening. Remember, these are the people who produce the products, services and experiences for all those hard earned customers. Customers are too important to your business to only go looking for them when you need more revenue. If you start then, it is probably too late. In the same way, good employees are too important to your business to only go looking for them when you have an empty chair. How much better would your team become if you began to pursue…