Ways to Lead

This month I read 7 Ways to Lead by Andre Young. Andre Young has an interesting background, he wasn’t always in traditional business roles, in fact he started in sports and then spent almost two decades as a mental health therapist. I think more of us leaders should have a mental health background, simply because it helps us understand other people better as well as communicate with them more effectively. I thought it was a good book for anyone who is beginning the leadership and business journey, but there were also some really good points for those of us who have been on this path for quite some time and are discovering new or different challenges when it comes to being a leader.

I’m always interested to hear how different people define leadership, and that’s where he started the book. His definition of leadership is “the ability to influence, protect, impact, build and decide.” It’s a good reminder that leadership isn’t just one thing, can’t be defined as just one thing, and can’t be put in a very specific and exclusive box. It’s why the best and most memorable leaders can be known for different styles and strategies, while still loved and followed by lots of people. But Young’s definition of leadership also speaks to the responsibility that one has if they choose to be in a leadership position, that they have a responsibility to plan and act in a way that is proactive, caring, considerate, and courageous for both them and the people who follow them.

The book also showed Young’s positive attitude throughout. He definitely recognizes that there are issues and challenges every business owner and leader has to face, but that there’s always a choice with how we deal with or attack those challenges, and why would you want to deal with things in a ‘sky is falling’ type of attitude when you could choose to look for and work with the positive instead? One of the examples he used was with regard to the talent in your organization, and how you can choose to lean in to the talent that people bring to the table knowing that you may lose them, or you can choose to reject or hide that talent in fear of losing it. It’s a fact of life that people do move on and their dreams and ambitions change, so it’s almost silly to not tap into their talents and let them use them to the fullest of their ability while you do have them, rather than hiding or ignoring.

The third point I want to highlight is something that Young started back when he was a mental health therapist, and that’s to start off each relationship with a discussion about how as their therapist/leader/boss/manager there will probably come a time that they would have to have some hard discussions, and to ask them if they’re open to having that eventual discussion with him. I think it’s a great way to not only take responsibility for your position as a leader and show that you will be a true and active leader, and also open up the discussion to the other person and show them that you only want the best for your relationship together. I know how hard these discussions can be, and that we often avoid them. But by having this conversation at the beginning of the relationship, it establishes the foundational intention towards growth and health, and as long as you actually follow through with having those hard discussions, it can help you avoid many of the issues that are typically noted with regard to bad leadership.

Who are some of the people who have helped you become a better, stronger and healthier leader?

Connections and Success

Today I found out someone else I know got the virus recently, and I remarked to my partner that I was initially surprised how many people I know had the virus, but then I thought about it and realized exactly how not surprising it should be because of how many people we’re all connected to and how widespread this virus is. This is something I’ve remarked on before with regard to this virus, that it really shows exactly how connected we are as a world. That connection is something that both hurts and helps our success journeys. It’s really hard to be successful these days, to get hired for a job you want or even to live what we consider a normal life without being connected to others. The hope is that connection is what helps advance our world to be a healthier, happier, more whole place to live and grow in.

But all those connections also mean it’s much more likely that you’ll regularly lose people in your life for one reason or another. I found out last night that someone I knew from my childhood had passed away over the weekend. Thankfully they were old and had lived a very full life, but a loss of life is still a loss, whether they’re 6 or 96. Somehow it’s easier to let seniors go because they had all those years, but it’s also hard because they’ve been part of life for all those years and you can’t imagine life without them.

The success journey comes with choices we all have to make. It almost promises that there will be ups and downs, challenges and victories. You will meet people and sometimes it will be something that happens in passing, but others you’ll stay connected with for many years. It comes with endings and beginnings, new chapters and finished stories. Sometimes we do make the wrong connections but if we’re brave enough we can right those wrongs, choose new paths and recommit to doing and being better.

As much as life seems set in stone, this year has proven yet again that so much is left to chance, choice and change, and there’s really very little that we can predict with 100% accuracy. While I wish they would get better at predicting the weather, I almost am thankful that the future isn’t as set in stone, because I don’t want a future that only goes down from where we are, I want a future that I can mold and adjust and dream new dreams in as they come along. This year has shown us that we can do a lot of hurt with our connections, but I also believe that it’s shown and will show that we can do a lot more good and share a lot more hope with those same connections if we’re willing to be patient and work on them both separately and together. We’ve got a little over 3 months left in the year, what connections and steps toward success for your present and future will you take?

Learning Beyond School

The kids are back in school, and even if school is looking a little (or a lot) different this year, it’s important for kids to have education that helps them establish a solid foundation for whatever opportunities life gives them and the challenges it throws at them as well. One of the biggest challenges to school is finding a balance between teaching the basics that everyone needs to know and still keeping each individual child interested and growing and help them find a path that works for them and their future. I don’t know if it’s possible to customize it quite like that, although with the different schooling options that are being used this year for safety reasons do give me hope that someday maybe we’ll be able to have kids who start early and kids who start at (in my opinion) a much more reasonable hour.

But regardless of what happens in the school building or during the school day, parents always need help with keeping their kids occupied, exposing them to new and different things and giving them opportunities to choose their own path. So today I thought I’d share a few ideas that are educational and can be done at home or part of the school day to broaden horizons beyond history, math and reading.

I think history is an important part of our lives, but it’s not always presented in ways that we appreciate or connect with, nor do we cover the true diversity that makes up history in class typically either. So one way to expand horizons and provide something else for the kids to do or research is a “this day in history” moment. Whether you just talk about one thing that happened on that day in history, make the kids research it and write up a note card on it or draw a relevant picture or watch a relevant movie/clip/TV episode on it, not only are you keeping them busy, you’re helping them discover more about this planet we all share too.

Another way to keep the kids entertained are the unique, special and random holidays celebrated throughout the year like pizza pie day, indoor plant week, read a book day, teddy bear day and more, not to mention all the different cultural, religious and traditional holidays/days too. With each of these days you have a ready-made craft project, cooking idea, place to visit (garden centers, zoo, local park etc.), journal/essay topic, or drawing idea to occupy time and educate your kids with some sometimes random but often helpful skills and imaginative ideas.

Finally, we all do enjoy screen time, so why not encourage them to check out the live streams that zoos and other organizations have like explore and see different parts of the world without ever leaving home like panda bears in China, belugas in the Canadian arctic, African wildlife in African preserves, dogs being born, live big cat surgeries, sun rises and sun sets in breathtaking places, and all kinds of sea creatures interacting? Especially in a time when exploring and traveling is limited or impossible, these cameras give everyone an opportunity to see parts of the world they’ve never seen, might never see, and might end up developing a life-long passion for and be able to positively change the world for both nature and the humans who share it.

What are your go-to sources for learning and keeping kids busy?

Marketing Mission: Finish 2020

Next week we’ll be taking a look at the book I’ve been reading this month, but today I thought we’d take a look at a couple of things I’m seeing as far as marketing goes in the world, with what has changed over the last 8 months, and my advice on where things are at and where things are going since we know we’re not done with this change experience yet.

First would be an increase on all things personal. With everyone being socially distant and not as active in their lives right now, it’s attractive and engaging to share a lot about your people, about day to day activities and the big and little things that go on behind the scenes at work. Whether we’re talking about social media, newsletters, your website or your company overall, one of the best ways to be truly competitive in not only the current market but the one that we were in before the virus hit, was to be personal.  What does that mean? As I already mentioned, that means giving people a real person (or people) they can get to know through your marketing.  You can absolutely keep all content business-focused, but when you have a real live person sharing about what’s going on, what people love about a product, what goes into a product, why they created a product, tips from fellow humans who have the same experiences or questions, and also having real people show up when there are issues so that people can work with a real human who can empathize with the situation and give them a warmth and depth of response and care that bots and algorithms just can’t.

Second, I’m getting a lot fewer requests for things like (fake) fans/followers, spamy promotions and fake reviews.  This is a really good thing, because those never help you other than to fluff up your numbers for people to see (if they can see them) and ultimately ends up wasting your money and screwing up any metrics or analytics you’re interested in keeping tabs on.  I hope that this trend remains, that people are focusing more on getting real bang for their buck and not just surface level shine.

Finally, would be not rushing the planning. I am a big planner and I do like to have things planned ahead of time whenever possible, but right now things just aren’t stable enough to completely make your plans for the end-of-year holidays. Normally we absolutely would be doing that kind of planning now (or even have things mostly nailed down), but with as much as has happened in the last 3 months (let alone the last 6 months), it’s hard to really create solid plans for the holidays. So my advice is to absolutely come up with some things that you’d really like to do, as well as some different ways to do them (anticipating things both better and worse) now.  By mid to late October you should work on get tentative commitments from people for the ideas you’ve come up with.  By mid November you should be focused on one idea with at least a couple alternatives on how to make it happen.

What changes are you seeing in your industry’s marketing?

Commit to Your Mind

Today is World Alzheimer’s Day. As someone who has had several grandparents struggle with the disease, it’s not something that I wish on anyone. In the initial stages it’s incredibly frustrating for the person with the disease and as it advances it becomes so heartbreaking for their family. As we get older our memories are often all we have, because we’re not able to physically do what we used to and we’ve lost family members and friends over the years, but for those with Alzheimers, they just kind of exist and don’t even have the richness of the memories to reflect on. Yes, thankfully many have caregivers who ensure that their last years are at least pleasant, even if you are in more of a “50 First Dates” type of reality, but it certainly isn’t any way to live your so called “golden years”.

What it all comes down to is an important reminder of how important it is to care for our minds. We don’t have very many answers when it comes to Alzheimers unfortunately, so there aren’t any clear answers as to what anyone can do to prevent it or postpone it or reduce it, let alone repair the damage done by it. But even though we don’t have answers yet, it’s always a good idea to take care of your mind, especially if you do have all your faculties at the end of your life, and because no one should waste the brain power that they do have.

So what are the best suggestions for brain health? Eat primarily healthy foods, invest in learning continually, challenge your mind, be creative, exercise, and get the right amount of sleep. No, nothing there is really a surprise, all of those are things that are recommended for a long life, a happy life, a healthy life, a successful life, and the ability to live a full life.

Today I encourage you to do a little better for your mind.  Commit to doing more creative activities, exercise more consistently, read at least one educational book every month, eat a little more mindfully, and make the most of the years that you are of sound mind and body.

A Question of Perspective and Focus

Recently my TV provider added some old episodes of Bob Ross. He’s the painter that you may have grown up watching on TV with his happy clouds and trees, the really awesome big, puffy hair, and love for animals. It’s interesting to watch a true painter work because the canvas becomes covered in layers of paint. For example, he starts by adding a bit of a base of the sky and then layers on clouds on top of that and a mountain and some trees on top of that. What caught my attention as I was watching this particular episode is that he covered over some beautifully puffy clouds with a mountain and part of me was like “Nooooooo!!! Don’t cover the pretty clouds!” But I’m only seeing the very first steps of that particular painting as I’m thinking this, and of course it turns out gorgeous 30 minutes later with all this dimension and character that probably wouldn’t have existed if he kept the pretty puffy clouds and didn’t layer on other elements.

Yes, quite often you can create beauty, can do great things by staying inside the lines. The lines are there for a reason. For those of us who aren’t great artists the artists of the world designed paint-by-numbers and coloring books to empower us to make great pieces of art that are a great accomplishment even if they aren’t of the layers that true artists create. If you think about cooking or baking, you know that quite often you have to add certain ingredients in certain quantities at certain times throughout the whole creating and cooking process or the recipe won’t turn out. Also, if you think about driving, if we didn’t stay on our side or within the lines we’d create havoc and danger for ourselves and everyone else on the roads.

But sometimes what you need is a more general set of guidelines so that you can create what works best for you within them. For example school is a requirement for kids, but this year especially parents have to make a choice about sending their kids back to traditional school (where available), doing a mixed model as designed by the school systems or doing virtual school provided by the school systems, or doing virtual school provided by one of the companies that has been doing virtual schooling for years or decades and not months. Another example is significant other relationships: it all starts on the basis of commitment to one another and an enjoyment with one another, but beyond that we all have our own habits and preferences and things that make us happy and thrive together. What makes your relationship strong with your partner may not work at all for me and mine or vice versa.

The question for today is what does it all boil down to? What’s most important? In the case of the happy painter, the end result and bigger picture is the driving force, and as important as the pieces and details are you have to keep your eye on the prize and not get lost in how perfect those details were/are. For the cases of schooling and relationships both start with one or two solid facts and are layered upon from there, often resulting in completely different appearances, but hopefully still ending in the same places of kids being educated and healthy and happy relationships. What about you? Are you focusing on the wrong things in some of your current challenges? Are you so caught by the details that you’ve missed out on the big picture? Are you satisfied with what you see that you’re not considering what a little layering or change could bring to fulfill your life more? What’s your focus right now?

Learning Together to Grow

I heard a consultant I know question the other day “what business doesn’t want to grow?” I love growth and learning and believe that both are important, but as I’ve said before, not everyone has dreams of running a company the size of Walmart or Verizon. Some people are very happy with their corner stores or little online boutiques, and that’s wonderful. As long as they have happy customers and continue to make enough income to not only cover the business and personal expenses, but prepare for the future, who’s to say the size they have to become?

One of the things that has always challenged me about business is how some companies are so large/well-known and others are so small/unknown and size has absolutely nothing to do with how successful they are or how well they manage their resources and care for their people. A great example is some of the big names like Walmart and Verizon who send/share very little in the ways of communication, versus some of the charities I support who have an incredibly small budget and work in places like Indonesia and Guatemala. I don’t necessarily support them because of the fact that they send updates, but the updates absolutely make a difference when I hear about a new charity I might want to support and consider if I’d want to switch who I regularly support.

As a business owner I understand how quickly much of your time can get taken up, and how it can be challenging to come up with social content plus newsletter content on a daily/weekly basis, and how you have to make choices to prioritize the income producing activities and not the stuff that doesn’t seem so directly connected to your success. But the irony is that it’s those very updates, those little bits of humanity, those clear communications about the efforts you’re making in your community, the random things you deal with as a business owner, the product highlights, the sales, the profiles and snapshots about the awesome employees and team members that work with you, and the fact that you’re making the effort to share with your community about what’s going on that keeps you top of mind, and lets people know how they can support you and why they should support you.

Don’t assume that people make a point of checking you out daily on social media, don’t assume they are on your email list, don’t assume they scour the news to discover the good you’re doing in your community, don’t assume they’re going to walk past your store and see a sign, don’t assume they’re going to take the time to call and ask questions, and don’t assume they’ll mind if you share about what’s going on in your business on a (very) regular basis. Yes, people love hearing about sales and new services and products they’ve been asking for, but that keeps you and them on a strictly financial level, which certainly has benefits, but makes it hard to move beyond or out of that level.

I think it’s time that for-profit businesses take a look at what some non-profits, and large and small organizations are doing as far as marketing and vice versa. Yes, there are definite differences between them, but the goal isn’t to replicate all of what they’re doing, it’s to gather insights on what they’re doing that might be beneficial to you and what your goals are and how you want to support the people who are important to you. What great things have you seen other organizations doing recently that you’re considering adapting into your business?

A Mirror to Success

I was watching a video of a puppy explore a metal water dish the other day and was fascinated by how much time the puppy spent looking into it and apparently considering what it was seeing reflected back in the dish and the water. I’ve seen other puppies who are exposed to mirrors and have opportunity to use them like humans do and find it funny how much like kids they are in terms of their ability to entertain themselves with something so simple (and likewise with both puppies and kids with cardboard boxes). And I got to thinking about mirrors and reflections and what they can teach us about us and our success.

Mirrors are interesting because they absolutely can reflect back to you a clear picture of what it’s looking at, but there are some caveats there that have to be considered. First, is that they aren’t always check-my-appearance quality, and they can become tarnished and aged which has been known to distort the reflection. For example the dog bowl that the puppy was looking in isn’t something I’d use to check my reflection before going to a really important meeting. It would be better than nothing, but it’s not the best choice. Second, mirrors only show what fits in the given space. So if you stick your face right up near the mirror, you’ll see a very small portion of your face. Finally, it’s also totally possible to only notice the pimple on your left cheek and totally miss the other things on your face you may want to take note of as well, or how messy your hair is.

When it comes to success, you can absolutely be so focused on one detail that you miss other important ones, you can be so focused on the big/overall picture that you miss crucial details, and you can think that you have all the facts but in fact be looking at only partial truths. These are some of the reasons why it can be so helpful to not only do your homework/research and have support from at least one other person, but also run your plans and thoughts past someone who’s impartial to the situation but totally supportive of your ultimate success. Have you really taken a good look at what you’re doing lately and how it’s positively/negatively affecting your success and checked to make sure you’re not missing things or are you just accepting the little sliver of the mirror that you’ve been using and not realizing how much more there is to see?

All in the Community

This year has been full of new experiences, one of which is living in the present reality while watching TV and movies that came BC (yes, it’s fascinating that we’re able to us BC in present conversation, I may have to switch from using BC in the historical context to using BCE so I can use BC for 2020). It’s an interesting push-pull experience to think “o boy, they’re really close together” or “where are their masks” and thinking about how there’s hopefully a future where we’re not living in 6 feet separations with masks on. It’s added another layer of experience to raising kids, relationships/dating/love, working jobs, and being in ministry/running a charity. I hope that all of these challenging experiences help empower our kids for whatever the future holds, rather than makes them reckless because they might see their lives cut short too.

But as I was watching volunteers care for future service dogs, read about and watch how dogs are helping people, seeing and re-experiencing all the 9/11 moments, watching emergency workers come together to deal with issues, and consider the number of people who help a package get from one place to another, I’m reminded that we can’t get away from the fact that we’re all part of a community and we’ve got a choice whether to contribute to that community and be part of it, or to try and do it all on our own, I’m reminded again and again that we just can’t do it alone, nor would I want have gone through these past 8 months without friends, family and my partner by my side.

Bakers and chefs often talk about the secret ingredient to their food being love, and I think that’s could be what would make the difference in a lot of life if we let it. When we lead with love, work with love, communicate with love, drive with love, serve with love, teach with love, and do life with love, it makes it a lot easier to be part of a community and everyone gets more out of it. My hope is this is a season that empowers our kids and ourselves for the future, and solidifies that when we work in concert, community and love life is easier, smoother and more fulfilling. I don’t want to live in a world that just rotates through emergencies and challenges and we have to respond to them constantly, but I do want to see that same sense of community and togetherness more often.  What are you discovering through this year of change and new experiences?

First and Future Sales Success

A couple of weeks ago I got an email newsletter from an author I read and in it she shared that she’s been struggling with sales and is considering where to take things from here. She’s been writing for some 15 years and has published a fair number of novels and novellas in those years. After 15 years I think most of us have some moments of reconsidering, especially with all the change that has happened over the last 15 years. As we’ve talked about in the past, we all have our own desired and necessary levels of success, but most of us want to at least be able to cover our bills on the income from the work we do. And I think she could look back on her career at this point and call it good and be extremely proud of all she’s done.

Ultimately she’s at the point that many business owners reach, and have especially been pushed into this year, of things crossing over the line of ‘just making it’ to ‘not making it’. We can go back over our careers and point to things that have caused us to end up here, and to an extent that’s helpful. On that list is a website, a way to take digital payments, and at least one virtual service or products that can be easily mailed/shipped. So if you don’t have or have let go of one or some of those, that’s an easy finger pointing exercise and certainly a place to start fixing things.

Getting that first sale is definitely a challenge, especially in this world of options. There are certainly more books in the world than I will ever read, and more shops of all persuasions than I could ever buy from even if I tried to buy from a new company every time I needed something. So you do have to persuade or convince people to buy from you that first time. But the real issue is that many businesses can’t get people to come back. Of course part of the issue is that many things can be shopped based on price, so the question is how do you get people back to buy again, or even more specifically how do you get them to stop shopping around and comparing prices?

A big part of the answer is relationships and making the effort to be on social media and have an e-newsletter or print newsletter that you send out (social is important but not totally of your control or ownership which is why I never suggest exclusively focusing on it). Both of these give you the opportunity to share product/service/company information, but also to share so much more than that, to get to know people, to build trust with your customers, give them a reason to come back and shop with you again and give them reasons to share you with others. Research consistently proves that it is less expensive to keep a customer coming back than try to convert a new one. So if you consider the effort you’re going through to convert a potential customer, wouldn’t you put the same or more effort into getting customers to come back? Plus, it’s much easier to gain a new customer when they are connected with you through an existing customer, because the existing customer has done a good portion of the work to convince them to buy from you in the first place.

So it all comes down to the fact that you absolutely want to make sure you do your best with the first experience anyone has with you, but it’s equally important that after that first sale you’re connecting with them consistently and giving them reasons (even just emotional reasons) to come back again or at the very least share you with someone else. Which part do you struggle with more, getting first time customers or getting them to come back again?