By MollyandLaney
Time and time again we see attorneys cross our desk who are frustrated with their production.
They are unable to produce the results that they set out to and they can’t understand why. There are multiple reasons, but the biggest mistake law firms make is trying to cross-train every person on the team. Attorneys like to cross-train because they want to make sure everybody knows how to do everything in case somebody quits, needs to be fired, or has a prolonged absence. The rationale seems like it makes sense, right? But in all honesty, it creates more confusion, causes people to quit, and ultimately diminishes the results you are trying to produce.
So what’s the right way? The breakdown in creating the results you want actually comes about because people are uncertain what their role is. You hire a new employee and you want to be sure she knows all aspects of the business. Then, as you start to add to your team, you seek out new members with similarly broad skills. By the time your third employee comes on board, we see this phenomenon called cross-training. One of the first calls we often conduct is to take law firms through a diagnostic of who’s doing what to reach goals. And we are just floored by how this seemingly one?hour call is turning into three separate one?hour calls. We have such a challenge getting the attorneys to agree to let each member of their team have a designated role. They want to make certain that everybody knows how to do everything, just in case.
But you can’t live your life according to the exceptions. You have to create the rules.
So what are the rules? The rules are that you have defined job descriptions, you have designated people who are working in departments or within their job descriptions, and they understand how 80 percent of their day?to-day life impacts your goals. Then, if you do have to fire someone, if you do have an employee leave, or if, God forbid, your employee does have a tragic accident or illness, your business can still operate. It can operate because you will have job descriptions, you will have a training plan, and you will know who is doing what to reach goals. So if something goes awry, you will have a path and a plan to be able to plug in the person who is going to take up the ball.
So the difference between cross-training and “what’s my role” is simple: cross-training is blunt force trauma day in and day out. Cross-training is reacting. Cross-training is operating by the seat of your pants and crossing your fingers that you hit the bull’s eye. Operating by “what’s my role” is defined job descriptions, defined process, defined system and a path to reach goals. “What’s my role” is very much proactive, with intentionality, and with a process to track, measure, and make certain nothing falls through the cracks.
Because at the end of the day, the mentality and the intentionality of making certain that everybody knows how to do everything really has an underlying current of a lack of trust — not necessarily a lack of trust in the people on your team, but a lack of trust that they know what the hell they’re doing, what you’re striving for, and where the North Star is. The “what’s my role” approach, and how you’re designing that and how you’re getting there, is very, very, very much the path and plan to achieving your goals.
So, with two weeks remaining in the old year, what are you doing differently as you step into the New Year?
Champions of your success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
“If you’re brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything from your house to bitter, old resentments, and set out on a truth-seeking journey, either externally or internally, and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld from you.”
This weekend I happened to catch the movie Eat, Love, Pray on TV. Though I usually love any movie or book about journey and growth, for some reason I’d never been interested in watching this movie. Perhaps somewhere inside I was envious that I couldn’t up and leave my life for a year to travel and find myself.
Two things struck me about the above referenced quote the movie ended with. First, “If you are willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue”. What a powerful approach to life, as our life is always a journey. I know, at least for me, that for so long I worried over and tried to fix and control everything happening in my life. Others I know often become apathetic and accept things, assuming they can’t be changed. I’ve now learned that worrying won’t fix things, and often what you are worrying about never comes to fruition. And how much focus, intentionality and happiness were lost in those hours of worrying. And yes, often you may not have the power to change things in your life, but you can be empowered to regard those things as a clue to your journey.
The second part of this quote that struck me was “accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher”. Everyone we meet is a teacher. People we like and admire and people we don’t. They all teach us if we are willing to pay attention to the lesson. A great example of this was one of the biggest changes I made in the direction of my career. I was working for an estate planning law firm and had been promoted from receptionist to legal assistant. At first I was proud and eager to learn my new job. Then, after a few years, I finally realized that role wasn’t for me. While I was good at it, it didn’t fulfill or inspire me. I thought I was going to have to find a new job and that kept me paralyzed in this position I really wasn’t enjoying. After all, I didn’t want to leave this job. I’d worked there for years and loved my boss and my co-workers. Now, I can see that resentment and entitlement was slipping in. The job I once tackled with fervor began to irritate me. I realized afterwards that I’d been struggling with this for awhile. I just didn’t know it, and therefore it was stealing my focus and joy. When you don’t look at things that happen and how you feel as ‘clues’ to your journey, you don’t realize why you are feeling disengaged, emotional detached and overall unfulfilled. You blame yourself, or others, rather than just realizing the clues. After all, it’s hard to strip out the blame and right and wrong of a situation and just stand in that place of realization. For me, at the time, it was hard to admit that I didn’t want this ‘career track’ I’d been placed on. It was easier, at the time, to think “I’m overworked, tired, burned out” and that’s why I’m not happy. By allowing those things to factor into my decision, it actually took away my power to make a decision based entirely on empowerment and what I wanted in my future. Had I instead paid attention to the clues, I may have realized what was really bothering me.
Fortunately, I found an unexpected teacher who helped me realize I didn’t have to leave the place I loved to work. I could discover and create a new role that inspired me and helped grow the business, within my workplace. I was chatting with an old friend. I knew she had recently moved and just started a new job. I inquired how she was liking her new job. I wasn’t looking for nor asking for any advice, I was simply catching up with a friend. What she said hit me between the eyes and moved me forward. She said “It’s great. I realize in this new job that I love working with people, not paper. I can’t wait everyday to get to work.” She articulated what I wanted but was too blinded by the “what is” of my current job to be able to see. She was my teacher showing me what could be. So, I talked to my boss about my unhappiness in my role, while expressing how much I loved working for him. Together we designed a role that allowed me to go out into the community and introduce our firm and services to others and be the first person clients met with when they started working with us. (This was back in the day, before this role became popular in estate planning law firms.) I was in a role I could thrive in and helping bring more business into the company. And we hired someone who loved being a legal assistant. Holy cow! This changed the path of my career and saved me from either being stuck in a role I hated, that was starting to show, or leaving a place I didn’t want to leave!
I realize now the power of seeing everything that happens as a clue and every person we come across as a teacher. To do so leaves us in total control – not of what happens to us – but of the decisions we make. Being overworked, burned out and tired (which is something we hear constantly from business owners and team members) doesn’t have to be a reason to do anything. If you connect with the clues to what will fulfill your passion keys and look to the teachers you meet, you can often find a solution versus running from being overworked, burned out and tired. Because guess what, had I given up and left my law firm I would have quickly found myself in another role where I was unhappy, overworked and tired! Because I didn’t know what I needed to be fulfilled, until an unexpected teacher showed me. Until you accept the clues, the teachers and hold them up to yourself as a mirror, you will repeat the same patterns no matter where you go. And whether that means you stay in a place or move on, you will do so with all possibilities on the table.
Team members, your bosses are your teachers. Bosses, your team members are your teachers as well. And there is so much to be learned when you can strip out the blame and right/wrong from your conversations and instead have honest, while respectful, conversations with each other.
Champions of Your Continued Success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
We’ve seen exceptional people quit lucrative jobs because of the team players they were forced to work with.
The team you work with is the make or break part of your ability to succeed in the workplace. In the workplace there are two sides of the equation, namely, those whom look to you for support, and those whom you look to for support. In other words, are you working in and providing others an environment of co-workers who inspire and allow growth?
The biggest trap you can fall into is the trap of “I can do it faster myself” and this is one we have fallen into ourselves time after time. If you are overloaded with work and feel you don’t have the “time” to stop and train someone how to help you, things will never change. You will continue to be overloaded and overworked.
The other devastating effect of “I can do it faster myself” is that you not only harm yourself, but you take away an opportunity of growth for your team. A team that grows together stays together. To empower yourself and your team, create growth opportunities for you and them. As you move forward, they move forward in unison. No talented team member is going to be satisfied without growth.
If you’re still overwhelmed by the thought of training a new person, think of how much time you’re already dedicating to dealing with issues of problem employees. How much time do you spend cleaning up their messes, having corrective conversations with them, or calming down your boss when they are in an uproar? Are you really saving time and energy by not correcting your team issues?
Hopefully you realize the importance of a solid team to your own career growth as well as the company’s success. If you are ready to start taking the steps to build a solid team with integrity, passion, and potential join us for our free webinar, “What Your Support Team Needs to Know to Help You Succeed” on September 28th at 11am-noon EST. To register email info@yeschick.com.
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
I remember clearly the day my boss called me into his office to have a “talk” with me about the manner in which I was answering the phone.
I had been receptionist for about five months and my boss was usually that guy who dashed passed me in the morning to get into a meeting on time and was often still working when I left at 5pm. The thought of a one on one conversation with him pretty much terrified me. He was calling me into his office to discuss what I now understand was my horrific phone skills.
Interestingly, this conversation is to date, fifteen years later, one of the most powerful conversations I’ve had in my life. Rather than giving me the expected scolding for poor phone skills, he explained to me that we were an estate planning law firm. Now, being twenty-one and new to this job, estate planning didn’t mean a hill of beans to me. But he made it relevant. He explained how often the people calling us may have recently lost a loved one or may be dealing with a sick family member. He shared how when I answer the phone, I could be the first person a woman who has lost her husband of fifty years is speaking to for help. And if I sound brusque or agitated, because I’m busy doing something else and the phone interrupted me that it may be that widow I’m treating that way. Now I may not understand estate planning, but I had a grandmother I loved dearly and I remembered how devastated she was when my grandfather died. The thought that I could have been short with someone who was hurting like my grandmother had was a punch in the gut. I understood fundamentally in that moment, that even though I was “just the receptionist” I was empowered to make a tremendous difference for people who called our law firm simply by being present, kind and patient when I answered the phone. I got that this was so much more important than whatever task I was working on when the phone rang. Rather than walking out of that meeting with my head hung low, or with an attitude because I’d gotten reprimanded, I walked out excited for the next time the phone rang and I could make a difference. And never, ever has anyone had to discuss with me my phone skills. In fact, I’ve gone on to lead training programs on how to connect with clients when you answer the phone.
We’ve all had to be on the giving and the receiving end of these uncomfortable, tough conversations with people, either professionally or personally. Often, because we are uncomfortable, we rush through the conversation as quickly and emotionless as possible. However, the cornerstone of success and being at peace with yourself is the ability to have an empowering conversation. This is a conversation where you leave the other person empowered. You light the fire within them and it stays lit. When you rush through a tough conversation you end up having to have the same talk over and over again, because it doesn’t connect or empower the other person.
Having an empowering conversation can be broken down into eight essential keys. One of the simplest, but most powerful, of those keys is “Time and Place”. Often a conversation goes immediately off track because we didn’t pay attention to the timing and the place. For instance, don’t start a tough conversation with your co-worker when they only have 10 minutes before they leave work. It isn’t sufficient time and now they are just worrying about being late to pick their daughter up from daycare, not concentrating on what you are saying. Don’t have a “come to Jesus” talk with your boss about your maxed out workload when he is walking into a meeting with his biggest client. Not only does he not have time to talk but it’s distracting him from an important meeting. When you do have your empowering conversation, be conscious of ‘place’. Let the receptionist know to hold all calls and close the door so you can both speak comfortably and without interruption. Or step out of the office, go to Starbucks and talk there, away from the distractions of flashing voicemail and email notifications. Carve out the time and the proper place to be able to have an honest, empowering conversation. You’ll be surprised at the results of this simple key.
If you are ready to begin having empowering conversations, but not sure how to being, join us for our free webinar, “What Your Support Team Needs to Know to Help You Succeed” on September 28th at 11am-noon EST. To register email info@yeschick.com.
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
I literally break out in hives when I even have to open up my boss’ calendar. Scheduling an appointment feels like a wrestling match where I never win.
“My entire world is on hold because of my boss’ calendar. I can’t get follow up time with him. I can’t get follow up meetings scheduled with referral sources. I am constantly apologizing and feel an unnecessary amount of embarrassment and guilt about not being able to help people. And we wonder why cash flow is a constant angst when we can’t we get anyone in here? Business would be great but for the boss’ calendar.”
We know from the boss’ perspective they understand this frustration…as they have the exact same frustration. Their unavailability is neither intentional nor working for them either. We hear, “It is what it is.” But we respectfully disagree. The successful entrepreneurs we work with do not subscribe to that school of thinking and you don’t have to either. You can solve the problem of “how to get it all done.”
We have found in most companies, business owner and assistant alike, react to what the day and week throws at them. Requests to “help out real quick”, tasks, your boss’ needs and your own obligations begin to fill every nook and cranny of your waking and working hours.
Here are some fascinating studies to drive the point home:
A study last fall by Basex, a New York research firm, found that office distractions ate up 2.1 hours a day for the average employee. Another study found that employees devoted an average of 11 minutes to a project before being distracted. And researchers Gloria Mark and Victor Gonsalez of the University of California, Irvine, found that once interrupted, it takes workers 25 minutes to return to the original task, if they return at all. People switch activities, such as making a call, speaking with someone in their cubicle or working on a document, every three minutes on average.
Betty Lin-Fisher (for Knight Ridder Newspapers), Houston Chronicle, 2/27/2006.
Most people actually use 60% or less of available work time. When more than 38,000 people in 200 countries were queried about individual productivity, it showed that even though they were physically at work five days a week, they were only productively using three days.
Microsoft Survey, March 15, 2005
We can talk about goal setting, strategic planning, marketing plans and all that business “stuff” but if you plan your work but can’t work your plan with dedicated focus you’re dead in the water. How do we plan without making a project out of planning and be able to implement immediately…with ease? How do we get our week in order without revamping our lives?
The world of work has changed dramatically over the past 20 years. We live in the information age… the global marketplace that never closes. Instant communication (email, texts, and smart phones) has destroyed the once built-in boundaries around the workday. Most of us have lost the ability to accurately estimate how long activities are going to take before we commit to them and we over commit because we simply don’t know everything we have already committed to.
Eventually, relationships begin to suffer and your depleted vitality negatively affects the quality of your work, the referrals that come in, your team’s cohesiveness…bottom line your pipeline, current and future cash flow, and capacity.
The key is to not just declare what you’re doing with your time but create a weekly structure that supports accomplishing your goals. A world where it is possible to effectively use the time you have and control your calendar. Simply working more hours or adding more people to the mix won’t solve the problem.
If you and your team are serious about moving away from the “what’s next” reactivity and taking the first step to creating a manageable schedule we highly recommend you have your team contact us for our next 12 week team training program beginning October 10th.
By MollyandLaney
Our hope with this blog series is to allow you an inside look into the thought process and voices of support team so you can better understand and communicate with yours.
In our last two blogs in this series, we shared what team members had to say about what their biggest joy in their job was and what their biggest frustration working for an entrepreneur was. In this final blog of this series, we are sharing what team answered to the question “If you could change one thing in your business, what would it be?” We hope you see, in these responses, what valuable insight your team has.
Team members who are intrapreneurs, team members who feel, act and are committed to a business as if it were their own, though they have no financial ownership of it, will help a business owner see their blind spots. Together, your insight and perspective can invite powerful change in your business.
If You Could Change One Thing In Your Business, What Would It Be?
1. More dedicated focus. We always have a backlog of cases/files to tend to. The person that is supposed to support me keeps getting pulled off of helping me “clean up” backlog. It is never-ending because the focus is always trumped by the emergency of the day.
2. My boss wants to grow and wants to keep pulling me into marketing and I can’t get my “work” done. We don’t have the infrastructure and capacity to grow so we are stuck in this fanatical cycle. If we could stop for a moment and put some intentionality behind what we are doing, we could go such much further without all the pain and panic.
3. Eliminate the fear of success. Right now we can’t handle any new business. We don’t have the right team in place and systems in place to grow and we are crippling ourselves.
4. If they would just get out of my way, I can do my job and help them grow.
5. Detox the program junky. He will travel around the country to get the new shiny system/product to “help” us get more (insert the key word: organized/more money/systems). It would make my year if there was a way that I could “unplug” my boss from buying any new system and just do nothing but implement what we have and commit to one thing. (EVERYONE on the group said “here, here” and agreed to this.)
6. A way to get my boss to focus and delegate more because he is a perfectionist. He constantly changes everything before we even try it the first time.
7. My boss is very, very creative and very smart but every time something gets back on his desk for the final stamp of approval he will recreate—always wants to recreate—maybe fear of the failure or fear of success and never can pull the trigger to put anything out there.
8. We never finish anything before we really try it in our marketplace or internally before we change it again.
9. Get the little nonsense things out of the way so the new stuff can blossom, keep life simple. It doesn’t have to be this difficult.
10. I would love a constant alignment on the priorities of the business. The business owner and team priorities never match up which is a shame because we have a common goal.
11. Meaningful priority alignment. Days, weeks, months go by before we ever get back to a meaningful priority alignment, so we just react to whatever is thrown at us day in and day out.
12. Stop the “Meeting Amnesia” – we meeting to death and everyone leaves excited but then nobody ever remembers what we met about and nothing ever gets implemented.
13. Stop stepping over the constant “little” things that pop up and not addressing them until they are a big issue. Then we have to drop everything and recreate to tend to these emergencies.
14. Stop always playing catching up!!!
15. Stop operating by the amount of fires we have to put out “right now”.
16. Stop having to always have to chase/ride my boss because we never have time to meet.
17. Outsource the stuff we are not good at and eating the entrepreneurs’ time, teams’ time, creating unnecessary stress that ends in breaking promises.
If you have a team that is empowered to be honest, while respectful, with you we challenge you to ask your team this question, and listen, really listen to the commitment in their answers.
If you have a team you want to be honest, while respectful, with you about what isn’t working in your business consider enrolling them in the Don’t Be a Yes Chick tele-training series to participate in conversations such as these. Next series begins September 4th – contact info@yeschick.com to register or with questions.
By MollyandLaney
What Are Your Biggest Frustrations Working for an Entrepreneur?
Our previous blog shared part of the results of a focus group we held for support team across the country in a giant attempt to figure out where the disconnect lies between the boss and the team when trying to reach a common goal within a small business. We shared in this blog what team member’s greatest joy was in their job. Many business owners were surprised to see what really meant the most and connected to their support team.
In this blog, we are sharing with you the greatest frustration team shared. We want to share our findings with you, not to scare you, but to inspire you. We are hopeful you will hear the commitment of team with an honest, while respectful, cry for you to allow them to help you grow your business with joy and ease. Team members and bosses speak two distinctly different languages, which often leads to disconnect even though both sides want to achieve the same goal. Our hope with this blog series is to allow you an inside look into the thought process and voices of support team so you can better understand and communicate with yours.
Are you surprised when you hear what team members think? What we hope you notice is the massive about of “CARING” for the business, and your success, behind each of these frustrations. Team members who are just collecting a paycheck typically don’t care if clients are mad or things aren’t done. These team members care – intrapreneurs in an entrepreneur’s world.
What is Your Greatest Frustration Working for an Entrepreneur?
a. When I stop believing in my boss because I don’t have faith/trust that they will get it done. I would not hire my own boss as a client. And I don’t like feeling that way, it is disheartening.
b. The entrepreneur won’t just let go and trust the key people in the company. If he would I think things would run much smoother. I realize it’s his baby and hard to do that, but crucial at some point in time for the best of the business. That’s my biggest frustration.
c. The business owner won’t get out of my way. I expressed my frustrations to him in the moment and received encouragement … then all downhill from there…things go back to the same. I really am at a loss to get his attention and I really don’t think he would miss me if I left. I can’t seem to communicate that to him without sounding “entitled” or risk being told “I’m a less than stellar performer”. I say these words as a tear rolls down my cheek and I hate myself for that. Those contradicting words from how I felt 6 months ago to now haunt me on a daily basis, every time I open the door here. I am working a “job” right now because I’ve told myself I’m doing this for my family and to get my daughter through college. It’s the only thing that eases the pain. But, when she’s done with college and the BIGGEST reason is gone….. I’m afraid my heart will be more broken than usable as I look for the spark of passion every day.
d. We are known as the “Last Minute Larry’s” and now we’ve all gotten in the “HABIT” of making that the standard/norm.
e. Letting the boss hire family; when the boss hires the wife, kids, extended family, etc. and there is no accountability in the business. The team doesn’t respect them and will never say anything because they are afraid they will be out of a job. And it sucks for the spouse because they become the buffer because people will go “WHINE” to them hoping they will do something about it at home. Then the circular cycle begins.
f. Getting interrupted. I am preparing documents, answering phones and keeping the calendar and everything else. I will be in middle of drafting and the boss is always “shouting” out things to me and I lose track and mistakes happen. I don’t have 4 walls or a door around me so I am in the constant firing line and if something comes into his mind he has to interrupt me to tell me at that very moment, and everything goes downhill.
g. Lack of responsibility on entrepreneur’s part.
h. Getting my boss to focus on the top pressing cases. I present the TOP 3 Gotta’s for the day, he will agree to it but then he will go hide out in email and not do what he said he would. Then sometimes things will linger out there for 2-3 weeks and the clients will be frustrated and screaming at me. At first I was hopeful that things would happen and now I just feel blown off, disrespected and don’t ever believe that he is going to follow through. Then I have to lie and make excuses for clients. I don’t lie. It is not o.k. with me to lie.
i. False Agreement. No matter how many times we remind them that they have priorities and they agree they have absolutely no commitment to it. They are just “YESSING” us to get us out of their office but they are going to go and do what they want anyways.
j. The Hero Complex. I am so excited at the start of the week when we have our TOP things identified that we are going to knock out of the ballpark this week. Then we have a sick or emergency client. We will over care for them and over compensate to help them and drop all the other things, and everything else goes out the window. It’s a new distraction for the entrepreneur so they get to come out as a hero without any understanding of how they just wrecked the world of the assistants and other clients. Not to say we are not going to tend to our clients in need but the business owner will make it into a big social worker ordeal to do so they don’t have to “work” on the things they don’t like, They thrive in chaos and crisis.
k. Nothing is ever as easy as the entrepreneur thinks when they initially commit, and it is insulting to our intelligence. I feel like she thinks what I do and the value I bring is tasks that are simply “quick and easy”.
l. Trying to manage my schedule but I feel like I always need to go back to my boss to get stuff from them and I have to stand there until they finish it because I have no faith that he will ever complete it unless I hound and pounce, or eventually break down in tears. Then I am appearing emotionally unstable vs. committed to the business.
m. They destroy their weekly calendar which in fact destroys ours.
n. Time management with the boss. They are very unorganized and it’s very frustrating when they throw a curve ball into everyone else’s day.
o. Trying to close the loop on open items. When you are trying to pin down the business owner and I have a deadlines. I submitted the same thing four times and it keeps getting “lost” in her priorities and now I am in the red and can’t move this off my list and it looks like I am not getting MY job done. I don’t like feeling like I am not doing my job.
Are you surprised at what team members think? What we hope you noticed is the massive about of “CARING” for the business behind each of these frustrations. Team members who are just collecting a paycheck don’t care if clients are mad or things aren’t done. These team members care – and that is invaluable.
Stay tuned for the 3rd, and final, series of this blog, “If there is one thing you could change in your business, what would it be?”
If you have a team you want to be honest, while respectful, with you about what isn’t working in your business consider enrolling them in the Don’t Be a Yes Chick tele-training series to participate in conversations such as these. Next series begins September 4th – contact info@yeschick.com to register or with questions.
To read Part 1 of this series – click here.
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
Thirteen months ago we held a focus group for support team across the country in a giant attempt to figure out where the disconnect lies between the boss and the team when trying to reach a common goal within a small business.
We were just astounded at what we discovered. We want to share our findings with you, not to scare you, but to inspire you. We are hopeful you will hear the commitment of team with an honest, while respectful, cry for you to allow them to help you grow your business with joy and ease. Team members and bosses speak two distinctly different languages, which often leads to disconnect even though both sides want to achieve the same goal. Our hope with this blog series is to allow you an inside look into the thought process and voices of support team so you can better understand and communicate with yours.
The common themes of the conversation were:
• The team wants to be included in the good, bad and the uncertainty.
• It’s the inconsistent, unintentional (or lack) of communication that strangles all faith and hope, for you and for them.
• Once there is a willingness to shed the light on “what’s not working”, then and only then, can we can pave the path of possibility with discernment.
Another theme that made us so very proud to be a part of this industry was the deep, rich and eternal gratitude that each of these team members shared about how honored they were to be important enough to be included. And not one of them took this highly regarded responsibility lightly.
We’ve categorized the responses into three main categories, which we will share in a three-part blog series. The first, contained in this blog, is “What’s your great joy? What do you love most about what you do?” The second is “What are your biggest frustrations working with your entrepreneur?” and the third is “If you could change one thing about your job, what would it be?”
So, here we have it, the voice from the unofficial board room.
What’s your Great Joy? What do you love most about what you do?
a. The value of what we are doing when I explain to clients what it is that we can do for them. It is so powerful and empowering that I can have an effect on someone’s world and help them in such a big, big way.
b. When you step back and say wow, maybe I didn’t get everything I wanted done today or this week but a client just thanked me for eliminating stress in their life and taking care of things for them.
c. We all have that social worker in us and we all really just want to help people. Especially when you see things that go right, it adds fuel to that and makes you want to do it time and time again.
d. When the client at the end comes out from meeting with the boss and says “thank you.”
e. When you wake up in a.m. and you are very excited about going to work. It is such a positive thing to go to work for an entrepreneur that has this amazing ability to create things and bring you into the process. Knowing you had a part in that creation, that happens nowhere else in the world of working except with an entrepreneur.
f. As a woman “out in the world” (in business, the community and at home) people see you as a mom for so long. But when you go back into the work world with an entrepreneur and you are held in esteem, sought out, respected and looked up to for your opinion. It is a huge ego boost and very rewarding and satisfying. It provides such sense of importance and contribution, like nowhere else.
g. As women we get lost in being mother, your home life, and job but never seen as an individual. The individual always comes last until you work for an entrepreneur vs. a big corporation. That your work feeds, nurtures and cultivates your individuality.
h. The partnership of it. My boss doesn’t treat me as just another employee, he sees me as a true partner and values my opinion and even depends on it.
i. When we set a goal and we are able to take such pride when we meet that goal and realize we all had a hand in it.
j. When you see an entrepreneur depending on you to make key decisions it is very rewarding. Then you begin to look at everything with such ownership.
k. Working with someone that is so amazingly creative and that they ask you for your opinion is so very gratifying and satisfying.
l. Everyone has to work to live, but here we live to work because it is fun and we make a difference. You see and feel you make a difference by the personal connection you make with the people that hire us.
m. It is so great to belong to this community. You’re not alone. There is so much motivation in the emotions and stories the clients in this community share. It makes you want to help every family of the community.
Are you surprised at what team members think? Or does this serve as a good reminder of how to connect and communicate with your team? We hope so. In the next blog of these series, a crucial discussion comes up of what to do when you stop believing in your own boss. It’s a tough conversation, but a real eye-opener.
If you have a team you want to begin to feel this pride, ownership and value in their job, consider enrolling them in the Don’t Be a Yes Chick tele-training series to participate in conversations such as these. Next series begins May 30th – contact info@yeschick.com to register or with questions.
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
It boggles our mind how often we attend conferences and witness lifeless, ineffective exhibitor booths.
We’re not talking about not having a fancy, expensive display or a pricy give away. We’re talking about a booth with an uninterested, unengaged person staffing the booth. Knowing how expensive it can be to exhibit at an event, including the value of the time out of the office to be there, it is insane to go through the expense and effort of an exhibit booth and not effectively run it. Trust us, a cute jar of candy with your logo on it won’t do the trick…you have to engage the casual observer.
Here are some basic techniques:
- Never stand or sit behind your booth table. Not only will you go unnoticed by bystander, but if someone does stop to talk you end up yelling at them across the table so they can hear you. Literally, your face is blocked by your display and people are much more likely to stop when you make eye contact which is difficult to do from behind the table.
- Never ask “How are you today?” Aside from being a bland question, it doesn’t engage the person. Most will answer “fine” and then you are stuck restarting the conversation. The few who do give you a detailed answer are typically worthless conversations of how they were stuck in traffic, spilt their coffee or got a parking ticket…all of which is irrelevant to the purpose of you being there. If your company is presenting at any event, ask “Did you enjoy our presentation at 9am today?” Or “Do you plan on attending the cocktail reception this evening? Everyone is looking forward to it!” Both of these prompt relevant response such as “I did enjoy it and I had a question.” Or “What reception? I never received an invite” Aha, an opportunity to explain what you do. If your company is not presenting, ask “How are you enjoying the presentations” or “How are you enjoying the exhibits here?” “Which is your favorite?” “What did you learn?” If you are at an event the presentations and other exhibitors are related to your industry and this opens up the opportunity to begin a relevant conversation.
- Know your call to action. And have ONE. Too often at an event we overwhelm attendees with too many calls to action or we offer none at all. We may offer the chance to buy something, sign up for an event, make an appointment or sign up for our newsletter. Too much! Have ONE call to action you focus on. And a back up if they decline. For example, your call to action can be to make a complimentary appointment. If they decline or hesitate, offer to send an invitation to your workshop on the topic. But don’t initially offer both. Offer your most effective offering, and then have a back up.
- Get people’s contact information. We’d go so far as to say that your SOLE goal is to get people’s contact information. For example, don’t just giveaway DVDs. Take one as a sample and collect information to mail out a DVD or email a video link. This allows you to follow up with the attendees.
- Keep your boss AWAY from the booth. If you have your boss at the booth, you are giving away the goods! Prospects will pick your boss’ brain rather than scheduling the appointment with them. It’s easy for team members to answer questions that need to be answered and defer questions that someone should HIRE you before you answer. It’s difficult for the boss to do this without coming across standoffish.
- Mingle. The other vendors are opportunities for you to create power partners with people in your industry. Often events we find weak on attendees are some of my most productive in the potential power partners we meet that turn into referral relationships and speaking opportunities. You can send your boss to mingle rather than having them at the booth (see #5).
- Doughnuts. We promise if you are allowed to take food nothing works better to draw a crowd than fresh baked doughnuts. The smell permeates the room and people come.
Hopefully this provides you some basics to running an effective exhibitor booth.
Promos and giveaways are great – but if no one can find your booth attendant because they are sitting behind the booth texting all the gimmicks in the world aren’t worth a hill of beans!
By MollyandLaney
Don’t you detest when that happens?! You go through the hassle of hiring a new person…reviewing an overwhelming pile of resumes, conducting interviews, half of which are worthless, and finally make a decision. THEN you spend time training them and just when you are starting to get your new employee to a point they can start freeing you up… they quit!
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
So why does this happen? We’d bet our bottom dollar that your employee shared some rendition of “It simply isn’t a good fit” or “I’m feeling like this job is more than I anticipated and I’m finding I am unqualified” or our personal favorite “My X (kids, dog, commute, etc.) is in need of more of my time and attention.” So…why does this REALLY happen?
One of our favorite stories about working in a small business is the Hiring of Holly. We hired Holly as the key assistant to our entrepreneur. We decided it would be a great idea to have her start the week he was on vacation. That allowed us a week to get her trained on our client management system and such before starting to actually support our entrepreneur.
At the end of the week we were thrilled – we had found “the one”! Holly was doing fantastic; catching on very quickly with a great attitude to boot! Then Monday came around and we began training Holly to support our entrepreneur. Tuesday she quit. Holly was also rare in her honesty, and told us, “I loved working here until he came back from vacation. He is nice, but I can’t work with him. I have no idea what he is saying or what he wants and I just can’t keep up. This isn’t a good fit.” THIS is what all your great employees that quit right away want to say, but don’t.
Luckily, Holly was honest and we were able to stop and restart her experience in training and working for us. We spent time going over the two key concepts that can support a team member in their immersion into a small business AND keep them from quitting!
Concept One: Kolbe
Everyone who has heard of Kolbe loves Kolbe. It’s fun and helpful to read about your Kolbe and see how you operate. The opportunity most people miss is to use Kolbe as an invaluable tool to help team members, new and old, understand where there point of overwhelm and shut down is and how it leads to missed expectations and miscommunication. In other words, you can have a conversation about how a quick start operates and how a fact finder can handle it. Ninety-nine percent of the time an office communication problem or stress is due to lack of awareness in Kolbe.
Concept Two: The Gap® (The Strategic Coach® concept)
The second concept that can dramatically reduce the possibility of your great new employee walking out the door is having a proactive conversation about The Gap®. This is concept by The Strategic Coach® that does a wonderful job explaining how we get stressed out and discouraged, or stuck in the Gap, between where we are and where we want to be. For a new employee to understand it is a natural part of the process to be overwhelmed and discouraged by the place they are starting (new and untrained) and how far they need to go (to have ESP and read your mind determining your every need) is a huge step in helping them get though the immersion process. There are also specific strategies you can implement to help a new employee work through the Gap in a less overwhelming way. One of these is having a specific training plan with target dates for each task or concept being learned. This lets a team member know where they should be and if they are on track. If they don’t have this, it is completely overwhelming for them because they feel they have to learn everything, now!
We feel these two concepts are crucial. When we support entrepreneurs in hiring a new employee through our Smart Hire™ Process we include a companywide call to review each team member’s and the entrepreneur’s Kolbe, what it means to each person and each role, and how to watch out for potential pitfalls.
If you are tired of going through the time, effort and cost of hiring only to have your new employee quit, implement one of these strategies to support your new team member in their training process.
What other methods do you use to support your new team members?
