25 Jan
Productivity, Team Management

How To Manage Your Team Remotely?

Right now, “working from home” or remote working has become more of a necessity than a trend. It is an emerging necessity for most companies across the globe. Due to this, several team leaders or managers have to manage a complete team remotely.

This work setup could be turn out to be a slightly challenging task –especially if you are not preparing for the same.

Allison Todd, Operations & Digital Growth Strategist and Founder of SiMar OR Allison Todd and Team SiMar – explains the importance of working from home and how business organizations can manage the respective teams remotely effectively. 

Managing Your Team Remotely.

If you wish to run your business seamlessly while being on the “work from home” mark, here are some useful tips by the experts:

Ensure Daily Check-in

Whenever it is possible, you should organize the face-to-face, one-on-one video conferencing with the respective teammates. You should see your entire team.

The good news is that the advent of high-end video conferencing tools has made it relatively easy to ensure checking in daily with your teammates. This strategy’s primary purpose is to set the daily plan while providing the necessary resources or feedback required by your team members.

Ensure Maximum Communication

There is no denying that whether you are working in-house or remotely, ensuring ongoing communication with the team members is of utmost importance.

One of the most challenging aspects of working from home –especially if you are immensely used to working in a typical office environment, is the feeling of loneliness or isolation that might creep in.

To add it all, it increases your woes in modern times when individuals out there are practicing social distancing. In this situation, continuous communication with the team members would help them feel connected and motivated.

Make Maximum Use of Technology

When you are the team manager or leader, it is your responsibility to ensure that the entire team is well connected. Several high-end communication tools serve to be a simple way of ensuring that everyone in your team is engaged.

While messages and emails might appear to be a short-term solution. Advanced tools like Microsoft Teams or Slack for improved collaboration and communication. To top it all, most of these interactive collaboration tools are available for free now.

Emphasize Outcomes, Not Activities

When working with a remote team, it is impossible to manage each aspect of the work completed. Moreover, you should not control every part of your remote team –especially when the team is spread across multiple locations.

As such, rather than focusing on the hour’s works or activities completed, you should aim at focusing on the outcomes while measuring your team accordingly.

Conclusion

Ensure that you are working efficiently while managing a remote team. Remote working has become the essence of the hour. Therefore, you should make the most of it.

20- Minute Discovery Call

The discovery call is the most important call in our relationship. It sets the tone for our connection and allows us to better understand one another. Plus, you get a business challenge addressed with actionable steps toward solutions. The phone call is making a comeback! Let’s connect?

How To Manage Your Team Remotely?

Are You a Terrible Boss? These Four Subtle Signs Will Show You
11 Dec
Productivity, Start Your Business

How Bad Managers Prepared Me for Entrepreneurship

Bad managers prepared me for entrepreneurship in many ways.  I think back to the beginning when my first managers. I was in awe. I thought they were geniuses. And as I grew, I learned they were humans, not superheroes. And then my managers became more like my teachers. There were some good and some bad. There were some that taught me a lot and some that I never quite understood. With each opportunity, I learned something new. My past managers taught me a lot about what type of leader I wanted to be.

I learned both what type of leader I wanted to be and the traits I knew I didnt want. I can best remember the managers who were great teachers. They modeled good leadership behavior, encouraged curiosity and innovation, and by all means, they understood that micromanagement was an unwelcomed characteristic. This is definitely how I started compiling my recipe of the traits of a good manager. And then, I started my business and became a teacher for others.

Managers as Teachers

I figured early in life that human beings have a natural curiosity for learning and new things. It’s how you present those things that lead to the curiousness of learning. It is no secret that passion leads, not power. In school, the best teachers had a passion for their work with affection for their students. In managers, that is translated into compassion, patience, and inspiration. All of these traits create an opportunity for development and learning. For me, I can appreciate a manager who is understanding of you as a person and your knowledge and skills. After all, employees should be encouraged to grow whatever their job description. But this isn’t always the case.

The best teachers were consistent in sharing important facts, transparent in communication, and laid out “what’s next”. They reinforced the things we did right and worked with us on the things that needed improvement. No one is perfect, in school or business. A good manager teaches you what you need to do to complete your job best.

However, a bad manager is more focused on getting the job done than the development of his team members. That type of manager is more of a task director than a teacher. Unfortunately, this results in high team turnover. Developing the right team has far more benefits than continuously onboarding new team members. That’s why a good manager doesn’t mind going the extra mile to make sure their team has what they need. They also make learning interesting in spite of the task. Thus team members are more committed to learning their subject matter.

How Bad Managers Prepared Me for Entrepreneurship

Don’t be a Bad Manager

Nobody wants to learn from a bad manager. Admittingly, it’s a challenge to do so. And if your team members can not do their jobs, it reflects poorly on management. Have you ever noticed the difference between a manager who is forced to train you vs a manager who enjoys training you? I have! You either get all of the information you need to do the job or spend all of your time trying to gather what I need to do the job. The latter doesn’t make anyone happy.

It’s fairly easy to spot the difference between the two types of managers. One is committed to understanding the business goals and the team goals. The other type of manager is task-focused and primarily transactional. They often leave their team members feeling like they are something to check off of the to-do list. Undoubtedly, developing a dedicated team has far more benefits than continuously onboarding new team members.

How to Be a Good Manager

It may sound cliche but it reigns true. Empower your team to be the best they can be. You want your team to grow out of their positions rather than resign. A team member who understands the business, the goals and the consumer is a commodity. The management style includes creating a connected workplace culture in which all members can thrive.

This leads to your team communicating with you and others, with ease. Team members are eager to contribute and have a good attitude about their job. They are motivated to produce. They take ownership of their work. And they are willing to help other team members as well. All of these attributes are a result of the leadership you model. The business, in turn, grows and scales.

The Entrepreneurial Lessons Learned

Can you tell which traits I learned from a bad manager? I hope those would be the things I do best. It’s odd but learning about micromanagement prepared me for entrepreneurship. As the team member, I was forced to keep a well-detailed list of the work I was doing and the results. I had to be prepared to answer questions at all times. And it taught me to automate as much as possible. You don’t have to hoover your team members to know what’s happening in your business. Plus the time commitment to micromanagement is a time-waster.

But that’s not all I learned. First of all, as a small business, you can not afford to continuously train new employees. It’s costly and non productive. You end up spending more time working in the business than on the business. As a result, you can not position your business for profit. If you can even make a profit at all.

Secondly, all of my team members complete an extensive onboarding experience. If there is a mismatch, it’s often revealed during this time. We use all of our communication tools – email, video, manuals, templates. This provides an opportunity for continuous learning. It also motivates the team member to learn more about their job responsibilities.

Lastly, the team is often recognized for their effort and commitment. It’s not easy working for a business owner who is also a coach. Of course, I am going to motivate them to stretch their knowledge and skills. The key is a fine balance of teaching, understanding and information share.

To be the best teacher, be ok with being honest and direct. Your team will appreciate you for it. Remove the ambiguity and get to work. Everyone makes mistakes. Those mistakes only have value if you learn from them. Having this understanding creates an environment where employees feel understood and valued. Rest assured there are business challenges. However, those challenges are addressed with solutions and reasoning.

Conclusion

I learned every lesson, good or bad, is instrumental in the entrepreneurs’ world. It is your job as an entrepreneur to open your eyes to learning and opportunity and take them to heart. Becoming a good leader is a continuous process of learning and fine-tuning. It is as much science as art.

Entrepreneurship is hard but you don’t have to do it alone. Position 2 Profit Membership is for an online business community of leaders who want to position their business for profit. Business evolves at a different level when profit begins and how does your business grow from there? The group is led by Allison Todd, Operations & Digital Growth Strategist. Our members are committed to building a network of referrals, resources, and accountability. 

Position 2 Profit Membership

how to determine prices for services
07 Dec
Entrepreneurship, Productivity

How to Determine Prices for Business Services

Coming up with a business idea is only half the battle. Determining a price for your services is another huge part. As a business owner, you need to specify a price for your benefits before you can start offering them to potential customers, and if you can’t provide your services, you can’t make any money. So setting the right price is one of the crucial first steps in setting up your business.

If you were giving away your services for less than cost or just breaking even, you’d be operating a non-profit venture – or a business that’s likely to fail. There are various components that factor into whether or not a business is profitable, including location, leadership, market demand, competition, and so on.

Many service-based businesses struggle to come up with a fair and profitable pricing strategy. Unlike product pricing, you can’t precisely quantify all the costs that go into providing a service. 

The expenses that go into providing a service are more subjective than those that go into making a product. How much you charge customers doesn’t always directly correlate with the amount you pay to perform services. If you own a retail store, you buy goods at a specific price. 

To earn a profit, you need to sell the goods for more than what you paid. You determine how to price a product according to its cost. In service industries, finding a target profit margin is not as simple. You don’t have an original price to reference. Instead, your pricing formula for services should account for the intangible aspects of running your business, such as time and value.

Factors to Consider For Pricing

In short, pricing services is a tricky business. Because there is no set-in-stone method for pricing services, you have some flexibility in setting your price, but there isn’t a guaranteed formula that will enable you to set your price.

Here are the factors that experts say you should consider when trying to determine what price to charge for a service:

1.       Cost-plus pricing

This standard method of pricing in business seeks to determine the cost of making a product or, in this case, providing a service, and then add an amount to represent the desired profit. 

To determine the cost, you need to figure out direct costs, indirect costs, and fixed costs. Those costs include a portion of your rent, utilities, administrative fees, and other general overhead costs. When you make a deal to sell a service, you have to cover all your expenses.

2.       Competitors’ pricing

You need to be aware of what competitors are charging for similar services in the marketplace, Osteryoung says. This information could come from competitor websites, phone calls, talking to friends, and associates who have used a competitor’s services, published data, etc. 

If you have to compete on price to win a customer, you may ask yourself whether they will be loyal to you if they find someone offering a service at a lower price. 

To be relevant in the market, you need to convince potential customers that you are giving them tremendous value in terms of use and quality. To do that, you must be aware of what the competition is charging.

3.       Perceived value to the customer

This is where a lot of the subjectivity comes in when setting a service price. The critical factor in determining how much they are willing to pay for a service may not be how much time you spent providing the service to your customer. Still, ultimately what the perceived value of that service and your expertise is to them, Osteryoung says. That is where pricing becomes more of an art form.

How to Price Business Services

Guidelines For Setting Pricing For Your Services

Calculate your costs

Before you set a price for the services your company will provide, you need to understand your costs of providing these services to customers. The U.S. Small Business Administration advises that the cost of producing any use consists of the following three parts:

1.       Materials cost: These are the costs of goods you use in providing the service.

2.       Labor cost: This is the cost of direct labor you hire to provide a service.

3.       Overhead costs: These are the indirect costs to your business in providing services to customers. Examples include labor for other people who run the firm, whether administrative assistants or human resources personnel. 

Other overhead costs include your monthly rent, taxes, insurance, depreciation, advertising, office supplies, utilities, mileage, etc. The SBA suggests that a reasonable amount of these overhead costs should be billed to each service performed, whether at an hourly rate or a percentage.

Determine a fair profit margin.

Once you determine your costs, you need to mark up your services to ensure that you achieve your business profit; This is a delicate balance. You want to ensure that you complete a desirable profit margin. Still, at the same time, particularly in a down economy, you want to make sure that your business doesn’t get a reputation for overcharging for services.

Pricing Models.

Now that you understand what it costs you to provide a service, what your competitors are charging, and how customers perceive your services’ value, it’s time to figure out whether to charge an hourly rate; a per-project rate, try to negotiate a retainer for your assistance. This may be predetermined by your industry and the type of service pricing that predominates in your sector. 

For example, lawyers tend to charge hourly rates for their services, although those rates can vary. Many construction firms charge a project fee and require that one third be paid upfront, another third be paid at the half-way point, and the remaining third be paid upon completion.

1.       Charging at an hourly rate.

2.       Charging a flat fee.

3.       Variable pricing: Involves taking advantage of the flexibility afforded by service pricing to negotiate different prices to varying customers.

Conclusion

In a service business, your highest costs are usually your people’s costs — salaries, benefits, etc. If you are having a hard time selling services at an acceptable profit, the problem may be that your employee costs are too high rather than the price is too low. 

You may also want to re-evaluate your overhead costs to determine whether there are other cuts you can make to bring your price down and your profit margin up. Keep track of the profitability of your company every month. Always be testing new prices, new offers, and new combinations of benefits and premiums to help you sell more of your services at a better and better price. If you never raise your expenses, you won’t be in business for long. 

You have to continually monitor your worth and your costs to be competitive in the market and make the kind of money you deserve to complete in your business.

Position to Profit Membership

scaling your business
23 Nov
Entrepreneurship, Grow Your Business, Productivity

Scale and Grow Your Business with Allison Todd

Scale and grow your business with Allison Todd because building business is not easy. So, don’t do it all by yourself. To make the most of your business, you must consider every detail. Every stage of business has its own set of challenges. And the art of balancing the time and money investment to ensure a profitable outcome isn’t easy. Thus it requires commitment and consistency to see your plan to goal.

The difficulty of starting a business is nothing compared to the tasks of scaling a business. One of the many wows of business includes that first time you make a profit. It is the subtle reassurance that you are on the right path. But, the real hurdle is doing that over and over again. Adding resources to business, consistently while adding revenue. This is what it is to scale your business.

Ideas are the foundation of business. And business are built on plans, reliant on execution. Plan BIG. Those plans include streamlining systems and automating processes, selecting the right team, understanding data and measurements of success and more. How you plan your profitability is just the beginning.

Irrespective of your market, from small to big business, a significant determinant of your business success is the scalability. It means you are managing all aspects of your business and making a profit, as you grow. It’s a fine balancing act of every piece of your business.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it’s the planning, productivity, position, people and profits. This is what the scale to profit package offers. It is more than just a successful marketing plan, it’s your whole business.

Coach Allison Todd and her team will help position your business for profit. They provide an actionable plan for business growth. The scale-to-profit package helps to turn your small idea into a profit-generating business.

marketing strategy to increase sales
20 Nov
Digital Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Grow Your Business, Productivity

Improve Business Sales with Better Relationships

Advanced Sales and Marketing Services

Improve your business sales by attracting and developing better relationships. For instance, you must have a plan that cultivates your business value. Our sales and marketing model positions your business for profit. In other words, it helps you be less transactional and more relational. With the right customer service approach, you make a direct impact on your bottom line. Is your business ready to grow?

A well designed plan leads your customer to you, over and over again. Therefore, the goal is to focus on your current clients while attracting new ones to improve business sales. The strategy guides your customer acquisition process. Your unique selling proposition to demonstrate your business model and cultivate value.

Sales Consulting, Design and Planning

The key to customer acquisition goes beyond reduced costs. Take our sales journey and develop the road map to better business. The right model improves visibility, increases awareness, and reveals why your business stands out among your competitors. But don’t leave your competitors out of the process. It’s important to keep an eye on your industry and learn as you grow.

Above all, the best marketing plan includes word of mouth advertising to improve business sales. As a result, boost your sales by attracting your prospect. It’s important to gain an understanding of your market analysis, target audience, purchase path and buyer’s map. We are dedicated to working with business leaders who develop a brand story they are eager to share.

Our sales strategies include tactics and methods to acquire new customers and build a strong relationship. Allison Todd and team SiMar help you build the perfect sales and marketing model. For more information about our sales business expertise. Improve your business demand, contact us today!

19 Nov
Grow Your Business, Productivity, Team Management

4 Sales Training Strategies To Build A Powerful Team

Effective sales strategies starts with clear and outlined processes and ends with the right team member. What sales strategies are you using to build your sales team? After all, the sales team determines business growth and stability. They are the people in charge of building good relationships with your customers. You can’t close the sale until you first build trust. Often trust equates to the customer being confident you know what you’re talking about, thus what you are selling. As a result, your sales team is essential to business success.

The most practical way to build a powerful sales team is with consistent and ongoing training. Your training strategies should motivate nurturing relationships while advancing sales. The content of the training should enhance the sales experience, address challenges, increase team performance and create a thriving workplace culture. In addition, your sales team members should have foundational learning and be open to adopt new sales techniques.

As a result, the team will be equipped to drive sales and contribute to business growth. These four sales training strategies will help build a powerful sales team.

Sales Training Strategies

Four Sales Training Strategies To Building A Powerful Sales Team

1. Practice Contributes to Perfection

Practicing your sales techniques is a great way to improve the business experience. The first and most important sales training strategy is practice. This includes role playing, shadowing, self-assessment and more. This also allows the business owner to best understand their teams’ assets. The opportunity for self-assessment, question and answer and collaborative conversations are all aids to the team member. This allows your team member to stay present and up to date in their expertise.

2. Train In the Field

The knowledge acquired from sales training is golden. And applying that knowledge in the field, also known as real world experiences, is critical to team development. Much of what you learn as a salesperson focuses on your ability to listen, problem solve and offer solutions to your customer. As such, a consistent customer service approach, will prevent you from responding to emotion vs rational. Therefore, real world experiences strengthen professional expertise. Teaming up a new sales member with an experienced sales member is an avenue to creating additional techniques. Each party can shadow the other, collaborate to develop new ideas, discuss techniques and troubleshoot challenges. Other real time experiences include business meetings, conferences, call reviews and customer reviews all provide real time practice and feedback.

3. Motivate Your Team Through Success Stories

Be okay with showing the team what works and what doesn’t. With transparency and constructive criticism, you provide your team member as much value as training. It’s also helpful to provide reasoning with action.  Apart from teaching sales theories, sharing success stories can inspire and motivate your team. Let your team hear other experiences and the different methods others use to overcome challenges. These strategies should be broken into digestible lessons reps can implement. Allow the team to analyze business process and expose them to strategies behind every successful sale.

4. Collaborations With Thought Leaders

These are valuable lessons transmitted from years of industry experience. And there is a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Leaders in your industry and in your business should be invited to discuss and share their sales experience. Oftentimes, you can learn as much from an expert as you can in a training class. Your team members can discuss and review the shared lessons with people who have an in depth understanding of their goals. Thus meaningful patterns of information provide the team member and the business owner value.

Conclusion

If you are getting the sales training right, then your sales team is responding with more sales. Don’t be afraid to adopt a “think out loud” method in your meetings. And recognize that your sales teams are constantly evolving. Insight, information and discussion are invaluable. Invest in your sales department, empower your employees, and give them access to the best sales training technique and resources.As a result, your business and the team will grow.

Teach Them to Sell

This e-book helps you identify the reasons your team isn’t performing as well as they should be. It offers tried and tested sales strategies to help you build the most productive and profitable team.

Four Sales Training Strategies To Building A Powerful Sales Team

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21 Oct
Grow Your Business, Productivity

How to Position Your Business for Survival During the Pandemic.

The Coronavirus has hit the economy of the world hard, knocking a lot of businesses out totally. Large and small companies alike have felt the effect of the pandemic. With the world in a state of uncertainty and flux, making plans and projections for your business can be quite tricky. Now more than ever, the flexibility and dexterity of small and medium scale businesses is an advantage.

Leveraging this advantage is crucial to your survival in your industry. After the dust settles, a lot of business would be long gone, and only a few would survive. While this is a genuinely sad affair, it also translates to tremendous opportunities for the companies that manage to survive.
After a recession, there is a boom.

With both the demand and supply sides of the market shrinking to survive, the world’s economy is receding. However, a boom is coming, and your actions now would determine if you would miss it or ride it to success and growth.

How to position your business

Here are a few tips on keeping your business alive and in position for the incoming boom.

1. Go digital.

This is quickly becoming an obvious necessity. The need to reduce human contact to the barest minimum has shot up on the list of priorities of all serious-minded entrepreneurs.

Utilizing online and digital resources as much as possible now has the added advantage of keeping your staff and customers safe. Customers feel safer working with brands that they know are conscious of health and safety recommendations.

Right now, the best way to show your customers that you care is by reducing physical contact with them and looking out for their safety.

2. Digital Marketing

In a bid to reduce physical contact and keep your customers safe, you might end up alienating them. Looking out for your customer’s health and following all guidelines can keep your old customers and even attract new customers. Clients are bound to leave brands and firms that seem nonchalant about the risks of the pandemic.

However, maintaining a deep and individualized connection with your customers is still very important. Going digital isn’t an excuse to give your customers mechanized or robotic customer service.

Customer care and customer experience must always be at the forefront of all your customer relations activity.

This is where digital marketing comes in. Your marketing team must create quality and relatable content that would attract new customers and keep your old customers connected to your brand.

3. Keep your Staff Flexible.

Clearly, with a change in the business world, there would be a change in the workload. While some departments would be basically jobless, some departments would be overworked.

For example, your production department might be overstaffed right now as demand is significantly reduced. Meanwhile, your marketing team is struggling to keep up with the task of creating content and staying in touch with customers.

As entrepreneurs, keeping a flexible onboarded team is our watchword. Keep your team up to date with the firm’s current state and let them come up with ideas on how they can serve the firm better.

Do not shy away from encouraging your teammates to utilize their hidden talent for the business’s success. It is high time that the employee with excellent people’s skills leaves the production floor to handle the numerous messages from prospective clients.

4. Be Flexible and Informed.

There is a lot of information flying around. This adds more to panic and uncertainty. However, as entrepreneurs, we must keep our eyes and ears open for the latest and verified information in our market and industry. Large chunks of Data are available for your analysis.

Find reliable sources and utilize them. Notice the trends going on in the market and react accordingly. What are your customers asking for and what are your competitors doing right or wrong.

The goal of a business is to meet a need. With the pandemic changing the world, the needs of consumers are changing. Your ability to adjust to meet those needs would go a long way in determining your business’s survival and subsequent growth.

Get informed, analyze, and take action.

Conclusion

The pandemic is bound to leave some lasting effects on the business world. The way we transact and socialize is bound to change forever. During this transition phase, your ability to make timely and necessary adjustments to your business strategy would help secure your success in the business world. As an entrepreneur, you must be ready and willing to try new things. Be bold and flexible, and you would ride the coming boom to greatness.

19 Oct
Productivity, Team Management

Transforming Feelings Into Energy: Emotional Intelligence & Leadership

Emotions are like energy. They can’t be destroyed only transformed. Attempts at killing an emotion or burying a strong feeling always lead to disaster.

If you are dissatisfied with a member of your team’s productivity or actions. The best course of action is to have a private discussion with him or her.

Sometimes we avoid the difficult task of saying the painful truths to our workers to maintain peace. However, this is bound to cause huge problems.

When you are angered or saddened by someone’s actions, your emotions are bound to leak out no matter how much you try to hide it.

A dull feeling of anger or disappointment can grow and fester into animosity and acrimony until it explodes into a flaming disaster.

How to Deal with emotions

The best way to deal with emotions in your business is to identify them, address them, and transform them accordingly. With a high level of emotional intelligence, you would find yourself doing this with ease and flawlessly.

Done effectively, feelings of dissatisfaction and disappointment would be addressed and transformed into useful energy and vibes that would push your team and company forward.

A large part of this team-wise involves conflict resolution and keeping the team in sync and harmony.

However, it is essential to note that before you can lead your team emotionally. You must be able to control your feelings intelligently. As a leader, you must be a force of direction and order, not an agent of further chaos.

You must be competent at processing and handling your personal feelings as an individual. Before processing and fixing the emotional problems of your team.

This is most important when you are a party in the conflict. It would require even greater will and intelligence to keep your emotions in check as you play the role of mediator and second party simultaneously.

Conclusion

Your level of emotional intelligence determines how much you can control and process your emotional state. This reflects on your team and determines the general vibe and energy flowing within the workspace. As a leader you aren’t just leading your team’s productivity you are also leading the emotional ambiance of your team.

If you need more help in growing your business, check out this amazing guide:

The Confidence to Be the Brand

Transforming Feelings Into Energy: Emotional Intelligence & Leadership


types of perfect leadership styles
08 Mar
Grow Your Business, Grow Your Expertise, Productivity

The Perfect Leader

About the perfect leader, there is no perfect leader. Perfect meaning without fault of defect as per Merriam and Webster. Leadership is not about perfection.  It’s about the entire experience including communication, results, relationships and more.  Even still, there are certain instances when your own actions get in your way. As such, its important to be aware of the barriers to your almost perfect leadership.  These are the things weighing down you and your success.

What are your growth barriers and how can we fix them? Before moving your business forward, take an audit of your leadership style and its effectiveness. Identify outdated business processes, things that no longer align, inconsistent efforts, work processes full of waste…. anything that defeats creativity and pauses productivity.

Barriers to Leadership Growth

The EGO

Being the leader in charge does not mean you are the only one with the capacity to lead. It is your job to enable your team to work to the best of their capabilities with confidence they will achieve results. Make your leadership transferable and repeatable. At best, let it be modeled by everyone in the company to help nurture a culture of accountability.  It is not about you but rather the effect you have on others.  Do they model your methods and/or leadership? Do they work hard at developing their own leadership style?

Change-phobic.

When an aversion to change shows up in leadership it can be a growth barrier.  This type of leader hates changes even if it means more sound results. However, an almost perfect leader requires constant change. Today’s businesses are caught up in a highly dynamic digital structure brought by technology and the Internet. Having an open mindset will allow a high degree of creativity and technological advance to sustain your business.

Fixed Methodology.

The idea of sameness is, indeed, effective as it upholds certain company standards and policies. However, it curtails innovation and flexibility. It allows no room for mistakes and often, puts a lot of creative thinkers in a tightly locked box. Innovation and creativity is the essence of great leadership. To be most effective, it’s essential to consistently discover ways to improve your business practices. The more your process evolves with the changing time, the more productive your results.

Risk Averse.

Many leaders delve into cost-cutting and risk management leading to opportunities lost. Instead of concentrating on the “risks” and “costs”, it is more important to shift concentration on how much ROI. Don’t get me wrong, you can’t spend without caution.  But your focus should be on what you will accomplish with said dollars you spend. This gives more leeway to stretch your team capabilities.

So, which habit do you continue to manifest today? Share your thoughts with me by writing to [email protected]. I’d love to hear from you.

02 Feb
Grow Your Business, Productivity

Effective Business Conversation and Confidence Boosters

One of the most important aspects of growth is communication. Learning effective business conversation and confidence boosters is more than good grammar. It’s how you carry yourself in a conversation and the way you conduct the conversation with clients, customers and peers. Effective communication has endless business value. So, here are a couple things you can do to improve your business conversation:

  1. Don’t just listen, pay attention. When in a conversation, be attentive to what’s being said and respond accordingly. Be an authentic, sincere and emphatic listener. To confirm what you have heard, use confirming sentences like “what I hear you saying”.
  2. Practice a collaborative mindset. Unless it’s a presentation, try not to be the only one talking or providing context. Of course, no one is perfect.  There will be times that you get lost in the moment.  That’s when the conversation monologues begin. Pause and ask for feedback—and don’t waste words by beating around the bush. Simplify what you’re saying and, most importantly, don’t monopolize the conversation.
  3. Streamline communication with digital tools. Some people rely only on their emails and smartphones to communicate. Others make good use of social media messenger services to serve the purpose. There is also Skype and other video messaging services that allow you to digitally converse. Though personal conversation is the key using the appropriate communication tools enhance connectivity.
  4. When there’s a need to talk about sensitive issues, do it asap. When making decision, resolving conflicts, addressing complaints and other negative aspect of business – the sooner you talk about it, the better. Prolonging the conversation is a recipe for disaster. And, prevent communication breakdown by sharing all the information.
  5. Be attentive to the other person’s quirkiness. In business, you will meet an assortment of personalities. And even without personality differences, everyone shares differently. Be attentive to the details and try to do a little research before the conversation. These efforts will allow you to better grasp the situation. As a result, you will have a more enjoyable conversation.
  6. Inject humor to your discussion. Laughter is the best medicine. Many communication experts are known for their suave ways of injecting humor to every conversation. They make others laugh and, in the process, create a personable ease to the conversation.
  7. Go the extra mile. Small talk is essential when building excellent conversational skills. However, ditch the weather facts and be more intentional with your talks. Work on discovering interesting topics to discuss. Listen to podcasts or stream information applicable to your conversations. As a result, increasing your business intelligence opens new perspectives for you and your business.

In short, your winning attitude is an important aspect in learning effective business conversation. Be open-minded and flexible. The results are worth the investment in learning. So, are you are ready to grow your conversational skills and learn the secret to great conversational skills? Schedule your discovery call, today.

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