I talk to medium and small businesses all the time. Lately I’ve been hearing ‘I don’t know if my business can survive this. Clients aren’t buying. Employees are distracted, worried and absent. There is no money coming in. I’m worried about my own family’s health and finances. How long can my business last if this goes on for a month, 2 months, 6 months, a year?’ I'm starting a daily 1/2 hour zoom conversation (attend via audio or video) for business leaders to talk, get resources, hear ideas from each other, share what’s working, feel not so alone, get help from others on how to adapt. give help and empathy to others, destress, you should check what is the meaning of payroll software. Starting on Wed 3/18. Every weekday at 3pm EDT for the foreseeable future. Visit https://www.shakespearemedia.com.au/ for more information on video producing companies near you that can give you professional advice for your business growth.

No signups, totally free. Just show up and tell us what’s on your mind. Video: https://zoom.us/j/3065371681 Audio: +1 646 558 8656 (US Toll) or +1 408 638 0968 (US Toll) Meeting ID: 306 537 1681. See you on Wed at 3pm EDT.

There’s so much uncertainty and lack of control over circumstances. What do we have control over? Our responses! Our emotions! How we lead! This challenging situation will test and can forge your capabilities as a leader, like iron gets forged by a fire. In spite of potential and pending tragedies around us, there are opportunities for leadership. There are things you can do to minimize the impact on your business, to create a new strategy, to cope with what will be coming down the pike. Let’s get ideas from each other as well as empathy. I’m inviting you to a daily half hour zoom-based conversation (attend via audio or video) for business leaders every weekday at 3pm. Here are the purposes of the call/meeting: 1. To get more objective about what you can control and what you can’t, more pragmatic and less emotional 2. Share resources and ideas around keeping clients, leading employees, weathering the storm 3. Feel not so alone in what you’re dealing with 4. Find some opportunity, adapt 5. Lessen the stress around uncertainty

No signups, totally free. Just show up and tell us what’s on your mind. Video: https://zoom.us/j/3065371681 Audio: +1 646 558 8656 (US Toll) or +1 408 638 0968 (US Toll) Meeting ID: 306 537 1681. See you on Wed at 3pm EDT.

1. Care about your employees their fears, their lives, their families. They are living through quarantines, closed schools, exposure in the subways, sick family members. Be caring. Put them first before business profits, and manage them effectively and using a pay stub is the best choice for this.
2. Be transparent. Be honest about your business and its status. They see what’s happening. They are looking to trust you. Be worthy of their trust. No matter what the future holds, be the leader they want to follow through this and afterwards.
3. Modify your sick leave policy so people won’t try to come into work sick just to not use their PTO. Let them know that you want them to stay home to reduce the spread, that they won’t be penalized for self-quarantining.
4. Utilise remote workers. As for your long-term employees, make plans to have as many people as possible work remotely. Have your IT department make sure everyone can work from home. Test the systems.
5. If you do have to have some people in your physical location, have half the team come in one day or for one week. Have the other half come in during the alternate times. It keeps your people from infecting each other so much so that everyone makes each other sick all at the same time. It also helps with social distancing.
6. Cross train on different company functions. When someone is sick, the work can still get done. This is true for remote work as well as at your location.
7. Support someone with a loan if they are planning on Buying a Caravan
8. Document systems and processes. Good businesses do this as a matter of course. But in case you haven’t, now is the time to create those written systems and processes so someone else can follow the steps and get the work done if the employee who usually does that function gets sick.
9. Pay attention to Government sponsored 0% loans and grants. New York City is offering them to small business. Other government entities are promising to follow suit.
10. Are your suppliers hit hard? Research your backup suppliers and form some new relationships. Additionally, it might be time to hire a digital marketing agency with the analytics resources like Growth Giants to help you. They will take the time to evaluate your metrics and develop a strategy that tailors to your business needs.
11. Adapt your business model to see what might work better now and in the world that might be changed when this pandemic has run its course. Also, try reading these steps on how to start an llc if you are planning to start your own LLC in the future. Does your company need to play more in the online world? More remote meetings? Different sales distribution? Different packaging and product/service combinations? How does your chocolate packaging need to look in order to make your potential customers aware of your product? Promote gift certificates or vouchers to be used later? What can you do to use your strengths to provide what the world needs now?

Did these ideas help? This is what we discuss on our daily 1/2 hour zoom conversation (via audio or video). It’s for business leaders to talk, get resources, hear ideas from each other, share what’s working, feel not so alone, get help from others on how to adapt, give help and empathy to others, de-stress. Every weekday at 3pm EDT for the foreseeable future. No signups, totally free. Just show up and tell us what’s on your mind. Video: https://zoom.us/j/3065371681 Audio: +1 646 558 8656 (US Toll) or +1 408 638 0968 (US Toll), Meeting ID: 306 537 1681. Please forward and share. Thanks.

Have you ever been in this conversation as either the boss or the employee?

Boss: Jane your team’s work assignment was due yesterday.
Jane: I know. I’m stuck. There are so many decisions to be made and I didn’t know what to do.
Boss: Jane, I’m really disappointed. I’m going to give the assignment to someone else. I don’t appreciate that you let it go to the last minute. It’s obvious that you can’t be trusted with this kind of work.

This is a command and control type of boss. He (perhaps she) is more interested in getting the task done than growing Jane. He’s so unapproachable that the last thing Jane wants to do is come asking for help. So she puts it off until it’s too late. Her amygdala (center part of the limbic brain) has hijacked her behavior and she’s not thinking creatively or expansively. Now she’s in a worse position and will probably wind up quitting, creating the cost of replacement (2-3 times her salary) and slowdown of her share of the company’s goals. Worse, she could stay and just be disengaged, keeping her head down, doing the minimum and not taking any risks. With unemployment so low (3.5%), she has more options in finding a new job than her company has in finding a new hire. This is how a bad manager costs the company a lot of money.

Here’s a better manager (as coach) conversation:

Boss: Jane, how is your team’s work assignment coming along?
Jane: I know it’s due next week. I’m stuck. There are so many decisions to be made and I don’t know what to do.
Boss: I wouldn’t have given it to you if I didn’t think you were up to it. That being said, there are a lot of decisions to be made. And it can seem overwhelming if you’re not used to it. What do you think is the first thing that you should address?
Jane: Well, I think if we did xxxx first it would give a framework for the rest of the project.
Boss: And what would be the impact of that?
Jane: Maybe some other things might fall in line and become easier.
Boss: Go give that a try and let’s talk tomorrow.

The next day:

Boss: How did it go?
Jane: I did xxxx and it seemed to go well with the team until John said yyyy. Then things came to a standstill. I’m not sure if what John presented is a real obstacle or if John just wants to be negative.
Boss: How could you find out?
Jane: I could get some data from other team members. And I think I’ll ask John, too, what he meant.
Boss: What makes you think he was being negative?
Jane: It was the tone of his voice, or maybe I was reading something into it. I don’t know.
Boss: Since you’re John’s supervisor, what is it that you want for him? How will that frame how you talk with him?
Jane: I want to empower him and have him grow in his job. I’ll ask him questions like you’re asking me questions. Maybe he found out something very valuable. Or maybe he’ll discover his own negativity doesn’t help the team. Thanks for the clarity.

In this conversation the boss takes the time to ask Jane questions which allows her to think through the situations she’s facing. The empathy of the boss and the trust Jane has in the safety of the collaborative situation allow her to use the pre-frontal cortex part of her brain where wisdom, creativity and higher thought functions reside. Jane is learning how to make decisions and she has a better handle on how to structure her work. She’ll need less coaching in the future. She’s verbalized her goals for John so they are top of mind. She’s less likely to approach him with a cortisol-infused brain (fearful and self-protective) and more likely to approach him with an oxytocin-infused brain (objective, caring and curious). The boss has modeled for Jane and now Jane can use the same questioning style that she experienced. In this way coaching can permeate a culture, and one good boss can have a very positive impact through many layers of the organization, bringing additional profits to the bottom line. If you would like to have your mangers trained in being better coaches (with some bottom-line impact), or if you yourself would like this training (to get your next promotion faster), then let’s talk. Either reply to this email or select a time on my calendar. https://calendly.com/drivingimprovedresults/60min

Let’s get real. You’re a bottleneck. Every time you do something yourself that someone else could be doing just because you want ‘to do it right’you’re a bottleneck. You’re preventing your employee from learning so that you can delegate it to him or her in the future. You’re giving yourself more to do, and you’re robbing yourself of the time you could be using for higher level strategy.  You’re robbing your employees of their own sense of mastery which is a source of internal motivation. Then you wonder why they’re not motivated.

So why do you do that?

• Control, you want control. You want it done right and you don’t trust anyone else to do it the way you want it done.
• Time, you don’t have time to teach it to someone else.

Bullsh*t

I’ve heard all these excuses. They’re only keeping you small. They’re keeping you boxed inside the daily scramble feeling overwhelmed and stressed. This task or capability will never be delegated to someone else if you don’t start training someone now. Your time will never free up. You’ll continue as the bottleneck and your company’s growth will be stunted. This is out-and-out self sabotage.

The real reasons:

• Stuck in the habit
• Short term thinking
• Makes you feel important (that you and your skills can’t be replaced or duplicated)

I see it with many founders. They get stuck in Leadership Level 1: Being Founder-centric. They haven’t yet evolved to Leadership Level 2: Being Team-centric.

Here’s a thought: What if someone on your staff learns how to do something better than you? They weren’t born yesterday. They bring their own talents and experience. Maybe they’ll give it a different twist which might yield even greater success.

1. What can you do? How can you mature into Leadership Level 2? For everything you do, ask yourself, “Is this something I can delegate?” To whom? Is this person in my organization yet? Who can I train to do this? Write down notes. Build a delegator’s mindset even if you can’t delegate it yet because you don’t yet have the right person.
2. Start training people. They’ll never get good at it if you don’t get them started and let them make some mistakes. Maybe they’ll make the wrong decision. That’s a teaching moment. Encourage them to stretch. Everyone likes a challenge. They’ll be more engaged and productive.
3. Can you write down the steps so the process is repeatable? Better yet, get your employee to write down the steps as he or she gets trained.  Build up a slew of repeatable processes (eventually you’ll call it an operations manual). There are some side benefits also. If your processes are documented, it’s much easier to ramp up a new employee, you can open a new location more easily, and your business is worth more to a buyer. Now that’s Leadership Level 2 thinking.

Action! Action!

If you’re ready to conquer the challenge of being the bottleneck, I encourage you to start now. You can implement these three actions on your own. Or, you can contact me and we’ll do it faster and more reliably together.

After I posted my blog post entitled PeaceLove, Joy, Hope – Are They Real For You? my good friends at https://nsfamilylawfirm.com/ wrote a post for their blog applying the content of my article to couples going through divorce. It’s entitled Nobody Is Perfect, Especially in the Middle of Divorce. Her closing line:

“As a divorce attorney and mediator, I'm not only committed to helping my clients find that compassion, but also to helping them control how they react to their spouse's actions. Not only will it help my client feel less anger and resentment, but it will help support their spouse to be their best self during this difficult time. That's a win/win for everyone.”

In many organizations there is confusion about how new prospects become new clients. Leads fall through the cracks. Up-sell and cross-sell opportunities are missed. No one asks for referrals. Communication falters. Clients don’t get optimal service. Follow up is minimal. There isn’t a push for repeat business. How much of this happens in your organization? Are you leaving money on the table?

Here is a questionnaire you can use to optimize your sales systems. Get your team together and hash this out. It will make everyone’s life much easier once procedures are formulatedare written down and become habits. Use this checklist to see how close you are to having a well oiled machine.

Lead Tracking

• How do you generate leads?
• What happens to them after they come into your organization?
• Who is responsible for contacting each lead?
• How do you allocate them to different people? By rotation? By size of the potential purchase? By product line?
• Who creates the written pipeline?
• Is there a pipeline meeting happening weekly or bi-weekly?
• Who closes the sale?
• Who stays in touch with the client during the project or delivery process to make sure the client’s needs and expectations are met?
• When and who does the up-selling and cross-selling?
• Who needs to be notified and when as the account identifies another project?
• Who stays in touch even if there is no imminent next project?
• How is customer satisfaction measured?
• Do you measure the close rates of various salespeople who might be doing the closing?
• Do you relate a closed sale back to the marketing that generated the lead?
• Does that give you metrics on the effectiveness of each type of marketing you’re doing?
• When do you ask for referrals? Who asks for referrals? Are you getting any?

Operations Manual

• Do you have a flow chart that documents this procedure from soup to nuts?
• Do you have written procedures for every step of the process?
• Do you have standards of performance that are customer service friendly as well as task completion oriented?
• Are your people’s performance measured against the steps and standards of each process to see if they are doing each one well?
• Have you defined the characteristics of an ideal client? Do you evaluate you clients and how they compare with the ideal so you can decide how much time to allocate to each one?

Aligning Sales to the Company’s Vision and Values

• Is your sales process in alignment with the vision, values and overall strategies of the organization?
• Are your managers helping sales people dovetail their personal goals with the organizational goals?
• Do they know just how important each person is when they achieve their individual goals, so all together they achieve the overall aim of the company? 

If the team works out their sales process, they will know it and implement better. If you would like a facilitator to do some team building and process clarification, I’d be happy to talk with you.

Meanwhile, please contribute a story that illustrates the importance of these questions or tell us a question that you’ve found helpful.  We’d love to hear from you