Posts in Tips

Personal Strategic Plan

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How do you create a personal strategic plan? How do you live your life with purpose and direction?

1️⃣ Determine what you ultimately want to do with your life. My Want: Travel first class, sightsee, and play golf.

2️⃣ Determine how you could get someone to pay for that, so you don’t have to. My Plan: Companies pay for a day-long visit of coaching, speaking, and training. I stay in that area for a week, sightseeing and golfing.

3️⃣ Determine what you have to look like for someone to pay for that. My Expectation: Companies will pay for a published #author and accomplished #speaker with a #PhD, strong business #experience, and #certifications, who had a strong #network of connections.

4️⃣ Determine the gap between where you are and how long it will take to get there. My Gap: No degree, never published, only experience in the military, strong military network only, just starting out with Toastmasters, and no certifications. Estimated time to close the gap: 20 years.

Developing your personal strategic plan is really just that simple.

20 years ago, I started on my journey — a journey of living my life with purpose and direction; not on autopilot.

Interested in learning more…message me.

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants

What is micromanagement?

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Is telling managers  how they should manage, micromanagement? 路‍♂️

Recently, I saw a post on LinkedIn that was telling managers to, “Stop being a micromanager.”

Of course, the post didn’t say how to stop…just that micromanaging is bad and those that do it drive employees away.

When I said something (questioning), the response was simply, “They should stop their BS.”

No conversation…no discussion. I’m right, you’re wrong, do what I tell you. What does that sound like?

Why do managers micromanage?

Could it be that no one has told them what causes micromanagement, how to identify it, and what to do about it?

I don’t think managers wake up in the morning and say, “I’m going to micromanage my people today!”

Micromanagement is basically telling your people the way to do something without telling them how or why. Micromanagement is always stepping in and doing it for them and correcting mistakes yourself.

I believe, telling managers to stop micromanaging (Stop their BS) without teaching how or why, is essentially micromanagement of managers. Stepping in and managing yourself or removing a micromanager is micromanagement.

#business #success #incubator #coaching #consultants

Breakthrough Silos

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Breaking ⛏ Through Siloed  Organizations  First Requires Leadership Awareness! 類

Silos exist in practically every company, business, and organization. For profit or non profit … doesn’t matter. I’ve even identified silos in solo proprietorships.

The natural tendency of leaders is to “tear down the silos.”

Oh, I’m sure you’ve heard it all before … maybe you’ve even said it.

Everyone knows silos are bad!!!

Right?

Unfortunately, very few know why silos exist in the first place.

Unfortunately, very few understand why and who created the silos.

And, unfortunately, very few understand why playing “whack a silo” in your company doesn’t work!

The first step in dealing with silos in your organization is to learn why they formed in the first place and why you’ll NEVER get rid of them.

I challenge you to read Overcoming Organizational Myopia and learn not only why they form, but how to deal with them.

Increase your awareness!!!

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants
#overcomingorganizationalmyopia

Volunteer Leadership

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Want to be a great leader…learn to lead volunteers.

In 1992, a mentor of mine, in the Air Force, got me involved in a volunteer leadership role with a professional military organization.

I completely failed in the position.

But, I didn’t quit. I stuck with that organization as an active leader through 2008 (my retirement). In fact, I’m still a life member and assist other leaders now and again.

When I started out as a volunteer leader, I knew nothing about volunteering or leadership — I was just a young junior enlisted member.

What I learned … unimaginable.

Today, I run two nonprofit organizations that my wife and I founded. We keep them small and serve niche needs in our community.

It’s our way we give back constantly to our community. Better than giving to a faceless charity with zero control on how your money and efforts are spent, huh?

Want to learn how to lead?

Lead volunteers.

Want to learn how to lead an organization.

Become a volunteer leader of a nonprofit.

The perfect place to start is Toastmasters International. Their nonprofit program has a leadership and speaking tracks that teaches you how to be a great leader.

What have been your volunteer experiences?

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants
#leadership #volunteering

Reopening

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What’s your plan  to reopen your business? Do you even have one? 路‍♂️

Do you feel you even need a plan?

What’s a business to do…just reopen their doors and start serving customers again?

What precautions should you take?

Will your employees come back or do you need to hire and train new ones?

Will you be busy or slow?

How will people know you’re open?

Last week, I visited a restaurant that has reopened. It was lunch on Sunday.

Everything shined it was so clean.

On every table, they had paper napkins, a clear spray bottle of some liquid (unmarked), and a bunch of individual hand sanitizer gel packs.

I could see that some if the tables had been moved — probably six foot rule.

Our waiter wore a mask (all employees did)…no gloves. The bartenders wore gloves.

All total, aside from the two of us, there were nine patrons — yea, I counted.

Visible employees were a hostess, two waiters, two bartenders, and a manager.

The manager came by to thank us for visiting…he wore his mask under his nose to breathe better.

Do you think they had a plan?

If they did, do you think they were following it?

Should a business, reopening after the COVID Lockdown, have a plan to reopen?

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants
#covid19 #coronavirus #reopening

Best approach to sales?

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Pre-COVID Boss to Sales Employee: “Call as many people as possible, we don’t have time to get to know them.

Post-COVID Boss to Sales Employee: Get to know as many people as possible, it’s a waste of time just calling people you don’t know.

Is there an aggressive shift in sales?  Moving from a ‘numbers game’ to ‘relationship selling’?

I see a lot of talk about the importance of relationships when it comes to selling.

However, I still get the same amount of canned emails and messages going for volume click bait over connection.

I still see people wanting to get more views on social media than actual engagement.

Let’s face it, relationship selling takes time. You need to learn about your prospects…spend a lot of time getting to know them.

What’s easier, getting a, “No,” response on the 15 minute phone call, or after 3 weeks of getting connected with someone?

I’ve worked in the Bullpen, making 100 calls a day for a couple of leads.

In that same company, I’ve researched 100 people and made a few great long-lasting connections.

I’ve also spent months connecting with clients and developing long-term relationships. I prefer this approach.

What works best for you?

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants
#sales

Did you plan for COVID?

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Pre-COVID. Boss to Employee: “We don’t have time to plan right now — we need to get work done.

Post-COVID. Boss to employee: “We need to plan right now, or we won’t have any work to get done.

Planning…

That must be one of the scariest words in the Business Dictionary.

Why?

Because, so many shy away from it.

By this Friday, we are expecting it to start raining here in San Antonio TX. It’s forecasted to rain for the next seven days.

That means flooding.

I turned to my wife last night, after looking that the weather report, and said, “We’ll need to get the Flooding Checklist out.”

Is just one of our ‘plans’ that makes sure we are as prepared for the worst as possible.

You do that when you run a business. Ours is a 100-acre horse farm with 40 horses on property.

We didn’t have a “Pandemic Checklist.”

But, almost three months ago, we did pull out our Disaster Preparedness Plan and developed a list of actions.

These actions kept our business moving forward and helped since I was laid off on April 20th.

Did you plan for COVID?

Were you ready for COVID?

What are you doing Right Now about planning for the next crisis.

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants
#planning

Being Curious

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Being Curious 獵 might be one of the most important ♟ skills someone can possess!!!

Are you naturally curious?

When someone says something, is your first instinct to ask, “Why?”

Asking, “Why,” versus simply accepting the response 樂  can be a very powerful tool.

How do you build 料 this muscle?

Do you find people who ask, “Why,” all the time annoying?

What shuts down curiosity mire than anything for you?

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants
#curious

Mask Shaming

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Well, it looks like Mask Shaming has become a thing…

I’m hearing from people personally and seeing posts on social media of people shaming others not wearing masks in public.

So, when all this started, the governments were like, “Don’t go out and start wearing masks, they don’t work.”

Then the governments were like, “Stop buying up all the masks, you’re depleting the supply for health care workers.”

Then the governments were like, “We don’t have enough masks for health care workers and we’re engaging companies to adjust manufacturing processes to make them.”

Now the governments are like, “We recommend everyone wear a mask when in public.”

This week, Laredo TX, the first in the US to do so, made it illegal for people to be in public without a mask — up to a $1K fine. LA in CA instituting the same rule today.

Oh, by the way, Laredo only had 18 confirmed cases when they passed that ruling.

Suddenly, anyone not wearing a mask has become a pariah in the community.

Good luck finding a mask!

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants #change #coronavirus #covid19

Connections on LinkedIn

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Do you have a lot of connections , but not a lot of interaction? 

Not all connections are created equal.

What type of person are you on LinkedIn?

隸‍♂️ Super User. You are online all the time. Posting at least daily; like, comment, and share all kinds of stuff; and you respond to messages and comments.

履‍♀️ Lurker. You read other people’s posts, but hardly ever post or respond. You’d rather be a silent participant on LinkedIn than active.

 Absent. You have a profile, but you never use it. Occasionally, you might update it, but you don’t look at your messages or your notifications and you have no pulse online.

Ways to identify what type of connections you have.

1. Send them a birthday greeting or congrats on job changes and promotions. See if they ever respond.

2. Look at their Activity on their profile. If the section is blank, you can see this person doesn’t participate much.

3. Check the recency and completeness of their profile. No picture, limited details, etc. Probably not active.

4. Number of connections. Less than 500? Obviously not using LinkedIn to connect with the world.

Who cares?

Are you using LinkedIn to connect with people on a deeper professional level or just to build a connection count.

#success #incubator #business #coaching #consultants