One business owner replied to last week’s email about courage with this question: My fear is I just don’t want to confront people and tell them they are fired which I’ve never done in my business. I remember watching The Apprentice and admiring the way Trump fired people. Back then, I was not even in business, but when I watched The Apprentice I thought to myself, “I can never fire people like that”. Now I that I own my own business, I still can’t do it. If you’ve had employees like we talked about on Tuesday then you know why it’s important to be able to fire people! But you’re not alone, even with behavior like that I had to coach business owners through feeling OK to fire … [Read more...]
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Employee Headaches: You dodged a bullet on these!
I work with a lot of different businesses which means I get a ringside seat to all the ups and downs that business owners experience. And there’s no greater source of ups and downs than the nutty employee stories I've seen. You may think that you've hired some bad apples, and maybe you have, but hopefully you've never had any experience like what some of my clients have! So enjoy a few of the best doozies from the field today. I hope they make you smile and you find comfort to know that you're not alone in the craziness you may face. Employee Ghosting A business owner arrives at the office around 9:30 after attending an early networking event. As she gets on the elevator she bumps … [Read more...]
Should you be reading this today?
Do you know why I send emails on Saturday morning (and have for many years)? Because I get the highest open rates when I send on Saturday morning! For whatever reason Saturday morning is a time when business owners get caught up on their email (or at least open and read my emails). But one of my team members challenged me on this — “Brad, you’re so big on folks taking time off on the weekends, and ignoring their devices for long stretches of time...” It’s true, I do advocate for that. “Why do you send your emails on Saturday mornings? Shouldn’t we be ‘off-line’ at that time?” Busted. First thing I should clear up — I’m not actually in front of my computer writing and sending … [Read more...]
What’s fear for?
On Tuesday we explored what courage can mean to a business owner. Courage is knowing that there’s danger, feeling the fear, and then going ahead anyway. But, being courageous is different from being fearless. When I look back at my career and think about when I was afraid, but pressed on anyway, those situations mostly worked out OK. What is more interesting is that it's a slightly different story when I look back at times I took a big leap and I was totally confident about it. No fear. No questions. I couldn't see any bad potential outcomes. I was fearless! In those situations, my success rate of achieving what I set out to do is much lower. Truthfully, many of my worst failures … [Read more...]
Do you feel alone and vulnerable? Are you afraid of failure and humiliation? Welcome to business ownership!
When I hear the word “courage" I think first about physical danger; fighting fires, going to war, battles against Mother Nature. But there are other sides of courage that we talk less about. The courage to tell the truth. The courage to reveal your vulnerability. As anyone who’s been on stage can tell you, it takes real courage to stand in front of a crowd and proclaim your point of view or to perform. Two other examples of courage stand out in my mind because they make me cry. I always cry at weddings and when I’m watching the Olympics. Weddings feel courageous because, against all odds, and with no way to predict what’s coming, two people commit to spending the rest of … [Read more...]
What I’ve learned from sending 20 emails to my list in one month!
I'm an email marketing believer. I started my email newsletter very early in my business life -- some of you have been readers for over 15 years! For a long time my email list was my #1 marketing tool. But recently, the results from my email list tailed off. Fewer people wrote back. Fewer leads came in. Open rates dropped. So I started looking around for a different way to do email marketing and what I found was a bunch of folks sending a LOT more emails than I was, some as frequently as every day! I was puzzled, who wants to get marketing emails every day? But I'm desperate for a solution so I signed up for Jill Salzman's daily email, (she's my podcast partner). I also found … [Read more...]
My best hiring advice
On Tuesday I talked about all the fears and stories we tell ourselves that make hiring hard, today I’m going to give you my best advice for making it easier. Tip #1: The truth is, it's a LOT of work to find, screen and select the best people. Believe me. I’ve experimented with lots and lots of shortcuts to "life hack" the process. None of them have worked. None! If you want good people you simply have to do the work. What work you ask? Buckle up, here it comes. Tip #2: More candidates are better than fewer candidates The more candidates apply the more likely it is that you’ll have one great candidate to hire at the end of the process. If you have 3 candidates, how likely is it … [Read more...]
Want a high performing team? Stop telling yourself these stories (lies?) about hiring
All of a sudden I have a lot of clients who are hiring. Hiring should be something to get excited by—you’ve got new clients! You have the opportunity to expand your team! But, more of my clients are dreading the hiring process rather than embracing it. Even though their teams are screaming at them for more help, I see them dragging their feet. I sat one owner down to ask him about it and here’s (approximately) what he said… "Brad, why should I be excited about expanding my team! Don’t I have enough problems with my current team?" OK, fair point. But if we hire well, adding team members might make the whole group easier to manage. Besides, not hiring what you need is only making them … [Read more...]
Choosing what NOT to focus on
Walter Miller, who runs a terrific bookkeeping and outsourced CFO firm responded to my prior email about doing vs. being and I thought his reply was insightful enough to share with you all (with his permission): I am constantly having to pare down my to-do list. I'm trying to focus more on the to-do's that move the needle of strategic progress. For my brain, that looks like 3 or less to-dos/goals that are considered MUST DO at any point in time. The rest (and there are often many of them) get labeled NICE TO DO. Many of the nice to-do's get done but not at the expense of the must do. My problem in the past is that my goal plate was overloaded with tasks of all sorts and priorities. In … [Read more...]
5 words that will move your team members to deliver better work
You took the time to clearly lay out the assignment. You confirmed with your team member the process they would use to accomplish it. They agreed that the time frame was good and that they had the skills and tools they needed to get it done. But when they deliver it to you, you are disappointed. It’s just not great work! You expected a lot better, and you really believe they are capable of it. Now, what do you do? You don’t want to have a big back and forth about the quality of this work, but you can’t send it to the client like this… I’ve got a simple sentence that will turn this situation around for you. You don’t have to get your shorts all in a knot, just plan a time to … [Read more...]