Goals, Stress and Serving

"You want to make money --- simply find someone with a problem and solve that problem for them."

 - Steve Chandler 
 

The following is from Steve Chandler:

"Stressing out over hitting my goals is not the same as caring about hitting them.

No performer, when tense, or stressed, performs well. No leader does. No sales person. No fundraiser. No parent.

A stressed-out, tense performer only has access to a small per cent of their skill and talent and intelligence. (Do you want a tense person shooting a free throw or kicking a long field goal in the last moments of the game, or a confident, calm person?)

Most people stress themselves out as a form of "really caring" about hitting their goals.  But it's not caring, it's stressing out.

Caring is relaxing, focusing and calling on ALL of my resources, all of that relaxed magic, that lazy dynamite that I bring to bear when I pay full attention with total peace of mind. No one performs better than when they are relaxed and focused.

In a calm way find ways to serve people and you will hit your goals. Whether it is customers, prospects, employees, peers find ways to serve, not please.

When service is provided with the right spirit, it's a pure joy.  Mother Teresa often said in her interviews, "If people knew how much joy I was experiencing when I serve people, they wouldn't consider me to be such a saint."  Wayne Dyer has a little internal mantra he likes to speak to himself whenever a relationship or even a single conversation is going poorly. He softly says, "How may I serve?" and the answer comes to him immediately and the relationship is back into joyfulness again.  When the serving of others is done in that happy spirit, it is fun, and relationships blossom immediately."

Regards,

Rick Wallace

Employee Net Promoter Score

 "Up to 87 percent of America's workforce is not able to contribute to their full potential because they don't have passion for their work."

- Deloitte Center for the Edge

                 

You have probably heard about the Net Promoters Score from me or others - the one question survey for customers used by companies all over the US. It is the best customer survey I have found and that one question is the most powerful question I know - it gets to the heart of what you want to know.

"On a scale of 1 -10 how likely would you be to refer (your company name) to your friends and associates?"

Then there is a follow up question I like to add: "What experiences have you had with us that reflected as to how you answered to first question."

Powerful stuff and it gets to heart of the matter in two simple questions. A 9 or 10 means they love us, are our promoters and would, without hesitation, refer us to others. A 6,7, or 8 means they are passive. They don't hate us but would probably not refer us. And a 1-5 means that they do not like us and are detractors - they will tell others to avoid us.

So think about this - what if we used these same questions of our employees, via third party, anonymously, so they felt safe in answering?

"On a scale from 1-10 how likely would you be to refer a friend or associate to come to work here?"

Question 2 - "Based on your answer to the first question, what do you like or dislike or do you see missing at work that reflected on your answer?"

Do you want a more profitable company? Do you want to have 'A' Players in every position? Do you want more productivity and less stress and drama? Do you want people who are accountable for results, not just for being busy?

Then you need to develop a culture that attracts the best people and one where people like coming to work every day.

Before you can do that, you need to see where you are, what your employees think, want and need and then you can begin slowly to address it.

You can do this survey simply - via Survey Monkey - or we can do the survey for you - just get me the emails.

Regards,

Rick Wallace

Labor - Expense or Investment

"You can't manage people. You can manage things and cows, but not people."

                                                   - Rick Wallace

"The biggest difference between coaching and managing is that the coach knows she can't play the game so she has to focus on making each player the best they can be. A manager thinks she can play the game better than anyone else, is the quarterback and drags and pushes the team with her to try and win." 

- Rick Wallace

Anyone that has budgeted expenses or looks over a P&L knows that the biggest line item under the expense category is Labor. For eons, business people have looked at that line and, when budgeting for the next year, simply added 3% or so to it to take into consideration the raises they would be giving in the upcoming year.

I'm challenging that belief. Greg Crabtree, Simple Numbers, has awaken many of us to question that long-held belief and begin to look at the Profit Lever that line item can, and should, become. To look at Total Cost of Labor as an investment not as an expense we are trying to control.

To grow profits we must leverage the Productivity or Return On Investment ( ROI) in labor. Why is this different? Well today everyone is looking at labor as an expense, that is basically a given, and they try and cut it a little or simply live with the number and pay little attention to it.

Thinking of it as an investment changes the whole mindset. We should be thinking "I'm spending all that money - what am I getting for it?"

Now change your mindset about everything to do with Labor and People in your organization. We must begin to invest time, as well as money, into this investment to see the ROI we want.

These are the mindsets that need to change: 

1. Coach don't manage

• Focus on making each individual the best they can be.
• As a coach you cannot play the game. 
• Weekly coaching conversation instead of annual reviews and showing everyone "how to do it".

2. 'A' Players in every position

• Costs a little more, but produce 2X.
• Fewer people but each producing more.

3. Always be recruiting (scouting)

• Build a virtual bench, looking for talent and attitude everywhere you go.

4. Set and measure and share financial goals every week

• Let them "in on things".

People productivity is the biggest single contributor to profit and the one few of us focus on. Begin now to focus more of your time on learning the power of the mindsets above, and build a company with 'A' Players who are engaged and look forward to coming to work each day. Your profits will soar, the drama will decrease and your stress levels will go way down.

You will be building a company that has real value. Wasn't that your dream when you started?

Regards,

Rick Wallace

61 Years Ago Tomorrow

"The world we have created is a product of our thinking;
it cannot be changed without changing our thinking."

- Albert Einstein

61 years ago tomorrow Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile. So What?

False beliefs are powerful and they are holding us all back. How powerful? And what does this have to do with my business?

I answer those questions in this short presentation, The Starting Point - Beliefs

I hope you will watch, listen, and open your mind to the truth.

"The most important thing you can own is a closed mind."

Regards,

Rick Wallace