The CEO Elite

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Be A People Person – Even When You Aren’t

A “people person” is liked by other people, has great communications skills, makes great leaders, and attracts people that are similar to them. If you aren’t a “people person” whom and what are you attracting and how does that affect your business?

“The greatest thing about business is the people. The worst thing about business is the people.” ~Unknown

I have been told this and I have shared it numerous times when I or my clients are challenged with the interaction of employees, clients, suppliers, contractors, and freelancers. Like everything in life, there is a Yin/Yang relationship with other people. Even the people we love the most we are not always in love with. So why do we think that we should always love the people we bring into our business and why do we not allow ourselves time to revisit our own role in our relationships before making decisions?

I believe there are many things you can do to create amazing relationships in your business. Here are three key rules you can apply to your business relationship that will help you manage conflict and reduce lost time and money associated with that.

1) Don’t hold on to bad people.

The old rule, “hire slow and fire fast” applies here. Spend time assessing whether people are the right fit for your business relationship. Evaluate them with respect to your core business values, your vision and your mission statement. These are important tools to use when making decisions about your business relationships. If the person does not fit your values then don’t hire them. If you have already hired them and find out they are not the right fit, fire them. If you have made it past the trial time on the job, and they don’t fit, fire them with reason (do this legally) and give them the benefits they deserve. The longer you have a toxic person in your business the longer they will affect your core business values and eventually your bottom line.

 2) Don’t make decisions when you are angry

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.” – Dale Carnegie

This applies to you as well. We all have moments (well maybe not the Dali Lama – who knows?) when our emotions get the better of us and we become angry at something or someone. Anger is a defensive emotion from our more primitive days, that helps us protect ourselves from danger. If we are angry we can protect our clan and our belonging from others that are from outside our circle. When we get angry at people that are inside our circle of connections, we are trying to teach them to fall-in-line and support the group.

The challenge with this thinking is, our anger can come from our own mistakes, can come from a feeling of betrayal, or from a situation that is unexpected, amongst other things. When we become angry our primitive brain stops asking the “thinking brain” what to do and then acts on its own. Do you really want people in your business making decisions without thinking? No, of course you don’t, so you have to ensure you also are not doing this.

3) Don’t get defensive

Being defensive is the act of immediately going to an excuse as to why something is the way it is, why you chose a specific path or made a specific decision. You may have the perfect solution, but if someone else has an issue with it, the best way to defuse the emotions and get to a solution is to first listen to their complaint, acknowledge that you have heard and understood it and then offer to talk it over with them. I look for ways to say, ‘yes’ to their request for a change, that will also support the best outcomes for the business and the people in it. Sometimes that is simply offering to sincerely listen and evaluate the situation with a willingness to make a change if needed. This means that if the other person is correct I would have to find a way to implement their perspective. If you are not skilled at conflict resolution then get someone who is to help you. I have found, in the past, that when I was sure my point of view was correct and someone else’s was wrong, that the two points were often focused on the same endpoint with two different ways to get there. That made saying yes much easier. I would never have been able to get to the resolution without first listening and evaluating their perspective and needs.

As the owner of the business, you have to model what you want others to do in your business. If you want employees that treat others, including your clients, with respect, then you had better not be ranting about another person or situation that made you angry, spouting off excuses to defend the decisions you have made. If you want to have great relationships in your business you have to learn what it takes to be a “people person”.

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If You Don’t Ask – You Don’t Get

question-mark-chalkboard

I remember as a kid I used to feel left out by those that received special gifts, access, or invitations to special events. I would think that maybe I wasn’t liked as well, maybe there was a problem having me along, or maybe someone else had suggested to not include me.  I know, a little therapy was valuable for this. But, as an adult, I realized I could still make myself feel this way when others got what I wanted.

What I found when I was young was also the answer to what I could do now. I had to ask.

Once, several years ago, when our kids were small and money was very tight, my neighbour had somehow received tickets to box-seats for a local hockey game.  She did not get them for free, but she had paid a good price for them and had six. She had two extra. I found out that she had invited a woman across the street, whom she barely knew, instead of me, a friend she saw weekly. I was hurt and stewed over the reasons behind this. Obviously, she or her husband did not like me or my husband. What else could it be? Several weeks after that incident I built up the courage to ask her and guess what I found? She had not invited me because she did not want to make me feel bad knowing that I did not have the money to purchase the $200 ticket.

Two-hundred dollars? She was right, I didn’t. She was wrong to assume I’d understand her reason when she didn’t tell me, but she was right I would not have purchased the tickets. So I asked her another question. “Would you always please include me and allow me to make my own decisions?”  She agreed.

In business, this happens often. People are afraid to ask for the sale and to make follow-up phone calls to find out if people are ready to purchase or to simply ask what people need in their business. It feels salesy, and we all hate to feel salesy.

Years ago, when my focus was technical writing for medical device manufacturers, I had a prospect that had indicated he needed my services. I phoned several times in a few weeks, sometimes leaving messages, usually not. Then I reduced the frequency to once every two weeks, then once a month. At around the 6-month mark, I left this message, “… I don’t want to harass you and I don’t want to stop calling if you need me. Please let me know if I should stop calling…” and left my contact information again. Can you believe that he called me later that day? He apologized for not returning my calls earlier. The company had run into some regulatory issues and they had been running full-out these past 6 months. Yes, he still needed me, but they were not ready. Please keep checking in. So I did, and I got their business.

I’ve had other instances where following up, which sometimes feels salesy when you are making 6 or more calls, resulted in a sale. I have never had someone be upset with me. Ever! Recently, I was surprised to find out that one prospect had put me on her vision board. I am her next step to growing a bigger business. All I had to do was reach out.

If you want to really make leaps in your business, don’t let your assumptions about what people want, or why they do what they do, stop you from finding out how you can help them. If you want something, you have to ask for it.

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Finding The Way To Success – It Is How You Look For It

buddha meditating

Who knew that meditation was going to help me find success? It was Not because I learned to meditate, but because I learned how to look for success.

For a long time, I was told that meditation was a great way to find my center, relieve stress, get focused, and become more successful. I could not afford, at the time, to hire someone to teach me meditation so I thought I would have to wait until I found another way. Surely I would know someone that could help me find what I needed or teach me.

Then someone said to me, I could find a guided meditation using free apps on my phone. I was so excited. I looked, and I could not find guided meditations that did not cost money. I was disappointed because I was sure this was going to be the way to my success. I mentioned my disappointment to someone else and they then gave me the name of a free app I could download and use. It was perfect because it was only 2 – 5 minutes long, and for someone that did not know how to meditate it was a great learning platform.

After some time I became bored with the same few meditations. I wanted more and I still did not want to pay for apps on my phone. Then another person told me that there were hundreds on YouTube. That may be obvious today, but a few years ago it was not. I started finding one, two, three… I had a few I liked and listened to often. They taught me how to meditate for longer times and in different ways. As I became better at self-meditation I continued to find more videos to listen to and follow. With my growth came an opening that allowed me to see and find more of what I had. I subscribed to one channel and two more would pop up as recommendations. The more I listened the more channels became available. There are literally thousands of sites with free meditation music that I now take advantage of and at one time I could not find one.

There is an old saying that I’m going to paraphrase here, and I think you will get the gist of the meaning:

–To those that have much, much will be given & and expected– 1

You have a lot and there are literally thousands of places for you to share what you have. The way to success is to ensure that you don’t give up looking for what you need.

 

1 Partially based on Luke 12:48

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Check Back – Evaluate Now – Plan Forward

While you are celebrating the incoming year it is important that you look back at what you have done, evaluate what you have accomplished, and make plans for the future. It is important if growing your business over the next year is part of your vision.

Check Back

Look at your accomplishments over the year. Look at your accounts, your sales, your clients’ results, your product turnover, and include your personal and business achievement. Use your calendar if you have to, to remember what you have been doing over the year, where you have been, who you have been networking or doing business with. If this feels like a lot of work, then try keeping track during the year. Create an accomplishment list, a list you add to every time you achieve something, so you can simply review it at the end of the year.

Evaluate Now

What were you expecting to have accomplished this past year? If you wrote out your goals at the end of last year then go back and review them. Do any of your accomplishments meet or exceed your goals for the year? Create some metrics around your results.

  • Percent of your goals met.
  • Percent of each goal achieved.
  • Areas where you did not achieve expected results.

Plan Forward

Now, start looking forward. Look at where you need to get help (check the “areas where you did not achieve expected results”). Create goals based on last year’s results and try to match or exceed them again. Look at new areas of growth. Create your Goals for the next year in terms that you can understand and measure at the end of the year. Add the phrase “All this or better” to the end of your goal list and then make sure you review them during the year.

Don’t let the year go by while you hope to achieve this great list you created; evaluate, make adjustments, put in new effort, bring on more help, do what needs to get done to meet or exceed your goals and next year you will be singing your outstanding achievements to your inner circle and receive the accolades you deserve because you did the work you committed to do.

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Let Go of Perfection – It Won’t Help Your Business

Perfect Example_Not Perfect Video

Yep, this is my live video. When I went to do my video on letting go of perfection, this is what happened. I had to let go, what else could I do.

Perfection is an unrealistic construct of our culture that makes us believe that somewhere in this universe there is something that is perfect and we are able to recreate it. With a more personal perspective, we look to what we do, have, or wish to become as a journey to perfection. Perfection is not about the journey, it is about the destination. Life is about the journey. So if you are focused on perfection, you are not living a life that is full and filled with purpose.

What is perfection NOT?

  • Perfection is not someone else’s idea of you, your life, or your business. The challenge is we give our power away when we look at someone else’s life and think, I will never have that, I can never be that good, I can’t afford it, etc. It is not yours, stop envying things others have.

Who gets to define perfection?

  • You do. Your goals to get to your perfection are set by you and are influenced by what you think other people expect. If you set your goals to your own standards and forget what other people think, then you can create a journey that is in line with what you truly want.

Why do we do this?

  • Because we want to belong. It is our natural state to want to be a part of a family/pack/group. We want to be accepted, understood, welcomed, respected, and loved. To do this, we look for ways to look and act like the people we wish to be around. There is nothing wrong with being liked by them unless you expect to be exactly like them.

Is it achievable?

  • Some goals may be achievable, but they are never sustainable when they are not yours. If you are not totally passionate about doing the work you will lose the motivation to keep going when it gets difficult or boring. Remember, even the stars eventually burn out and go dark and they ARE doing what they are supposed to do.

What is better?

  • Work towards the goals that align with your purpose.
  • Stop judging yourself on your perceived idea of perfection and measure your actual accomplishments.
  • Celebrate what you have achieved. Evaluate what has not worked and re-adjust your plan.
  • Surround yourself with amazing people that you align with, that can see your brilliance and will celebrate your accomplishments with you.

Entrepreneur Awakening: Making the move from employee to business owner

Want more insight into running a business like the successful entrepreneur you are? Check out my book Entrepreneur Awakening – Making the Move from Employee to Business Owner.