From the Invisible

Your business is something you created from nothing.  You continue to create it each day.

Design it.  Shape it.  Mold it.  Redesign it.

Owning a business is a highly creative act.  You are responsible for the outcome.

How are you doing with that?

A great vision requires an inspired visioneer

You don’t get a great vision from someone who is not inspired and ambitious.  If a leader is comfortable where they are and/or is not inspired by grand ideas/people/and events, they won’t produce an inspiring vision.

You’re the leader.  Are you inspired? 

How do you inspire yourself?  

"The First Domino"

What’s the biggest problem?  Where will your organization be in the future if you don’t change?

What’s the first meeting/conversation/exploration/action that you could take that may change everything – when it leads to the next thing?

Would you like to work on my team?

I have never asked my Think Daily audience if anyone would like a career opportunity with my company, but I thought, why not?

My organization has many divisions, collectively called “Contractor Nation”.  We have offices pretty much everywhere in the US and Canada, and we own or are partners in many of them.  We are very organized in selling home improvements and repairs to homeowners and have pioneered so much to make the business a great one.  

We have a team of nearly 1000 employees on our payroll and many thousands more on our dealer’s teams.  We can use people who are winners in Sales, Sales Management, Production and Service Management, and Leadership.  We have programs to train anyone with and for leaders to follow.  

My ask is not because we don’t have many great people – to the contrary, we have so very many.  It’s because we have been growing so fast!  We currently have openings in locations in so many cities.  Atlanta and Charlotte (in particular), North Carolina, Buffalo, New Jersey, Nashville, and many other places.

If you are a salesperson and want to join a winning team, an average salesperson makes $100,000 a year here, and a great one 2X or more – and we provide the leads and set the appointments for you!  If you are a leader looking to lead a department or even a branch as part of a winning team with all the resources and successful history for you to draw from, this could be for you!

No matter where you are geographically if you are a pro salesperson or a leader who can rally a great team, reach out to us to see what the opportunities may be for both of us! 

Contact Kathy Richardson at [email protected]

Clarity is King

Recently a friend came to me to ask me what I thought of his new product after watching his presentation.  I told him I wasn’t quite clear what it is and what it does for me.

People don’t understand how an iPhone works – but they do understand what it does for them.

People don’t buy the best products and services, they buy the ones they can understand the fastest.

Is the benefit you provide laid out fast and clear for your customers?

Apply your values

When a sticky situation comes along, do you look at what you have said are your values, (the poster on the wall) and speak the words to your team, discuss it, and let the values (predetermined ways to act and decide) prevail?

Don’t a Vision/Mission/ and Values yet?  How does your team know who you collectively are and what you represent?  Get on it!

How do you treat customers?

That’s a big question!  But if you’re in business and want to get customers, keep customers, and have them referring others to you, you better be better than most and better than nearly all at treating customers.

The better more specific question is – “How have your people been trained to treat your customers and do they do it really well?”

Crazier than most.

I own or partner in 25 companies.  I have 30 patents.  I have had some big failures too.  It’s been a life well lived and I am getting better all the time. 

Each time I make a life-altering decision, part of me says “are you nuts?”.

To achieve more than most and get closer to your potential, you have to put yourself out there, bet on you, and be willing to back yourself up and make it happen.  The most successful people are “crazier” than most.

There is a line between reckless and genius, but it’s a lot higher than the line you’re living on now.

Who should you seek advice from?

There are plenty of people giving advice out there.  Many people give advice on things they have never done themselves, or advice they don’t follow themselves.

The financial planner who doesn’t have a lot of money.

The sales trainer who has never been a successful salesperson.

The politician who has never run a successful large organization or balanced a budget.

The out of shape person giving advice on health.

The business advisor who’s never run a successful business.

The marketing guru who’s only job has been to market marketing advice to you.

If you want the best advice, spend some time to study who you are considering getting it from.  No one is qualified to give advice on everything.  You want a specialist who has done what you are trying to do AND has enough experience at it to discern the dimensions of the subject that make all the difference. (Gray hairs?)

Once you find the best advisor, it’s worth it to pay them what they ask.  The most successful people have the best advisors. 

The most expensive information is bad information, even if it’s free.

Who do you get advice from?

Teach to learn

Developing your team is the job of a leader.  In a young company, it may be developing the skills of front line people.  In a bigger organization, it may be developing your top management team or creating a written/audio/video training program to leverage your time so you don’t have to do it again.

Teaching is part of a leader’s job.  But two things immediately come to mind for a leader.

A – How do I know what I am talking about?  The answer is to spend lots of time each day learning yourself.

B – What am I going to say?  This forces you to get clarity on what you want and reveals the weaknesses in your thinking/ideas/program.  

By resolving these two questions, you get better yourself.  Much better.