Stay connected with customers

A leaders job is to build a team that gets the results we are looking for.  Recruiting, training, implementing systems…it’s a lot of “inside work”.  But don’t forget to stay in touch with customers.

Go out in the field once in a while, and talk to them on the phone.  Stay connected, and it reminds you why you are doing the rest of it each day.

What are we without customers?

Leaders listen

As leaders, we have a tendency to feel we have all the answers, or that we know what problems we should be working on.  But without gaining feedback from the marketplace, our customers, and our employees, we are flying blind.

Hopefully you haven’t severed lines of communication in the past; if you have you’ll have to be incredibly observant and ask a lot of the right questions to get the feeback you need. 

Listen.  

Your business can destroy you.

If you do it wrong it can drive you insane, stress you to the point of serious health problems, ruin your marriage and other family relationships, send you to bankruptcy court and even kill you.

If you get it right, it can be a great adventure, a vehicle to make the world a better place, and a canvas for you to reveal your ability to manifest results.

How you do it, is your choice.

Stay in YOUR lane

Not because you don’t belong in other lanes, but because yours belongs to you.

You’re unique.  Be who you are.

Be the best representation of you that you can be.

Art and Business

We need artists in business.  Great designers.  People who make things look and sound and feel wonderful, smooth and intuitive.  We need people who make things simpler.  People who make things possible by removing steps, instead of adding them.  People who allow others to use their process, product or service with less brain power allocated for the task, rather than more.

We need life, we need art, and we need it now.

Story teller, or story maker?

Are you going to tell stories about other great people, or are others going to tell stories about you?

Today is part of your story….

What does your town think of your business?

Are they proud to have your operation in town?

Should you tell them (the public, town officials, the Chamber members, economic delopment people) more about what you are doing and trying to do?

Should you make changes so the perception of your business is better? 

What does it look like?

Aesthetics, looks, beauty, style, color, and design.

Eyes take in information.  Every image is communication.

Your building, office, cafeteria, desk, vehicles, product, installation, signs, parking lot, display, you, and everything around your business.

People judge the book by the cover.  What message does it send?

What could go wrong?

About your business, ask – “If we keep going the way we are going, what could go wrong?”

Does diversification show that I am good?

Some businesspeople wonder -“If I’m reasonably or somewhat successful in business A, should I start business B, and then business C – I’ll be two or three times as successful.”

But it hardly ever works that way.  Unless you have mastered business A, or have decided that you will get out of business A, starting business B is usually not a good idea.  If you are like many business owners I see, they have twice the problems and less or no profit by being mediocre at two or three things instead of master of one.

Are you master of at least one?