1- 330-413-8552 Mark@NoSmokeAndMirrors.com

Mark Allen Roberts

This author has written 575 articles

Attention leaders: Don’t look now but your lack of market knowledge is showing…

 

 

I had coffee with the president of a local business this week. A friend from church recommended he buy me a cup of coffee and chat. I seem to be meeting with a number of business leaders and owners these days that are struggling. Their businesses are in different industries yet they have common problems;

“My business is down, struggling, this economy is killing us. I have our team doing what we did in 93’, but this time it just isn’t working…”

As a leader in your business your entire team is watching you,looking to your leadership.What is new today is your team’s level of fear. Their 401k’s are down. They have many friends and others in their network now unemployed. Your team deals directly with your customers, and they hear their concerns about the economy. They feel the decrease in activity staging orders on the shipping dock. They prepare the financial statements for your leadership team meetings. They are trying to get extended terms from vendors. They are receiving the calls from vendors with past due balances. They are tracking your team’s key indicators more closely than ever before and they are wondering…

 

Will I lose my job?

Should I wait for the shoe to drop, or should I find something else? Should I work on my “plan B”? “Plan C”?

Do our leaders know what they are doing? Will their leadership take us out of this storm?

 

The good news is your team desperately wants to be led. They want to follow a leader who will quiet those inner fears. They want and need a leader to step up and set a course that pulls the company and them out of the current poor performance.

The common problem, regardless of industry that I hear is a lack of current market information to make good decisions. Media Post just released an article by David Koretz titled Cheating Your Way To The Bottom and he discussed how leaders must use facts to make good decisions .Leaders describe how they used to lead sales “back when they ran the North West region…” I am sure the strategies and supporting tactics they described worked back then,….but here’s the common problem:

The market and your buyers have changed. They have changed how they buy and how they shop for solutions to their problems. Yet the plan you are managing with corresponding activities is based on the buyer needs of the past.

Below is a summary of my recent meeting over coffee. By no means am I poking fun at  this struggling leader nor minimizing the troubles he and his company are having. When I decided to start blogging as I stated in my about page it is my desire to discuss real issues.

So I started our meeting by asking;

“When you ran the North West region and realized so much growth, how did you come up with such good ideas?”

“Well I just knew what to do…it was easy, my customers told me what we needed to do and I went back to corporate and fought for them.”

And now you are corporate?

Yes,… I guess I am, hadn’t thought of it that way

Is anyone fighting for their customers right now and you are shutting them down?

Well yah…

What are they asking for?

You know sales guys…our prices are too high, our quality sucks, and if we would only change the product by adding one more feature….

When was the last time you were in the market, “belly to belly” so to speak with a customer? A user of what you sell?

It’s been a while, but I get weekly reports, and I talk to my sales guys, I feel I am up to date with what’s going on.

Really? What are they telling you about your customers and the problems they are experiencing?

The usual; business is down, no money to invest in their business, just trying to keep their heads above water…you know

Anything new they are struggling with they did not struggle with last year?

Not really, just that business is bad, and they want a lower price and extended terms, I think we have a pretty good handle on what’s going on

When you ran the North West, did you think your boss knew the market and your customers as you?

Well…no (he became noticeably uncomfortable)

I asked a more questions and we agreed he did not have current nor first hand data to answer my questions. Given the importance of turning this business around, we agreed we needed market data.

These conversations seem to have the same next steps…”get out from behind your desk and get into your market and understand it today. After two weeks of meeting with customers and users you will know what to do in today’s environment. You will have first hand, timely market data, and you will be able to make strategic, market driven decisions and provide the leadership your team desires.”

We agreed to meet again when he returns.

What happened next I did not expect, he smiled and said; “you know this would be fun, I have not been having much fun lately.”

How about you?

Are you leading a team?

When was the last time you were “belly to belly “with a customer? A user?

You have the ability to lead your team out of this current economic condition and emerge as a market leader once you have good market data.

(Have you ordered you plane tickets yet?)

Are interruptions “transforming “your customers into shoppers again?

I am a big fan of action movies and the more Sci-Fi the better. I really enjoyed the first Transformers movie and I was anxiously awaiting the second: Revenge of the Fallen…how will they top the first? New villains, maybe 3-D special effects, and so on? I was convinced, based on the first movie I would be captivated again. They helped me establish a brand for the Transformer experience from the cartoons I would watch with my son years ago to their recent special effects of their last release. They set an expectation of a story line that flowed. I expected a great deal of action and special effects and some humor to give me a chance to catch my breath.

However what I experienced was a painful interruption. Unlike the first movie, this one threw in characters that did not support the story line and were actually a painful interruption for me. Interruptions are those elements thrown in to cause a response that add no value other than shock. They create a momentary interruption to grab your attention like a bikini clad model in an ad for spark plugs. Yes, your attention is momentarily grabbed, but for the wrong reason. At one point when one of the transformers were “humping” Megan Fox’s leg they lost me. They lost me because they did not live up to the brand they so carefully established in their cartoons and the first movie when I became a customer, and a fan. They lost me when they tried to get too cute, too funny,” because they could and not because they should”. They lost me when they added adult humor in a movie theater full of young children holding their favorite transformer toys.

 

How about your company…has the desperation to make your numbers caused you to compromise who you are?

 

Can you think of other examples of companies that strayed and could make a comeback?…not made a comeback?

 

What brand broke its promise to you?

 

What are the best ways to find out if you are transforming your loyal customers now shopping for another partner?

 

If you find out your interruptions are transforming your customer base to shoppers, what can you do, if anything to bounce back?

Five questions a radio preacher asks to see if your business is heading in the wrong direction

Each day I listen to a Christian radio station as I drive to lunch. It’s not unusual that a preacher is sharing and often I find myself parking my car and taking notes. Yesterday was no exception as Chuck Swindoll was sharing five questions to know if we as believers are headed in the wrong direction.

As I quickly grabbed some take out and returned to the office I thought how the wisdom he shared could help businesses who may be headed in the wrong direction. Below are his five questions shaped to apply to you and your business.

  1. Do you find yourself fighting greater battles within than without?
  2. Is there more attention on one versus the team? (kingdom building)
  3. Do you feel you don’t need the Lord’s help in your business?
  4. Are criticisms of your leadership and your business quickly dismissed versus taken seriously and respected?
  5. Are consequences of sin are no longer feared? ( as a reminder, the definition of sin is “missing the mark”)

For a preacher who jokingly said he has a “face for radio” I find myself feeling very thankful for his sharing the wisdom found in the Bible. I find the Bible is an amazing resource of wisdom that can be applied instantly to circumstances we face as leaders in our business.

So how did you answer the above the above?

How is your team reacting to the challenges of today? Do they need to just STOP or are they “blame-storming?”

Do you find team members (you?) worried about how an individual may look versus the performance of your team?

Are you your own God? Is your ego preventing you from asking for the lord to bless you, your business, and your customers? (After all, EGO does stand for: Edging God Out) Are you counting on your gut and intuition?

How well does your senior leaders accept criticism and new ideas? How about you? Do you need to hire a Heretic?

Are you allowing bad behaviors that are not consistent with your team’s values? Are you allowing an “end justify the means” mentality?

All of this free business advice from the Bible and radio preacher? You bet!

You may want to check out his web site at Insight for Living, …who knows you too may find yourself parked in your car and taking notes at lunch time.

“Blame-storming” … a sign you work for a market “loser” not a “leader”

Direct TV has launched a number of very creative TV ads that resonate with me. Over the weekend I saw a new commercial that caught my attention. The scene takes place around a board room table with what is perceived as a senior leadership team trying to figure out how to solve a business problem. Whoever led the creative for the development of this advertisement has spent time, as I have, serving in dysfunctional teams.

For example, one of their more recent TV ads depicts a senior management meeting and the CEO says “what should we do?” And one team member quickly says “we should have a Blame-storming session…I blame Eileen …”

Market “Losers” choose to blame team members verse understanding the problem. Years ago I had a wise business coach and mentor named Bill Clarke who would say “focus on the problem not the person Mark,.. Very rarely do people choose not to perform well (particularly if poor performance adversely affects their income),… people are not broken, processes are…” Market losers and losing teams look quickly for a fall guy, someone to blame so that whatever was just discovered does not attach to them. If Market Losers spent as much time focusing on the real “why” behind the problems they discovered, verse “piling on team members when they have made a mistake”, they would become market leaders and grow profitably.

What makes this commercial connect is I have been in the meetings in which one team member finds a problem in another team members area, and as opposed to constructively trying to help, they “throw the other team member under the bus.” (trust me , I have plenty of tread marks on my back, and will probably have many more in the future)In truly dysfunctional teams other managers pile on. After all if we are playing the blame-storm game, if the focus is on one of my peers then the odds are people will not find nor focus on my shortcomings. (we all have them)

Market” Leaders” are excited when they find problems as they view them as an opportunity to improve. Every uncovered problem is an opportunity to better serve your market through creating a process that overcomes the issue(s) you have discovered. Market leaders have developed a culture deeply rooted in trust, common values, and aligned around a cross functional goal.

Market “Leaders” seek out roadblocks to success and they rally team members to build processes that help their other team members win in the future. Market leading teams have real discussions about topics that matter as they know they are safe to share mistakes and ask for help. Market losers quickly learn to hide mistakes and blame others.

The blame –storm game adds no value to the organization. Those who focus on someone to blame take the easy way out. It takes little skill to find problems in business today. Market losers want to pile on and lead a lynch mob do so in fear that their shortcomings will be discovered. They focus the beam of attention on others in hopes of building their credibility and importance to the organization by pushing others down. Leaders know we gain power by helping team members identify broken processes and creating new procedures that lifts struggling team members up.

 

What kind of organization do you serve? Market leader or market loser?

 

Have you been the victim of “blame-storming”? Did it help?

 

How do you deal with coworkers who try to gain power by pushing others down?

 

Does your culture condone “we eat our young” behavior? How’s that working for you?

Is “fleece throwing” the best way to launch your solution in the marketplace?

I was reading the Bible this morning, and in Judges 6:36-40 is the story of Gideon. A quick review of this story; God called Gideon to fight the Midianites. What we are supposed to do is obey and take action. However Gideon “tossed fleece.” What he did was a test of sorts, to make sure he would win before he went to battle. He said to God:

“If you will save Israel by my hand as you have said Lord, I will put a fleece on the floor overnight. If the dew is on the fleece only and it is dry on the ground, then I shall know you will save Israel by my hand as you have said”

This passage reminded me of product launches I have experienced over the years. When I wrote: Don’t let “FUD” cause you to “soft launch” your next product, I discussed how we let fear, uncertainty, and doubt prevent us from boldly launching our products and solutions into our markets. Gideon had a clear picture of his mission, he had all the power and wisdom of the universe behind him ,but he had doubt and uncertainty.

I have been following the blogs of Dave Daniels as his experience in launching products comes out in each post. What I enjoy most is his fresh “no smoke and mirrors” approach to launching products. I have yet to read how we are supposed to “put our toe into our market and make sure we will win” before we launch with everything we have.

I have lived through some product horrible launches and often I was to blame for poorly executed launches. The product came out of engineering late, sales was not properly trained, and our marketing failed to hit on time. So we soft launched and if the market embraced this new solution then we would do it the right way. Companies spend millions upon millions of dollars on; R&D, team member time (and the opportunity cost considerations of what they could have been doing), marketing campaigns are funded, sales people are trained and yet very few launches receive the attention they deserve. Dave is currently running a poll that I find very interesting that you can participate in at http://polls.linkedin.com/poll-results/43135/blzpm . He asks a very simple question, “Who is responsible for your launch?” I am very interested to see the results. My guess is the results will confirm this critical stage of the product lifecycle is left to chance, and because no one “technically” owns it, the results are predictable.

When I have experienced teams fleece tossing is when they lack confidence in their product or solutions’ benefit to their customer or they have not treated the launch process with the same urgency and discipline they did in writing the business plan, gaining funding, and or development.

The good news for Gideon is the Lord did give him a sign he would be victorious, and what did he do? He tossed another fleece just to be sure….

How about your team, are you boldly launching products or are you tossing fleece with soft launches?

What causes you team not to give launch the same attention the product received in development?

Does someone own your launch?

“Wet your sales team’s shields”… before they go into battle in your marketplace

 

Back in the days of the Roman Empire the warriors would prepare to go to battle by placing on their armor, gathering their weapons, and most importantly carry their shields. Their shields were obviously a tool to protect them in hand-to-hand combat, but also for  arrows shot from far distances where they often did not see the opponent who fired them.

Shields originally were made of wood wrapped tightly with animal hides. Some enemies however understood that shooting flaming arrows into opponents troupes long before hand-to-hand combat was a strong tactic as the outcome was often the destruction of the opponent’s shields. Without a shield the warrior was at a significant disadvantage in combat, and more likely to fall to random arrows fired from afar.

Experienced warriors would wet their shields prior to battle in anticipation of the flaming arrows. In today’s economy, salespeople are now receiving a number of flaming arrows that were not a part of the sales process in prior years.

· Longer sales cycles

 

· More people involved in the buying decision

 

· Need to have a stronger ROI to support the purchase

 

· Higher level executives within the customer’s team now must approve purchases

 

· Headcount reductions , so buyers are busier and more difficult to reach

 

· The internet, buyers now Google for solutions instead of calling their sales rep

 

 

My challenge is what are you doing to help your sales warriors go to battle in this marketplace? Have you created new sales tools to help them “wet their shields” before battle? Some of your competitors may even be equipping their teams with metal shields that not only defend against flaming arrows but also are much more efficient in the day to day hand-to –hand engagements.

 

The reality of today is just hoping the flaming arrows do not connect is not a strategy for success.

 

What new tools has your team created to help your salespeople win?

 

Have you identified the flaming arrows being shot at your sales team today?

 

Do you plan to use this time to move to more efficient tools and processes?

$84 million Greeting Card new product idea for Father’s day? …not so fast

Father’s day is approaching and what do you get the guy who seems to have everything? For my dad it’s pretty easy, although he lives 2,000 miles away we still talk each week and a couple of ideas quickly come to mind. He’s a big fan of the television show 24, and he likes to golf so I went to the store and I quickly found episode three of 24, a golf shirt, and a card that connected to a memory of when he would say” I’m not sleeping, I am just resting my eyes”.

My wife however struggles each year with  father’s day as her parents were divorced when she was very young and she has little if any communication with her dad. Each year she gets frustrated while shopping for a card as they all say things like; “to the best dad in the world”, or “for someone who was always there”. So I offered to find a card for her to send to her dad this year. (How hard could it be?Just go to Target and buy one right?)

I started looking at funny cards, yet they referenced time together. I looked at serious cards; however they expressed a deep message that did not seem appropriate. (Why did I volunteer for this mission?) This was becoming very difficult to find a card that basically says ; “Happy father’s day, although you choose not to be a part of my life I love you unconditionally and I am thinking of you this day, and although you forgot my last birthday, I want to thank you for helping to bring me into this world and it’s never too late to build a relationship”.

Having launched a number of new products over the years, my mind started racing…this is an unresolved market problem: Cards for children who wish to connect with their parents who are absent from their lives. ( I am reminded of the scene from the movie Night Shift when the actor gets out his tape recorder and says…I’m an idea man, for example; stop the garbage problem by having edible paper..yes, I have a tape recorder too)

Then that familiar little voice in my head said; I should start a company to fix this problem…..

Not so fast… does it pass the 3 step acid test discussed in the book Tuned In? Is the problem; urgent, pervasive, and are people willing to pay to have it solved?

Is this an Urgent problem? I would say yes every father’s day, Mother’s day, birthday, and holiday.

Is it pervasive, do a number of people have this problem? Again, I quickly say “yes” as this is a problem for my wife.( and therefore becomes a problem for me) I need to be sure however before I take funds from my home equity it will work. Very quickly I start extrapolating( justifying why I should do this); the divorce rate in the US is around 50%, so this problem could touch ½ the US population. So I remember reading somewhere the US population is around 290 million so ½ would be a potential market size of 145 million, sounds good so far. Not all parents that are divorced are absent from their children’s lives. However I do hear quite a bit in the news about deadbeat dads…so let’s assume 10% of divorced parents are absent from their child’s lives…so the market size is now around 14 million per occurrence, and there are at least three occurrences per year per person

Are people willing to pay to solve this problem? I would say yes again. After all I would pay more than the average cost of a card if it perfectly solved this problem, and I would not have to search so hard for the right card.

So we have an unresolved market problem, as far as I can tell. We have children of absentee parents who wish to communicate with them on special days and holidays. So let’s try to size this opportunity ;(three times per year kids need cards ) X(my market size of 14 million) X (retail price of the card, say $3.00). This would be a nice $84 million business right? Well no, my guess is the gross profit margin Target realizes on greeting cards is around 50%, so now the opportunity is $42 million.I need to write a business plan, go get funding and launch this puppy before anyone else thinks of it….again,maybe.

The above scenario happens to me mentally each day, many times per day as I find unresolved problems. The problems feel urgent, pervasive, and I am willing to pay to solve them…and that’s where most people blow it, because like me you assume and guess without market data.You may very well be willing to pay to solve this problem with a perfect solution designed just for this specific niche, however at this point you really do not know if others would be willing to pay to solve this problem. You really do not know if others feel this problem is as urgent to them, and therefore it may not be nearly as pervasive as you once thought. It may very well be an awesome idea and because we know this problem intimately we would be the perfect person to solve it.

I have helped a number of startups who saw unresolved market problems that were so crystal clear they felt they would be a fool not to launch a solution to solve this problem before someone else did. About 6-8 months into missing their positive cash flow projections they hire me to “fix it”. Sometimes they find problems in markets they know very well. Most of the new companies launched today were started by someone who was working for someone else at the time they discovered a problem. However some entrepreneurs fall into a trap; I’m a pretty smart guy, I have done ——-, and ——-, and I believe I can turn this into a nice business quickly that I can then sell to a market leader for millions, buy matching Bentley’s and never have a care in the world again…right? Again, Maybe…

I did a little research not long ago and found that at any given time 6 out of 10 US adults are thinking about starting their own business. The disturbing statistic was the majority, between 80-90% who do launch a new business fail within 18 months. Why? They launch without a thorough understanding of the market, they lack a business plan, and grossly underestimate the cash needed to build and grow the business.Of those that fail, 50% declare bankruptcy.

There are a number of great on line tools for how to write a business plan. You can Google “how to write a business plan” and you will find sites like; My own Business, and many others. Before anyone takes equity out of their home, or borrows from their 401K or loved ones I highly recommend you do research and write a business plan. When you write a plan, you will be forced to answer hard questions, and you will need to go into the market and do research and not just rely on your gut and mental extrapolations of market size. Based on my experience,when you estimate the cost to start your business pad it by +25%, and when you estimate your timeframe to positive cash flow add 8 months to your forecast. You still in the game?

You may vary well have the next great new product, and when you complete market research and build a business plan you may validate that opportunity. Once the plan is written show it to at least 5 trusted advisors and ask their opinion of the opportunity. Ask them if they would loan you the money to start this business and listen to what they say.(many will say it’s a great idea as to not hurt your feelings, however the true test is would they back it with their checkbook?) If these advisors say you have a winner, meet with a number of people who would be representative of your buyer persona and ask their opinion of your solution. What you must determine is ;does your solution perfectly solve their problem? In addition, you will be asked to create a SWOT analysis for your plan. In doing so make sure and review competitors in the space, as well as competitors adjacent to the space you wish to participate in. In this case I would be up against American Greeting and Hallmark to name a few. Far too often entrepreneurs launch great solutions to unresolved market problems but they underestimate competitors already in the space, or adjacent to the space.

If you find an unresolved market problem, and you find the problem to be pervasive and buyers are willing to pay to solve it, do yourself a favor and do some additional research and write a business plan.

Oh, and as for my hunt that became a three hour quest to find a father’s day card for my father in law…the card pictured worked just fine. Was it a perfect solution…no, but it will do.

Do you need to “Detox“ your business before it can hit your goals?

About twelve weeks ago I had a wakeup call. I had my regular check up with my doctor and he informed me I needed to have a prescription for high blood pressure. It seems my blood pressure was dangerously high and if not addressed could lead to a stroke or heart attack. I am not a big fan of taking medication that addresses the symptom and not the cause, so I asked the doctor what I should do. He reviewed my folder and looked me square in the eye and said “you need to lose weight, I don’t know if you realize it but over the last seven years you have gained over 50 lbs…loosing this weight would be a great start.” What the doctor did not know was that I was working out three times per week but just couldn’t lose the weight this time.

A friend had a noticeable weight loss (70lbs) recently so I asked Dave what was his secret? Without hesitation he said “Medifast” and he gave me the phone number of their local office. When I met the counselor she started by asking me a number of questions, taking my blood pressure and handing me a prescription for blood work I needed to have done at a local clinic. The counselor then explained the weight loss process will begin with a week of “detox” .

Instantly my mind raced and I became apprehensive and anxious. I thought of the infomercials from television about detox programs and how John Wayne was supposed to have had over 20lbs of undigested toxins in his system when he died. I started to worry about the process and how uncomfortable it probably would be.

The counselor obviously has seen the look I now had on my face before, so she started to educate me about how our bodies work. Our bodies were designed to be amazing efficient machines. We are designed to consume food that contains essential vitamins and minerals to keep us alive and full of energy. What happens through poor food choices, stress, and bad lifestyle choices is we accumulate toxins over time. Toxins significantly impair the efficiency our bodies were meant to operate in. Toxins surround fat cells and if left unchecked, prevent our bodies from metabolizing stored fat for energy. One result is we consume more food and do not burn the stored energy reserves as we were designed, and coupled with inactivity we gain weight.

When we detox our bodies we help clean out accumulated toxins and bring our bodies back to the efficiency we were designed for. In addition to now accessing fat cells for energy, your body will absorb vitamins and nutrients as is was designed and need to eat less.

Since starting the program with the m’lis suppliments eight weeks ago, I have lost just over 30 lbs and I have noticeably more energy, I’m wearing clothes I have not worn in years, and most importantly I no longer need to have a prescription for high blood pressure. The detox process prepared me, my body, to achieve my desired goals.

As I went through the week of detox it made me reflect how a number of the businesses I have helped over the years needed to detox before I could truly help them. Businesses accumulate toxins and by not actively participating in their markets they lose their effectiveness and become sluggish. They find their gut and intuition is not producing desired results. As I reflect about the process I have used to help companies over the years I noticed they often followed a predictable series of steps;

1. They ask for help, something is off; a missed goal, poor performance of key indicators…, they learn what it would take in commitment, time, cost, and they postpone or choose not to change…live with it hoping the problem, the pain, goes away on its own

2. Wake up call, something happens; having to use their line of credit to make payroll, they lose a key account (or two), a competitor launches an amazing new product that obsoletes their cash cow, poor EBITDA, or the board gives the leaders a timeline for improvement.

3. They commit to change

4. We go into their market, find out why people do business with them, find out why others do not, and gain the markets’ perception of what this company does and does not do.

5. Discover market problems no one is solving

6. If the business has a solution that solves unresolved problems, reposition it in the markets’ voice based on the problems this product or solution solves

 

7. Identify roadblocks, how easy or hard is it for your clients to do business with you? Identify the “flaming hoops “customers need to jump through, and tear them down

8. Detox- the entire team, flush all the old , dated , beliefs and clean the business from within of all the roadblocks preventing the efficient absorption of revenues and profits. One area that grows fat and becomes less effective is often marketing. I discussed this in my post; “Skubala” Marketing. Sometimes it is actually team members we need to deter as Art Petty identified in his blog post Detoxing Your Team.

9. Create new product solutions if your current offering does not solve the unresolved problems you discover

10. Collect testimonials of clients, in their words ( do not “marcom” their words) that describe the problem they had and how your product solved it

11. Tell, tell everyone in the market the problems you solve

12. Start absorbing the new revenues of a healthy business

13. Plan to detox your business frequently as markets change

If your business is not healthy today, you are not alone. The current economic condition was a wakeup call for a number of businesses. As Kristen Zhivago identifies in her blog post Bravery and your Revenue, it takes a brave CEO to operate in the “beyond the call” mode. For a number of teams they learned their business was not as healthy as it outwardly appeared in good economic times, times when the phone just seemed to ring and they were in call mode. Good economic times do not push us, stress us, and test the overall health of our business. Just as a stress test or a blood pressure cuff can provide an early warning to a potentially fatal problem in the future, tough economic conditions show us the weak points, the kinks in our corporate armor that must be improved.

The majority of the teams I have worked with needed to detox, flush their old beliefs, and inside out perceptions ,processes, and their “company speak” prior to being positioned for explosive growth. The most common way of detoxing your business is to seek the truth. You find truth in your market asking questions , not sitting around board tables starting sentences with; “I think” or my personal favorite “ when I ran _____( you fill in the blank) 10 years ago we …..” That probably worked great 10 years ago and that is why you now hold a leadership role. But guess what, the market has changed! Once the business completes the detox process they are positioned to become healthy, and ultimately a market leader in their space.

If you cheat and try to cut corners, not flush all the toxins from your business you will only postpone your future profits and shareholder value. If you don’t flush the dated perceptions, non contributing team members, policies and procedures that serve your team, but feel like flaming hoops to jump through for your customers, your business will remain inefficient, ineffective and could, if left untreated …die.

So do me a favor, start detoxing your business today and your team will become more efficient, effective and ultimately a market leader. Market leaders have higher gross profits, grow 2X that of competitors, have higher morale, and valued higher.

Most competitors will choose to be lazy and keep carrying around the dead weight of old assumptions that suck the life out of their growth, profitability, and their market value as an organization.

A couple of questions for you:

What Toxins has your business accumulated over the years?

What symptoms have you seen over the last nine months that were a wakeup call for you and your team?

If you choose not to detox, what is the reason? What are you afraid of?

Do you have team members that need to be detoxed?

How healthy is your bottom line?

The Leadership “Two Step” … how well do you score?

How do you know if you are an effective leader?

There are two quick steps to determine if you truly are a leader;

1. Check to see if you have willing followers

2. Take a look at the shadow you cast

 

The first one is pretty easy, and often very obvious if you take the time to look. Do you have people willingly following you? I say “willingly “because I am not referring to employees who do what they are asked to do, but team members who choose to follow you and believe in your vision. Guess what, if you do not have any followers…you’re not a leader and you can quit reading now.

So you have people following you, but are you effective as a leader? The second question may take a bit longer reflection time. I was taught early in my career that leaders must be intentional about the shadow they cast. Your shadow will speak volumes over what you say to your team. As a leader you must be intentional about the shadow you cast…after all EVERYONE is watching! Ineffective leaders do not walk the talk and are not aware and or do not care about the shadow they cast.

If we are to be intentional about the shadow we cast, what are some common characteristics of true leaders? Below are my top 10 favorite leadership characteristics;

1. They gain power through lifting others up, not by pushing them down

2. They focus on problems ( road blocks), not people

3. They delegate authority to team members closest to the problem

4. They ask what is best for the overall organization, not the CEO, owners or employees

5. They personally take ownership of risky strategies

6. They describe a clear destination and share the flight plan to get there with mile markers along the way

7. They do not delegate the “hard stuff”

8. They are accountable , they own their decisions and do not look for fall guys if things go wrong

9. They are humble

10. They focus on what’s working, verse what’s broken

 

How about you, what are some of the characteristics you look for in a leader?

What are some characteristics you see that you cannot work for?

Do you report to someone, what does their shadow look like relative to the above 10 characteristics?

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