Happy Sunday Everyone:
I’ve been focused on a few concepts the past 30 days.
- Take control of my life-It’s a simple and liberating concept. Journaling every day on what that looks like for me has been great. http://www.sundaythoughts.com/2023/05/
- The perfect week-What the perfect week looks like based on my life’s priorities and making sure my calendar is a reflection of my life’s priorities. I love the quote from Ed Mylett-“show me your calendar and I’ll show you your life”. Having a plan to review this weekly with our team and making sure my calendar is in alignment with everything I need to be focused on in my life has been liberating.
- My value-My good friend & past student hearing the words from a business partner “you’re not as valuable to me as you think you are”, has caused some serious reflection with our team on “our value”.
When I blend these concepts together, I end up in a very good place, which is where I find myself today. Intentionally satisfied, focused on delayed vs. instant gratification, and working toward the things that are good vs. easy. These are tag lines from previous sunday thoughts but that’s why I write them….helps me process the thoughts into actions.
Back to “my value”. I’ve been coaching on this concept the past month. I’m asking my students to think through, work with their teams, write down, “what is your value”. Many of the responses are proof this is an exercise that needs work. I’m not going to use this to go through “our value” but it’s around communication, process, intelligence, accountability, attention to detail, reputation, and product offerings. I can take those words and drill down from 30,000 feet, to 100 feet…but still need to work on getting it to 1 foot. This is all good, and if you’re not doing these types of exercises by yourself or with your team, I’m not sure how you survive this environment. With that said-the bigger question is how do you know? How do you know if your perception of your value is actually valuable in the eyes of your clients/business partners? I was on a coaching call last week discussing one of my students “value”. He kept talking about his value, about 3 minutes in i told him he talks too much (he’s one of my favorites). It occured to me at that moment how many of us are talking about our value vs. listening for clues on it.
I’ve discussed interviewing Matt Weaver (top unit producer in the country). He spends 30 minutes a day in “think time” figuring out how to make his business partners business more successful. I asked him “how do you know when things you’re exploring are working”…simple response. FEEDBACK. It’s like “DUH”. Since that interview I’ve had our team on high alert on feedback. We need to review the instant feedback and create processes around what is working, and making sure we stop what isn’t working. An example-a few years ago I implemented “compliment by email, solve problems by phone” i.e., you never email a client a problem, we explain by phone, we document resolution by email. We sent out brownies for two years on every pre-approval, never got a response, STOP. Send out customized water bottles (their names, not ours) on pre-approval, people respond every time, make it a process! Listen for compliment and do more of what created the compliment. I told our team, “i don’t view it as you bragging to me if someone gives you a compliment, i want to know every situation when we’re getting feedback, good or bad”. The positive feedback is the bridge between your perception of your value and the actuality of it. The negative feedback is the warning signs your off course and need to recalibrate.
What I’m trying to explain more than anything is that the real feedback is natural. It’s listening for signs and clues, it’s having the emotional intelligence to gauge what someone is telling you. You might take it as a brag, I take it as progress, our team had our 3rd best May ever and had a great lock week last week. I believe there is a direct correlation to this uptick in business and us being intentional of doing more of what clients are naturally telling us is working. We’re also having more fun.
Hope this make sense. Have a great rest of your Sunday!