Be Different or be dead

July 6, 2020

7 outstanding things to look for in a great mentor

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7 outstanding things to look for in a great mentor.

As a young professional, one of your main challenges is to find a mentor who can guide you in your career.

It’s virtually impossible to launch and navigate your career in this complicated world and make the right decisions without insights from someone with experience who can help you maximize your potential.
It’s a tough challenge; the right choice can accelerate your success and the wrong choice can hold you back. What’s the best way forward?

The ‘mentor market’ is burgeoning with many people promulgating a variety of ideas on what it takes to have a successful career; the airwaves are cluttered with opinions and advice. Subject-matter experts abound on every topic.

Given this message barrage, to whom do you listen? Who do you believe? Who do you trust? Who do you follow? In whom do you invest your time?
And how do you recognize when someone is blowing smoke at you and feeding their own ego rather than providing you with quality advice?

The reality that young people face is that those with impressive academic pedigrees seem to get the attention and respect that appeals to those seeking career guidance.
Professionals who publish papers, give expert seminars and write books get tagged as good mentor material, so naturally you look to them for help.

I urge young professionals to be wary of these common types of mentors.

Amazing mentors are not found in the halls of academia and publishing but in the trenches of organizations where the work actually gets done and results get delivered.

#1. Find a mentor who has done stuff

My counsel is to find and listen to people who have had a rich and long career of actually doing stuff – lots of stuff – and who have demonstrated achievements in the areas that intrigue you.

If your ambition, for example, is marketing, find a marketing practitioner who has a strong track record of achievement in implementing new products, launching successful advertising programs and managing pricing in a highly competitive marketplace.

And shy away from marketing pundits that may be knowledgeable in marketing theory but lack the credentials in applying what they know.
Theory and academic principles are not trustworthy beacons for what works and what doesn’t work in the real world, which is replete with bias, uncertainty and unpredictability. Just because theory says it is the right thing to do doesn’t mean it will work – there are simply too many variables in play.

#2. Find a person who has a doctorate in messiness

Find people who have implemented successful strategies in an environment of organizational politics, cultural impediments and the wars of competition — where achieving anything worthwhile is messy, inelegant and often painful.
It’s not always easy to find these individuals to recruit as mentors because they are always heads-down in the swamp getting things done and not always receiving public acknowledgment and recognition.

Look for the people who have learned that a minor portion of theory with a major dose of practicality is the formula for success.

#3. Discover operators not thinkers

Find your way into groups of operations leaders in your organization and get insights on individuals they admire and respect because of what they’ve achieved; find people with a different type of MBA experience — ‘masters in business achievement’.

#4. Let frontline people guide you

Talk to frontline people about who they think are effective at getting stuff done. People engaged in execution are in a great position to identify supervisors and managers who excelled at supporting the execution process.

#5. Look to small business leaders

These people have to achieve things everyday to stay alive, so they are excellent mentor candidates. Find a successful small business and you will have, in its leader, a prime prospect.

Develop relationships with associations such as boards of trade whose members are typically small-business leaders and whose daily bread is produced by what they do, not by what they plan. Focus on members who get media recognition because of their consistent, sterling results.

#6. Find a failure

Rarely does a plan turn out the way it was originally conceived. Unpredictable events come into play which renders your original intent unachievable, so it’s mandatory to take an alternative course and salvage what you can to still describe your plan as a success. So what you need in a mentor is someone who has experience in failing and recovering from the ‘body blow’ they took.

The guidance you will receive from individuals who have failed a few times will be invaluable. The media is a good source to discover business failures and the people who were involved. Failures rarely happen because the idea was completely worthless; they happen because a brave idea could not be implemented for reasons beyond their control.

#7. Study execution cultures

Research other organizations and find those that have a culture of execution rather than one that tends to a lot of discussion and thinks that knowledge alone will produce brilliant results. Probe for leaders who have achieved noteworthy results and who may not be spectacular on the ‘know’ factor but are accomplished on the ‘do’ scale.

Doing it is 10 times better than talking about it, and I suggest you find a mentor that walks that talk.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 7.6.20 at 06:56 am by Roy Osing
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June 29, 2020

8 proven ways to quickly and easily grow your business

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8 proven ways to quickly and easily grow your business.

Sources of growth the fast-and-easy way.

As a small business you are generally limited in terms of resources; cash reserves can get depleted, customers can dwindle in numbers and growth in your business is difficult to achieve — in fact in the COVID world, survival is your prime objective.

Here’s a quick way you can get your business back on the growth path.

Set the context for growth by a quick review of your business strategy — Survival and growth should be a function of what overall direction you want to follow based on your basic business.

Take a moment to review the business plan that has worked for you in the past; decide if you want to stay your course or if deviating from it is necessary given the new circumstances you face. It’s ok to make a change; your survival is at stake. And you just may find a new opportunity for your business in the post-pandemic era.

Dumb it down — Keep your approach simple; quick and easy sales is your objective with as little risk and investment as possible. Figure it out on the back of an envelope; it doesn’t have to be fancy just fast.
What demand seems to be there at this moment and how can you morph your basic business to take advantage of it? What assets for you have that can be used for a different purpose?

Some organizations with unused warehouse space launched manufacturing of personal protective equipment when things went sideways. Can you do a similar approach?
Decide how much revenue you need — Calculate how much revenue you need over what timeframe to turn the corner. Have a specific growth target and make it about top line revenue.

Even though the intent is to keep it simple and move fast, it’s important that you know approximately how many sales (and at what price points) you need so you can track your short term performance. You need to know if you’re making progress or not.

Declare your objective and be ok with not knowing how specifically to achieve it. Use ‘I don’t know’ to drive creativity and get your juices flowing.

Be short sighted — Look at short term performance; you don’t really have the luxury of looking far out into the future. Normally I would be recommending a planning horizon of not more than 24 months, however as I’m writing this piece three months into the COVID-19 era I’m now of the opinion that small businesses — no, all businesses — should be looking at what they need to do over the next 24 hours to achieve survival grade performance.

The shorter the planning period the more you have to execute to survive

Be clear on who you need to target — In the midst of chaos it’s really easy to start running all over and chasing opportunities. I’m not saying this is necessarily bad as long as it’s focused on customers you know have the potential to generate the sales you need to keep on breathing.

The easiest growth is achieved from the customers who buy from you repeatedly and often.
You should know who they are when they phone in an order or order something online; if you don’t, start capturing customer information ASAP so you can do everything possible to encourage them to return.

Organic growth is best achieved through the loyal customers you currently serve. Focus on THEM. Trust that with the right value proposition they will do more business with you and tell their friends and family.
Forget about trying to get new customers. If you happen to get some from word-of-mouth that’s ok but don’t try to be proactive. It’s time consuming, risky and takes your eyes off serving your existing base extremely well.

Think ‘fast-and-easy’ — An effective way to choose customers to target is what I call the fast-and-easy method.

It means choosing customers that:

Can be sold quickly — Customers you can get to fast with your current selling methods. If you have to build new sales channels, it will consume energy and precious time that you can ill afford without generating additional revenue.

In addition, as I’ve said elsewhere, it is critical to focus your efforts on the things that matter; those activities that you believe have a good chance at helping to grow your business.

Stick with what you know. Bear down on what you’re good at. Concentrate on customers you know. Ask yourself ‘Is this consistent with fast-and-easy?’ when considering chasing new stuff.

Are ‘close to home’ — In a geographic sense, explore the territory immediately around you before trying to exploit distant ones. If you have a good online presence, stay with the market focus you have.
Exploring new virtual or physical markets — probably with the need to establish new sales channels— can gobble up your time with questionable short term results.

Penetrate and dominate your current markets before you wander afar. This is an area where I’ve seen small business leaders fall flat on their face. They spot something new to do that is interesting and at least theoretically is a good idea and they decide to chase it, reducing the energy that is applied to fast-and-easy activities. They lose on both accounts: the new stuff doesn’t materialize and the current stuff suffers.

The fast-and-easy approach: get sales fast and don’t spend much time to get them.

Don’t need much selling — Where closing a sale can occur relatively quickly and revenue realized soon thereafter. An opportunity requiring a 12-month sales cycle won’t be terribly productive when you are in the survival mode.
Work with clients who will give you revenue tomorrow if you want to hit your sales targets.

And avoid customers who ask for proposals. Responding to the request and waiting for a decision will gobble up precious time you don’t have. The formal sales process is a time consumer; focus on people who are willing to deal you their business based on trust and past success with you.                         

Can give you quality referrals — Again, a short planning period requires closing as many high value deals as possible which generally means getting to deal closure without a lengthy sales preamble. High quality referrals should mean that your brand comes recommended and you can get to the solution presentation quickly.

Just do a few things — It’s critical to focus on doing the right one or two things that will kick in with sales; trying to do too much won’t work. You don’t have the resources or working cycles to pull it off. The secret is to pick a few critical objectives that you believe will give you an 80% chance of hitting your sales needs.

Avoid brainstorming as the way of setting priorities; if an action cannot be directly aligned with generating revenue from your loyal customer base, don’t chase it!

Stop! — It goes without saying that you can’t keep doing stuff that was part of your ‘yesterday’ unless you are absolutely confident it will make the survival sales you need.
Every time you’re tempted to do a comfortable ‘yesterday’ activity, stop and ask yourself whether it is necessary to meet your 24-hour sales goals.
You can’t afford to do unproductive things when you’re fighting for your life.

Yesterday’s relevance is today’s irrelevance.

Know where you are — Measure progress regularly to know if you are on track to hit your survival sales objectives or not. COVID has changed the meaning of time in this regard; you have to know literally every day where you stand. It’s the only way you will know if you have to change your plans on the run.
Pandemic notwithstanding, it takes discipline to grow your business; it doesn’t happen by serendipity.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 6.29.20 at 03:34 am by Roy Osing
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June 28, 2020

Why excellent leaders don’t walk around, they ‘serve’ around

Source: Pexels

Why excellent leaders don’t walk around, they ‘serve’ around.

‘Serving around’ leadership is replacing ‘walking around’ as the most effective way to lead others.

Tom Peters has always been an advocate of managing by wandering around (MBWA) as a tool for managers to promote excellence in their organization.

I’m a fan of MBWA but I think the idea needs to be refreshed and more directly connected to the principle of serving and servant leadership. I think the principle of leadership by serving around (LBSA) is more relevant in terms of the role we need leaders to play.

MBWA needs a purpose for it to be strategically effective.

Its not about aimlessly wandering around chatting people up and listening to their issues. Rather its about exploring the nooks and cranny’s of the organization looking for an opportunity to serve people in ways that will enable the organization’s strategic game plan to be executed.

What does LBSA look like?

—leaders wander with the objective of spotting a serving moment. An opportunity to SERVE someone. To help them in some way that will allow them to get on with their job more easily.
Removing roadblocks. Bashing barriers. Destroying Dumb Rules. Enabling people to do what they know is required to do a good job.

—leaders allocate significant calendar time to this ritual. You can’t spot a serving moment if you are in your office. Get the hell out of it and do something strategic!

—LISTENING.

—LISTENING.

—LISTENING.

—Leaders serve well by receiving information, processing it and then acting on it. The process begins with really listening.

—INTERRUPTING is verboten. Give people time to tell their story. Allow them freedom to express their issues on their terms.

—ASKING QUESTIONS is the tool the leader uses to understand, to engage and to connect with the individual in the discussion.
They question relentlessly until the leader is satisfied they clearly understand the matter being raised by the employee.

—the specific question “How can I help?” is the theme of the conversation.

Leadership success depends on moving beyond MBWA to LBSA

It is a critical strategic change that leaders must make.

Business plan execution depends on it.

Frontline success depends on it.

What else is more important?

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 6.28.20 at 12:00 pm by Roy Osing
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June 27, 2020

How women can be the best advocate for themselves and win at work

How women can be the best advocate for themselves and win at work.

It can be hard to navigate tricky situations at work, especially for women. Caught in the balance between wanting to be likeable and wanting to move ahead, it’s sometimes easier to put your feelings and needs on the backburner.

The truth is: we spend a lot of time at work. So it’s important that we cultivate an environment where we feel empowered, heard and seen without starting conflict.

One way to start down this path is to learn to speak up for yourself firmly but with understanding.

It’s always important to rehearse your input, speak calmly and clearly, and be direct with your feelings and needs.

Check out this infographic on how to self-advocate in the office.

— Emily Gibson is a content creator for Bestow. When she’s not typing away at a computer, you can find her hiking with her dog or watching live music.

• Posted 6.27.20 at 05:23 am by Roy Osing
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