If you were asked, “What kind of manager are you?” Would you know the answer? Would you say, “I’m a great one!” If so, kudos, but what makes you a “great one?”
During my coaching sessions with business owners, I try to uncover their unique management aka leadership style. Why? Because their style can either add to, or detract from, the successes their company achieves.
Here are the three most prevalent styles I’ve come across. Do you fit into any of these?
Mr. Know It All and Has To Do It All. As a manager, chances are you either work with employees or outside vendors and if this is the case, do you let them do their jobs or do you have to be involved in and sign off on everything they do? If you are this type of manager, chances are you are not letting the people you’ve hired for their expertise do their jobs. If you’ve hired well, you don’t need to be the Know It All.
Mr. Micromanager. This is almost the same as the Know It All but even more controlling. You need to be involved in every single step and every single decision that is made. You don’t empower your people to do the tasks for which they were hired. Eventually they will start second guessing everything and eventually you will be overwhelmed by all you “have” to do simply because you took on the roll of micromanager.
Mr. We Can’t Find You When We Need Help. Just as there are those bosses that are overly involved there are those that are so laid back that employees can’t reach you when they need a decision or you simply say, “do what you think’s best.” Giving everyone free reign can lead to big issues.
Being an effective manager means not only knowing yourself but knowing your management style and changing it if necessary. Who are you?
I’ve been doing quite a bit of public speaking lately — in addition to attending many networking events and seminars. I find that some of the individuals are fantastic speakers while others are clearly nervous. What is the differentiator? I believe it’s in the preparation for the speaking gig.
Here are somethings I’ve discovered that help make me, and could help make you, a better, more poised public speaker:
Know the audience. While you won’t individually know who the audience members are, ask the organizers to let you know what the attendees are interested in. What are their fields of expertise. Once you know this nugget of information you can make sure your speech will have talking points that will speak to them.
Engage the audience. Ask questions. Make eye contact. Walk around the stage rather than stand behind a podium. Make sure you tell a story to help the audience know who you are, what you do and more importantly why you do it.
Make sure your slides or other visuals do not give all of the information you’re speaking about. You don’t want the audience spending their time taking notes rather than listening to you. Use your slides as talking points and build from the bullet point that you share with the audience.
Once the speech is over, take time to answer questions or expand upon something you’ve said that may have struck a chord with the audience. Take time to stop and shake some hands and “get to know” some of the people who have attended.
Don’t forget to thank the organizers that invited you to speak and follow up with them after the event to see how well received your information was and if they want to invite you back!
Do you have speaking as part of the services you offer? Do you feel confident as a speaker? If not, give me a call!
In an ideal world your clients would provide word of mouth referrals to their friends or business associates and your phone would ring non-stop and you’d be set for all of the business you can handle. In the real world though there are times when your phone just doesn’t ring and clients aren’t calling you back. Why is that? There are many reasons but it could be that you need to put in place a better system of following up and continually marketing your business.
Here are my steps to connecting with prospective clients and to having my phone ring:
Schedule time for follow ups. If you meet someone at a networking event, set a time right then and there to follow up with him. Make sure you keep that appointment. Also, make time in your weekly calendar for your follow up calls and contacts. If you don’t schedule it, it won’t happen.
Send a thank you note. I realize that “everything is on the internet” and that is part of the reason a follow up thank you note is powerful. When is the last time you received a piece of physical mail that thanked you for something? Probably not very recently. Send a post card with your business name or logo on it and viola you’ve not only thanked the customer, you’ve had your name “out there” with the delivery people.
Make sure your follow up goals are realistic. Can you honestly follow up with two dozen people in a day? Not likely unless you’re willing to sacrifice an entire day of running your business to do it. Aim for a half a dozen or set aside two hours a day to make follow up calls and do as many in that time as you can. Don’t make the task insurmountable.
What are your follow up methods? Do they get your phone ringing?
