Healthy Confront: The Path to Business Teamwork

By Bret | Published: May 17, 2012
Healthy Confront: The Path to Business Teamwork

Don’t stick your head in the sand!

Seems a bit off to say that confronting someone can lead to a path of great business teamwork, right?

This is where many people and companies go astray.  Having a high degree of respectful confront is one of the healthiest attributes any small business or organization can have.  In small business coaching and helping entrepreneurs, I’ve taken this lesson from home -being a husband, father, and friend.

Your relationship with anyone will be more genuine and have more ability to accomplish almost anything if you are willing to embrace confrontation.  Confrontation does not have to lead to adversarial and “make-wrong” differences.  It is simply two or more intelligent human beings delivering a difference of perspectives based on experiences, education, and feelings of any situation or matter.  People definitely see things differently and that’s a great thing.  Use the intellect and experiences of those people to make decisions that are sound due to more input.

The key here, especially in small business, is to get everyone on the same page and pulling in the same direction.  Everyone must agree after a decision is made, to go out into the workplace and work towards the fulfillment of the decision, even if he or she did not agree in the first place.  This is a team.  This also leads to attainment of goals and ultimate team and company success.

The saying  “agree to disagree” is true.  And whether it’s your spouse or your business, know that the more input via healthy confront you can get, the better off you will be, ultimately.  No one likes to be brought down by disagreement and when we learn to live with it and know it is not personal, the better off we will be, in life and in business.  We may soon come to enjoy it, if it leads to better outcomes.

Learn to confront others in a healthy manner.  By that, I mean in a manner that does not make him or her wrong for their opinion.  This will lead to further openings for more and better communication in the future.

Don’t make things personal.  Stick to the facts and to the business at hand.  Once decisions are reached, get agreement on tasks and make sure everyone involved is agreeing to head down the same path – have a plan that everyone sticks to, even those who may not have agreed at the start.

Don’t stick your head in the sand!

The degree to which anything or anyone is successful is directly related to the degree of confront that can be reached.  Get to high levels of healthy confront, and success will be on your heels.

Remember:  Go BIG, make a difference in someone’s life today, and don’t get out-worked or out-smarted, even if there’s more talent out there.

If you are struggling with company politics, we offer a free strategy session that can empower your management team and get the ranks all working together. Learn more about our Team Training.

Love to hear your thoughts.

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Interested vs. Interesting: How to Increase Sale and Grow Your Business

By Bret | Published: May 10, 2012
Interested vs. Interesting

Increase Sale and Grow Your Business

I seem to have this talk, “Interested vs. Interesting”, approximately once per week with a small business coaching client, some new-found entrepreneur or one of my children.  This past week the topic came up with a small business owner and my son on the same day.

Throughout our lives we accumulate all this knowledge and data. The older and more experienced we get, the more we have to share.  The usual action people take is share, share, and share some more.  The “way” of those people is to be interesting.

It may seem fun to let others know all about what you know…and at the same time, it can be tiresome and grating on people.  Have you ever been somewhere – eating with the “interesting” type at a restaurant  – and felt trapped by the nausea of having to hear, non-stop, about someone’s life, their troubles, trials, successes, and more?  How does that feel?

Now, flip the coin over and think about how it feels when someone you have just met, or even someone you know, asks all about you.  They seem to have a never-ending supply of questions and just seem so interested in you, your interests, your family and more.

Which one of these people do you like more?  Which one do you gravitate towards?  Sure, the “interested” one.

My son has a new lawnmower to go along with his lawn mowing business.  He likes to talk it up and he is now learning to “ask it up” instead.  He finds the knowledge he can gain from experienced people is valuable and that’s what he gets (knowledge and value) when he becomes interested and asks questions.  It also allows him, as a small business owner, to gain insight on what his clients want and need.

It’s the same for you.  As a coach of entrepreneurs I say, “Be interested”.   Sales will increase, business growth will occur, the quality of your products will increase and more – all directly related to being more interested.

Was that some good and complementary small business coaching?   Hit the comment section below and let us know.

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Fostering Leaders: Raising Successful Children

By Bret | Published: May 9, 2012

Bret Snyder is a monthly writer for Montana Parent Magazine.  Enjoy his May article entitled “Fostering Leaders” on page 66.

Montana Parent Magazine

Montana Parent Magazine

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Because… or Be the Cause. Perspective on the Question: “How do I Empower Myself?”

By Bret | Published: May 2, 2012

Because… or Be the Cause

Everyone has most likely heard and gone over the age-old adage of “cause and effect”.  I was probably in grade school when I first heard it and I remember studying actions and reactions, cause and effect in high school physics. I also have a family member who sticks to the ol’ “cause and effect” saying and applies it to his work and much of his life.

I was reading a blog by Michael Hyatt this past week; he was talking about the fact that you choose the directions in your life. It made me think back to the subject of cause and effect, and to a business coach and mentor of mine from the past. He once explained how people give away their personal power with the word “because”.  He also helped me break the word down to its two root words, “be” and “cause”.  The point was that someone or something was “being the cause” over making something else happen.

In business consulting and coaching, I run into clients quite often who are having trouble in the People Segment of their business – sometimes with personnel, other times with vendors or even clients. I advise them to beware of the person who frequently uses the word “because”.  That person is giving away his or her personal power to someone or something by letting others or things take power over their life.  How about the employee who’s late “because of the traffic”, or not productive “because he’s tired and staying up too late”?

In today’s world, both society and certain business climates let us know it’s OK to be at the effect of someone or something else. Is it really? At the end of the day, you and I are the only ones who are responsible for our current status and conditions, based on our own choices.

Take the POWER back and be responsible! Know that you are in the position you are BECAUSE of you, and not because of anything or anyone else. There’s another old adage that comes to mind here: “You made your bed, now you lie in it”. Whether or not my business is successful or failing, whether my relationship with my wife and children is good or bad, whether my position with business associates is poor or healthy, or anything else I look at in my life – these things are all on me. There are certain things I would consider out of my control and my refusal to let those things get me down, confuse or confound me, or affect me as a whole, are all my own doing and way of looking at things.

For more about how to be a CAUSE over your own life, contact us and look at our new book on creating your life vision.

Until next time – go BIG, make a difference, and remember, no one should be working smarter or harder than you!

 

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What’s Going to Happen Next in Your World?

By Bret | Published: April 26, 2012

What’s Going to Happen Next in Your World?

Do you ever wonder what will be happening next in your world? As hard as you work towards something, use positive mental imaging and practice good living and goal achievement, there are still variables out of your control. Most of those center on other people and their interests, directions, and how they are related to you and what you are up to.

It’s not much different in the world of business coaching, consulting, and leadership. As much as I move with intention and purpose, there are factors that I cannot fully control. There are also new realizations and cognitions that come to me all the time – probably not much different than you.

Last November I was starting to think about my goals for 2012 and it hit me that I wanted to share what I had discovered and developed at Square Seven with entrepreneurs, small business owners, and even back to my career profession of real estate professionals. The issue was that these smaller businesses would be hard pressed to afford my past one-on-one business coaching model. I then decided 2012 would be dedicated to reaching those smaller businesses on a scalable system.

The question was: how can I deliver something to you that I normally charge between $3,000 -$6,000 per month for? So…for the past six months I’ve been toiling away on the perfect system to get a model to all of you at an affordable price that over-delivers in value.

I’ve brought together a team of experts and if all goes well over the next week, we will be bringing it all together and unveiling the new website and system.

The website and formatting team are putting the finishing touches on everything and running over the final testing this week. The next time I write here, we should have everything ready to go and online.

Hint: There are even bigger and greater things on the horizons…like you, we just may not know what they all are yet!

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How Much Do You Want It?

By Bret | Published: April 18, 2012

How Much Do You Want It?

I coach all kinds of people in all kinds of industries. And I coach baseball players – a bunch of fantastic medium sized people whose age is 11 this year. My profession includes real estate consulting, small business coaching, life coaching of entrepreneurs and more.

In with all of this is the fact that I cannot want your success more than you do. If I do, you/we are doomed and relegated to failure from the start. However, it is you that defines your success – status, being of service, real estate sales, functional and empowered employees, or contributing children – you’ve got to WANT it more than anything else.

When you want it and there’s no stone you will leave unturned to get it, you will attain it. Your mind and body will start down the path of attainment as soon as you choose your quest to be that important.

I got a call from a parent of one of my baseball players today. He’s quitting. Actually, I think the player wants to stay on and he’s made great progress this year and has a bunch of friends on the team. I really came to the conclusion – as I was at first, very upset – that I wanted his success more than his folks did. Right there I got freed up and realized I was doomed (and so was he) if I wanted it more than they did. Now I can let it go.

I got a call from a real estate broker and small business owner last week too – he wants to hit certain marks and capture a high real estate market share in a small southwest Montana city. We laid out a plan and he’s already checked off the first three most important tasks on his way to attaining this goal. He wants it more than anyone – that’s a good sign!

To get what you want, you will need to want it a lot!

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Act On It!

By Bret | Published: April 12, 2012

"American small businesses were built by people who 'acted on it'."

A young man sat in my office yesterday who is graduating from Montana State University and its film school within the next couple of weeks.  We recently put out a call to interview interns interested in videotaping segments for BretSnyder.biz, SquareSeven.biz, and a new baseball training website we are looking into.

I asked him how the process worked and if it work well – the process that put him in contact with us.  From a very simple standpoint, we email a description of what we are looking for to the  head of a department (Marketing, Video, Computers, etc.) and then the internal university process takes over, getting the appropriate people in touch with us – or at least give them our contact information, so they can reach out.  In this case, this young man was the only person we heard from.

One of his statements in talking together yesterday was, “Yeah, my classmates tell me they should really answer these calls when they receive them.  I told them I was headed over here for an interview today.”

Now, to me, this implies that all of his other classmates received the same call but did not act on it.  This hit me hard as I often coach people to “act on it”.

My wife was just at a fantastic real estate class – she’s a broker and was there to learn something new for herself and not for CEUs.  I asked her how many folks were in attendance and how many would move on to the next course (there was an associated cost).  Her answer:  in total there were approximately 140 with 32 moving on to the next courses.  The next question to myself is “how many of those 32 will actually act on what is in the next courses?”  Guess = 10 or so, at best.

Why is “acting on it” so difficult?  There is a saying out there that goes something like, “just show up and you’ll be doing more than 80% of the people.”

Have we not been through enough pain, been fed up enough with current situations, or don’t see ourselves as making that big of a difference in life?

America and American small businesses (and large ones for that matter) were built by people who “acted on it”.   Our country was made strong by acting on opportunities.  Now, we are weak because we expect it to get done by someone else.

Here’s your challenge and opportunity today:  Find your goals sheet or even your to-do list and act on it.  Take the first of many first steps towards getting something done by acting on it today (not tomorrow – that doesn’t work).  Tomorrow you can take the next first step towards attainment.

I’ll hire the MSU student who acted on it yesterday, by the way.  There’s more in him than all his other classmates combined, obviously.

 

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Technology Segment

By Bret | Published: April 4, 2012

Don’t forget to sign up at the right to receive updated blogs and newsletters – there are some major announcements coming out of Square Seven and from Bret, very soon!

Technology Segment

Technology

A few decades ago technology really started to become a force to be reckoned with and embraced in almost any business or organization. Since the early 90s, technology has moved with exponential speed when we speak of it relative to the daily workings of any concern or endeavor.

Pine and Gilmore wrote The Experience Economy in 1999 and I truly love this piece of work and writing. It gave me some great insight, especially to the technology sector. The basic premise – and I highly suggest it as a read so you learn more – is that we’ve moved through a few different influential economic eras: the commodity based era, the information based era and now we are in the experience based era. When I think about this, they all stack to build upon one another: commodities were produced; then when the information era hit, they were advertised better; now that the experience era is upon us, the information is being disseminated quicker and is being used to craft scenarios that relay to an experience. See video games, Disney, Apple, simulators, sports and more.

With the exponential speed (and it is still moving, quicker all the time) came the advent of the Chief Information Officer (CIO), then the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), the Director of Technology, etc.

Technology has and will continue to drive new frontiers through our front doors and into our strategic plans for our businesses and lives.

In relation to our businesses, technology transcends every previous segment we’ve talked about here: Leadership, People, Sales, Finance, Products & Services, Surveys & Corrections and Marketing. At any given moment it may affect one segment more than others and it is paramount to have plans that include its use and leverage. There are now full packages that fulfill most of the needs of many businesses – Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software and systems allow each segment’s systems and software to “talk” to one another – Sales CRM systems are integrated with Products & Services inventory systems, Finance systems are integrated with People systems and Products & Services, Sales are integrated with Surveys (and their results); and so on.

There is also Software as a Service (SAAS) in today’s business world. An offering by technology specific companies that produce the service as well as the product and then “lease” it to a client, so the onus of “keeping up with the technology” (can be hard to do and expensive these days) lies with the SAAS partner, not on your business.

In the end, technology, applied with a plan and properly executed can increase efficiencies and decrease cycle times – cycle times for every one of your Segments.

Product of the Technology Segment – decreased cycle times and increased efficiencies.

 

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Now We’re Talkin’….. Baseball

By Bret | Published: April 3, 2012

Montana Parent Magazine - April 2012Bret Snyder is published monthly in a local periodical, “Montana Parent Magazine”.  Check out the April 2012 issue here: Montana Parent Magazine.  His article entitled “Now We’re Talkin’… Baseball” is on page 63.  Enjoy!

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Marketing Segment

By Bret | Published: March 27, 2012

Marketing SegmentMarketing is so funny to me at times because it gets confused or eaten up by some sales division person as a part of sales and what that division does. Just think for a moment, many companies and organization have “Sales and Marketing Directors” – why?  In the end, these two Segments, like all other Segments in the organization, do have to work well together and they are not the same, by a long shot.

Marketing is responsible for one product of the organization and sales is responsible for a completely different product – “new clients in” (NCI) for marketing and “a happy client, who used our product or service and who would refer another” for sales.  Once marketing is successful in producing a NCI in the system, that client is then handed off to sales.

Marketing is all of the organization’s outward facing systems that are attracting users of the product or service to the organization – this may include website(s), SEO, SEM, advertising, client functions/parties/events, public relations, press, etc.

Marketing is a tricky and often floating tool and target response these days. This is a Segment we often spend much time in with an organization and one we excel at consulting on. The best use of your dollars is often the difference between a good year of production and sales and a great one!

I am not going to move into the finer points of marketing as an industry or job specifics here, as each company is truly different in how it will approach it’s identified demographic or “market.” I will say there are some basic tools that should be considered for most industries in today’s world. Those basic tools often change as time comes to us and it pays well to be light on your feet and to being open and adaptable.

Product of the Marketing Segment – a “new client in” (NCI)

As we look at this Segment, think about how you’d reach the greatest number of people you can identify with and have the greatest impact on. In many instances, the crux of “marketing” moves into branding. This segment takes keen strategy in order not to watch your marketing dollars walk away and not return in the form of sales and rising awareness.

Remember, the next step and vital key here is that there’s a “handoff” when marketing does its job and produces that NCI to your database. Sales must then take over and determine perceived wants and needs and cater to the potential client. In many instances there are not strong reasons for a potential client to deviate from an older method of doing business – i.e.: changing dentists, using a new kind of dog food, trying a new hair stylist, etc. In this case your marketing has done its job. Now sales must find out the wants and needs and provide excellent client (potential client) service and care in order to start the client on your product or service.

 

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