Vulnerability Tour 2021 – Dealing with Communication Issues in 2021!

Can you think of a time or would you even admit to it a time when your, your communication, your words, or your, your style of communication caused damage to you or to someone else?

In this session, I discuss overcoming the “communication roadblock,” aka “when you can’t say what you really mean.”

Based on the book by Brian Harbour, 17 Roadblocks on the Highway of Life and How to Overcome Them.

The “roadblocks” we are covering in the Vulnerability Tour 2021 are:

We cannot escape the responsibility of our communications. Our communications have consequences, but we do have the ability to make good choices when it comes to commuting.

Great leaders are quoted, including Peter Drucker, Tommy Lasorda, Peter Drucker, Plato, Mark Twain and others.

Most of the quotes focus on “listening.”

Four Strategies for Overcoming Communication Issues in 2021:

collinharbour.com

Leadership is Always Relevant as a Strategy!

The speed of the team is all about the speed of the leader.

You’re not really a leader if people aren’t following you.

In this episode, leadership, motivation, and overcoming your fears to get things done is discussed with Tim Kintz of Kintz Group

Buzzwords aren’t necessary for good leaders.

Managers are often the least trained people at companies. Even if they are trained, it doesn’t mean you they have what it takes to be a leader.

Five years from now. If someone asked your people, who was the person who made a difference in your life, will they remember your name? Leaders should strive to be the one who is remembered as impacting and influencing lives.

We discuss Tim’s “Leadership Quadrant”: Lead, Manage, Coach, Train, and how each of these is different based on individual skill sets. We discuss ways to determine which area is your strongest and where your individual skills are on the quadrant.

Tim discusses dreaming big and leading big.

Leaders leave people better off than before they met. A good leader is in the trenches and focused on the people he or she is leading.

Being “fearless” plays an important role in leadership. Fear holds people back. Being fearless is about not being afraid to make mistakes. Stop being afraid. Take Charge. Dream Big. Have a big passion and a big purpose.

We also discuss the concept of an “Emotional Bank Account.” As a manager and as a leader, you will eventually have to get tough on people. Great leaders need to earn the right to have tough conversations with people. Do a good job of catching people doing things right. (Based off of a concept from John Maxwell.)

Determine where you want to be in 5 years and act on a plan to get there. Have a big vision. Paint a big vision for your followers. Make sure they know how they will fit into that vision

Tim also provides steps to take for a great employee one-on-one.

https://collinharbour.com/

https://kintzgroup.com/

#strategy #personalbranding #socialselling #brand #smallbusiness

Many of us have a strong physical brand, but a weak digital brand.   This session of Harbourtime Strategy Talks discusses various strategies to enhance your brand (personal and corporate) and defines social selling. Strategies are presented to help with social selling and personal brand building, with a delineation between a physical brand and digital brand.

What are you doing to build your personal brand?

Do you even care?

Guest on the podcast today is Olesija Saue (olesijasaue.com)

“I don't want to be a superstar I just want to do my job is personal branding for me.”

Personal Branding and how it is tied to Social Selling

Olesija has been in the business world for over 20 years, during which time she has have experienced both very quick high rises, and then also very big lows.

It is easy to be in business when everything is thriving,  but we really learn our lessons and we evolve when life gets tough as it is right now.

We all have experiences that we can use our advantage business and in marketing, and also our unique strengths, our values, our why, and most importantly, our story and story that we have to own and we have to share.

People and Social Media combined make for a great passion.

The most important part of personal branding is actually your substance: what is inside the story, your strengths, your values, your why, because they really talk to our subconscious mind, which draws on emotions, which is how decisions are made.

Personal branding is putting together our uniqueness and packaging it in a way that that our ideal customers can resonate with.

Think about Audi or Porsche.  These brands actually create certain emotions.

Keep in mind that we all have a personal brand from the moment we do anything.

In 2021, personal branding is now what other people know about you before you actually enter the room.

We have two worlds . . . the physical world and the digital world.  We must make sure that our digital and personal brand are at the same level.

Make sure your personal brand is telling the story that you want it to tell.

Balance growth, fun and achievement for success.

Enjoy the process. The process and the end results are equally important.

In order to stay relevant in today's environment, we really have to learn not all the time.

Make sure that you are balancing work and “life” to make sure you are covering the things that are important to you.

Social Selling: Social selling is in our DNA. Now, we build the relationships online.

Content Marketing is communicating “one to many,” but social selling is communication “one on one.”

Trust is built through digital/online social selling.

According to Olesija, Social Selling is like dating.  The relationship takes time to develop.

Businesses in 2021 can stand out by implementing a social selling/social media strategy by taking care of their social media profiles. Stand out. Be visible. The buyers have to know you exist. Webpage, Articles, Podcasts – online conversations – thought leadership.

Olesija co-authored a book, “The Brand Named You”, is to help individuals with social media strategy and exposure. They fight the misconception that personal branding is “bragging.” The also provide a step-by-step process (Roadmap) to help with personal brand strategy.

https://collinharbour.com/

https://olesijasaue.com/

Leadership as a business strategy or leadership in general is always an important topic.

Learning about leadership can help you grow into a better person.

My favorite leadership style is “servant leadership.” Servant leaders don’t see themselves as the dictator and that they actually serve others. They lead by example.

Highlyeffectiveleader.com is a website that started off as a blog in January, 2020.

The purpose of the book and YouTube Channel, Leadership & Growth, is to help people learn from Tom’s mistakes and resonate with them to become better leaders.

Tom intends to inspire others to take the next steps in their leadership journey.

Tom has written a book entitled Manager to Leader.

It is targeted at managers, supervisors, and team leaders who have the position and job title, but now need to know what to do.

Having a job title gives you a certain authority and gives you a certain amount of power, both as a leader.

The leader’s job is to serve their people, serve their team.

The book is to help them understand what servant leadership is, why we need to save our people and how to save our people.

How, how can leaders serve their people?

“Serve” is another way of saying “help.” It's a responsibility of the leader to grow and develop others.

Develop yourself as a leader. Don’t be exposed.

Why is dictatorship why is a deep dictatorial style of leadership and effective in 2021?

Dictator-style leaders do not inspire people to give their own ideas, their own solutions, their own recommendations, and they are not inspiring them to implement their own ideas.

Servant leadership is the exact opposite.  Servant leaders inspire others to come up with their own ideas and solutions.

Tom is a former rock star and the leader of the band led by example.  She helped others learn their parts and stay focused on the goal.

What Tom learned from his Rock Star experience is to follow your dream: Do not give up on your dream.

If you have something that you really want to do that you think can make a difference in the world or even will make a difference in other people's lives, don't give up, keep doing it, keep working hard.

What is Tom’s vision? What is his just cause?

Tom’s just cause is that envisions a world where leaders create environments that focuses on people.

https://collinharbour.com/

https://highlyeffectiveleader.com/

Podcast Guest is Business Coach and Author, Warren Coughlin from Toronto. Warren is a dad and business coach to entrepreneurs since 2002.

Warren believes “deeply in the core of my being that entrepreneurship is one of the most powerful forces for positive social change.”

The first part of the discussion centers around business coaching and operational strategy:

Business coaching is not the same as life coaching for business folks.

Business coaching is about integrating the organization: All the specific business skills, mindsets, the systems, even the tools to help the owner reach his or her goals.

Business Coaching involves some training and consulting as well as that kind of goal setting envisioning and that kind of thing. Business coaching isn't pure coaching, it's a combination of coaching, training and consulting on the strategy piece.

Entrepreneurs face many challenges:

Don’t confuse symptoms with the problems.

Utilize tools (like this one created by Warren Coughlin) to help with strategic planning. In this case, the tool automates the entire front end of the strategic planning process. 

Once you’ve identified issues, make sure to build out an actionable plan, perhaps monthly, perhaps quarterly. But set real goals and make real changes.

As an entrepreneur, don’t play whack-a-mole.

Consider the impact you could have on your business if you made two significant improvements per quarter.

Business is like poker, particularly when considering long term strategy:

Make sure you don’t dwell on short-term thinking. Focus on strategic long-term thinking.

Business is similar to poker. Business is a game of skill, but there is much uncertainty and an array of probabilities.

In both business and poker, the professionals will when the game, even if they don’t win the hand. This is due to strategic thinking.

Are you focusing on winning the hand or the game? Long term thinking will focus your attention on the game. Consider your business a game. Why are you in this game? What game are you playing? What do you want out of the game?

If you don’t focus on strategic planning, your business will face danger.  Don’t overlook the risks. There will be another pandemic, economic crisis, weather crisis. A downturn is always around the corner.

If you're only focused on the short term, you're not going to build for the eventual downturn.

And that's just because, so when you, you know, when you say stories like that, hopefully help people go, Oh, maybe I shouldn't just be thinking about the next two or three months. I need to be thinking. Long-Term.

It's okay to spend some time on short-term thinking, but your focus should be on strategic long-term thinking.

Make sure your decisions are based off of planning rather than off of fear:

In the face of an uncertain environment, don’t tortoise. Instead, plan.

Don't spend all of our time on short-term results. Make sure to look at the bigger picture.

In the face of uncertainty or fear, there is a natural human instinct to go into a protective mode – go into your shell.

Focus on the underlying needs of your clients. Even if there is a disruption that changes the way you deliver your service or product, the underlying needs of your clients still exist.

Consider pivoting, morphing, adding or modifying your business, your career, your life:

Pivot general means, “I’m here and now I’m going there,” which is something totally different. A pivot is a fundamental change for a business.

Most businesses don’t necessarily need a "fundamental change."

Impact your culture in other ways that can lead to change, morphing, adding.

Are you your own worst critic? I hate receiving criticism, but I certainly love dishing it out. Or are you like LeBron James in that criticism stimulates you? Lebron said, “I like criticism. It makes you strong.”

Everybody's a critic these days. And I mean, literally everybody, social media has made it more harsh, more frequent and more real, like it's a real punch in the face.

For instance, on February 5th, 2018, the following was tweeted. Dear KFC. “No one likes your fries, your sincerely, the entire world.” @Upgrade_ music sent that on behalf of the entire world.

The bigger point here is that everyone receives criticism and sometimes it's, or at least it seems like it is from the entire world.

So how are we going to handle this? How do you handle criticism professionally? How do we handle it personally? How do we handle it from a corporate standpoint?

Criticism is generally just in your head. We worry about things.

“Remember the only taste of success that some people have is when they take a bite out of you.” Zig Ziglar.

“Any fool can criticize condemn and complain. And most fools do.” Benjamin Franklin.

Don’t worry about criticism. Move past it.

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” Winston Churchill.

How did KFC handle the criticism? They realized that criticism comes, they evaluated it. They categorize it as true. They contemplated a response.

It took them nine months to respond and they activated a plan to overcome it. Nine months after the entire world criticize their fries.

I hate criticism as much as anybody. I must admit a lot of times I like dishing it out.

Criticism hurts. It slows me down. It makes me angry.

https://collinharbour.com/

Is your business prepared for the next big crisis?

The utility companies in Texas are learning about preparedness.

2020 taught us all that we need to be prepared: for global pandemics, for social unrest, for changing economic environments.

David Obert is Vice President of Property Technology Solutions at Xactware.

Finding a “better way” to provide service is the premise behind this technology company.

Here how a company that focused on contracts shifted to new verticals including insurance, remodeling and mortgage default servicing verticals.

Preparedness. Why is business preparedness so important, especially in 2021?

Enter 2020  . . . that’s why it's so important.

Are you ready for all issues that will hit your business? Don’t be surprised by unforeseen issues. Be prepared.

Businesses can learn a lesson or two from biology and nature. Biological concepts are important when discussing preparedness.

For instance, heterogeneity is a concept that businesses can learn from. Take the cactus:  The cactus is just fine during the day as it's built for that, but those flowers, it protects so that when, when the time is right, it can open those flowers back up in the evening. it can be pollinated by bats and things like that.

Your business very similarly should be prepared. Consider diversification. We should look at ways to enhance our businesses so that we can be ready with for these harsh times with alternatives.

When one side of our business slows down, we should pick up on the other side so that we can maintain some semblance of continuity with our businesses.

How do you decide what project to focus on at any given time?

Make sure you have a process to focus on specific issues.

Can you identify any low-hanging fruit?

Where can you make the most impact?

How can you get ready (PREPARE) for an influx of business?

How can you improve our customers their livelihood?

How can you ultimately help them make more money in the long run?

Businesses always have time to prepare, with the right process, for things to come.

Is business/revenue diversification is more important as a strategy in 2021 than the past?

Business/revenue diversification is always important. I think, I think is it, is it more important now than, than in the past? I would say no, just because it should have always been important.

What is the biggest challenge you have had with your specific business role in the last few months? And how are you overcoming it?

Pivoting a business strategy. Diversifying your business.

https://collinharbour.com/

When is the last time you failed, I mean, really failed? 

I know that you failed and you know that I have failed. I know you're scared of failing again, whether you're a business owner, a successful executive, maybe a solopreneur, someone looking for a job I'm willing to bet money that you've already failed, If not miserably in 2021. 

How are we going to handle failure in 2021? 

I'm going to focus on a few key basics of life. I might even refer to this as my vulnerability tour because a lot of these are inward-facing they're things that I need to deal with and, and how I am going to deal with them moving forward. But I hope as we explore these topics, that you'll go on this journey with me and that we can grow together. 

But this new focus at this stage of my career, where I am life is where I want to focus on some of these topics. One of the roadblocks that stood out to me is failure, the failure roadblock, or how he puts in the book when we blow it, when you blow it, you know, you've blown it. Sometimes you can sense it coming. 

It can be in your personal life. It can be in your business life. It could be in so many aspects of life, but you know, you've blown it. 

So how do you deal with that? What we're going to talk about is ways to handle failure. We know we're going to fail. I'm not saying that to be negative. I'm actually saying it and hoping that we're exploring this to set us up for success, because success is going to be defined with how we deal with failure. 

Trent Simmons is the CEO of Hardeman Company and has a passion for small family businesses.  Trent and his brother took a natural gas marketing company from their father which was the genesis of Hardeman.   Trent has a passion for small business.

Hardeman seeks to purchase businesses that they can own and operate as owners for the long haul. Not looking for a quick flip. They want businesses that are built the way we are built. We want businesses that ran for the previous 25 years, the way we plan to run them for the next 25 years. 

Trent is a business leader - he has acquired several companies over the years.  He knows what it takes to be a business strategist, private equity guy, and owner-operator of established businesses.

He was also a professional triathlete and we discuss how that experience translates to business strategy.  During this part of the podcast, Trent discusses lessons he learned from world class athletes, gold medal winners, and a former Australian boxer!  The lessons are great -- everyone can learn from them:

Paraphrased:

Questions/Topics are listed below:

Referencing Hardeman company’s LinkedIn page, How are you built?  Hardeman = Perseverance, Survival

Trent, If you had to pick 2, maybe even 3 key traits of the CEO/leaders of these businesses, what stands out? What drives a business leaders/CEO/entrepreneur to build a successful business? 

Hardeman has a nice portfolio of companies – a good mix of service, manufacturing, and other types of companies. How do you decide your portfolio strategy? Are you looking for a specific mix, or do you look for specific revenue targets, or any combination thereof?

You’ve looked at a lot of companies – You’ve acquired some of them, and I’m sure you’ve passed on more than you bought. What strategic advice would you give a business owner who is thinking about selling their company in 2021? What should they be doing to prepare their company for acquisitions?

When reviewing a company, you are competing against many factors: Owner Expectations, Family Member expectations, other acquirers, and many other factors. How do you balance seller expectations and other competing factors when you are in trenches of a potential acquisition?

What lessons did you learn in training and competing in triathlons teach you that can be translated to business strategy? I know this is a bit vague, but what business lessons did the rigorous training teach you?

Who is your favorite business leader and Why?

Our guest this week is Shelia Butler, COO of the Arrangement.   Shelia is also a former classmate of mine in the Baylor University Dallas Executive MBA Program, Class 10 (2004)

Shelia has experience starting, building and selling companies.  She also has experience as a Consultant, Industry Thought Leader and Speaker.

Shelia was "Podcasting Before Podcasting Was Cool".  We discuss what it used to be like to run a podcast.  

Some of the most important things about podcasting: There are many ways to get your self out there if you want to be seen as a "thought leader".   A podcast can be shared many ways, and it helps create content.  A podcast can also help you discover a little more about who you are . . . and can push the theme of "not being afraid to fail".  Podcasting can help you take on and overcome various challenges.  In Shelia's case, Podcasting helped her speak to people more, which led to speaking opportunities and business consulting opportunities.  

Tips for entrepreneurs who are starting a business.  Be intentional.  Everyone thinks it is necessary to be on all social media platforms and be everything to everybody.  Shelia suggests that these three things should be the focus:

Decide what needs to be done to make these things happen and then determine which social media and marketing platforms can help make this happen. 

Above all, don't be afraid to fail and try something different.

How to focus on Strategic Planning and Leadership.

Shelia's Favorite Book

Shelia's Favorite Business Leader

sheliabutler.com - Shelia's LinkedIn Profile

Shelia can be contacted at: [email protected].

collinharbour.com