Word-of-mouth advertising is one of the cheapest and most effective types of advertising your company can invest in, but how do we generate this elusive type of advertising? Most experts in the area will say, “Get out and ‘network’.” So we go to a Chamber of Commerce business card exchange or another type of networking event. Of course, their main purpose in coming is to promote their company or service as. So a majority of the people in the room are in the room primarily to sell to other people in the room.

See the problem?

Very few people come to these business card exchanges to buy things. The odds seem to be stacked against the attendees from the beginning. So, is it any wonder why most of us come back from these networking functions thinking that we just wasted an hour or two?

It doesn’t have to be that way. By making just a few simple changes to our approach, we can become a center of influence in any room. In effect, we can use these meetings as a way to generate significant word-of-mouth-advertising.

For full show notes, visit Become a Sphere of Influence-How to Network

I took my first leadership training course back almost 20 years ago. It did more for me than all of the education that I worked very hard for in High School and College. This single class was more valuable than all of the seminars that my former employers provided me. In fact, I got more benefit from that course than all of the conventions I went to and all of the books and trade journals that I have read. I have to say that the very first leadership seminar was, by far, the most valuable training I ever received.  We all have those “One moment in time” situations that change the whole direction of our lives.  For me, this was my moment.  Here’s what I learned.  I hope that you get as much value out of it as I did.

Life Lessons That I Learned from My First Leadership Course.

I grew up in a very poor, rural town in Arkansas.  Even though I was poor, I was taught that education was the key to getting out of poverty. So I worked my way through college and qualified for a couple of scholarships. I also took out massive loans hoping that, someday, my education would make me rich. 

A couple of years out of school though, I was making a lot less than my friends who started working right out of high school. I had a ton of new expenses like insurance, rent, car payments, and college loans to pay back, too.  I quickly realized that the amount of money that I was pulling in after taxes was less that the minimal expenses that I had. The more I ran the numbers, the more I realized that I was going bankrupt, one paycheck at a time. 

That’s when I got angry.  I was told that I would be wealthy if I went to school, but I was actually getting poorer every week.  I figured that there must be a better way, though, so I started looking for people who were succeeding. As I found them, I started to try to model what they were doing.

Good Training Is an Investment in Your Future.

That’s when I invested in my first “leadership course.”  The tuition was $795, which was about half of my monthly salary at the time.  I was terrified to “spend” the money, but the coach who was leading the program guaranteed me that the course was an investment and not an expense.   She was right.  Within six months of taking the class, I had tripled my income.  Within a year, I had doubled it again.  It was slow and steady, but within 10 years (before I was 35) I made my first million dollars.  (By the way, it only took me another six months to make the second million.)

Here’s what I figured out and what has helped me and thousands of others get to a higher level of financial success.  Knowledge is vital to getting ahead, but it’s just the ticket to get into the game.  What you DO WITH the knowledge is much more important to your success.  The most highly sought after skill in business is not accounting, or engineering, or computer skills – it’s public speaking.   Folks who reach the highest level of every institution typically know less about the day-to-day operations than the newest employee. However, they tend to excel at leading and motivating people.  The very best leaders in any organization are not the people who grow their own stature.  They are the people who grow other leaders.

Once I figured this out, I realized that just about everything that I was doing to get ahead was absolutely wrong.

To Be a Great Leader, Teach the People Around You Secrets to Success.

For more show notes, visit Make Yourself an Indispincible Leader.

Leadership and management skills are not coded into our DNA. These skills are honed over time through study, research, experimentation, and sometimes… trial and error. One of the things that can be challenging for managers and leaders, even during optimal times, is motivating your team. When a crisis is going on, though, the difficulty of keeping your team motivated increases dramatically.

What Actually Motivates Team Members?

Ask any manager what motivates workers and he or she will often create a list that is topped by “recognition of good work.”  Sure that makes sense.  We all love praise.  But have you talked to your team about what truly motivates them?  Their answers may be very surprising, and certainly enlightening.

A few years back, a couple of writers from Harvard Business Review conducted an extensive study about this subject. The results were revolutionary and changed the way that we see managers and leaders. The researchers had hundreds of employees complete journal entry at the end of each workday. In this entry, they were asked to judge at the end of each day whether it was a “Good Day” at work or a “Bad Day.”

The results were quite surprising.

Follow These Steps to Motivate Your Team During a Crisis.

1. Talk to Your Team Members One-On-One As Often as Possible.

When your team members get discouraged, you as the leader have a powerful role in helping them stay focused. Sometimes it is just a simple positive affirmation like, “I know what you are required to do is hard, but I know you will figure it out.” However, when morale is low and stress is high, every day without a positive interaction with the leader has the potential to lead to a “Bad Workday.”

1. Set Mini-Goal Mile-Markers.

Break your big goals and projects into bite-sized pieces. As the team accomplishes these mini-goals, praise them. If a marathon only had a start and a finish, most people would quit very quickly. Mile-markers are important to morale.

1. Make Sure Your Team Has the Resources and Support They Need.

I did a virtual meeting for a team a couple of days ago for a client who wanted to improve team communication. One of the team members was using a laptop so old that it didn’t have a camera or an internal microphone. How on Earth can you expect your team to function in a post-Covid world without the proper tools?

1. Try to Minimize the Setbacks as Best You Can.

Anticipate how your current plans can run off the rails and have a Plan B or a Plan C. (Heck in 2020, you might want to have a Plan D, E, F, and G as well… Just in case.)

1. Be the Motivating Force in Your Team.

Realize that your team will be deflated by things that are outside of your control. You as the leader can motivate your team by showing how even the negative things that happen can be either a learning experience or an opportunity for growth.

Now, go motivate your team!

For full show notes, visit https://www.leadersinstitute.com/do-you-really-know-how-to-motivate-your-team/

Want to become the “Go-To” expert in your industry? One of the easiest ways to drive prospective clients and customers to your business is to become “the” expert in your field. The term Expert carries credibility and prestige that can open many doors for you. Oddly enough, the term is relatively easy to acquire. This simple three-step process can help you quickly and easily set yourself up as “the go-to” expert in your field.

1. Determine a Specific Niche and Position Yourself as the Expert of that Niche.
2. Write about Your Niche — Your Specific Area of Expertise in Your Industry.
3. Look for Opportunities to Speak about this Niche. The Person Who Presents on a Topis Is Automatically Seen as an Expert.

I first realized this about 20 years ago after struggling to build my new company. The reason why we are called “The Leaders Institute” is that, in the beginning, I was trying to teach leadership training to everyone. Since I was really good a promotion and marketing, I was able to generate some customers. However, growth was slow in the early days.

Then, by accident really, I built up an expertise in a certain niche. One of my clients was a commercial builder who introduced me to the local Associated General Contractors. After teaching classes for this association for over a year, I became known as the “leadership coach” for the construction industry. The word spread within the industry very quickly, and The Leaders Institute was born.

Let’s go into more detail on each of these steps.

Step 1: Determine a Specific Niche and Position Yourself as the Expert of that Niche.

Instead of trying to be everything to everybody, narrow down your focus to the things that you are really, really good at. A friend of mine set himself up as an expert at leadership training for water treatment facilities. When he told me what he was doing, I asked, “Is there any money in that?” He smiled and said, “Every city’s got one, and I’m the only leadership expert in this field in the country.” He was frequently quoted in trade journals and asked to speak at their conventions.

When Covid-19 first hit many cities and companies were shutting down. A law firm that we had previously done a lot of work with wanted us to develop a virtual escape room for them. My team worked for weeks creating a number of options. We delivered the first one a couple of months ago, and it worked so well that we have done dozens of them since then. 90% of all of them that we have done have been for other law firms.

Keep in mind that we are not the only company in the world who does virtual team building or virtual escape rooms. However, because we have a lot of success in that industry, we don’t have a lot of competition there.

Find your niche, and you’ll eliminate your competition.

For more details visit the show notes at

Position Yourself as the Expert

The Road to Success Will Not Always Be Smooth.

The road to success will not always be smooth. By preparing for potential problems, you will be better prepared to overcome obstacles when they come your way.

The Five Ways to Prepare for Potential Problems Are the Following:

1. You need to understand that obstacles are a part of the process. If you know that you will face roadblocks along the way, you won’t be flustered when they occur.
2. If you embrace change, you are better prepared for new challenges.
3. By doing what you love, the obstacles that you face will not be as aggravating to the process.
4. Understanding the difference between the need to change and the desire to change. Some changes are mandatory, others are brought about by choice.
5. Having a Plan B will safeguard your future.

For full podcast notes, visit Preparing for Potential Obstacles on our website.

For many in business, it can be hard to get your teams to communicate both their needs and their ideas. With so many rules and regulations, it can be even more challenging to get new ideas accepted and implemented. Often, it’s because of some long-standing “That’s just the way it’s always been done” thinking or perhaps an aversion to taking any sort of risk. Those two attitudes can kill a discussion or idea generation before it’s even begun.

Today, we’re going to look at an aid to conversation and culture that will make daily
communications flow better and show you how a simple team building exercise can generate great camaraderie, too.

Introducing one of the strongest, well-known, and revered Improv principles that not only makes magic happen on stage, but that will help you connect with others and get ideas implemented more quickly: “Yes, and…”

It’s the basic tenet of Improv AND it can do great things for you in your day-to-day communications. Learning and adopting this attitude can change a person, a team, and a company.

The five ways to improve your communications and be more innovative are the following:

• Start with “Yes, and…” to create agreement, enthusiasm and options
• Understand the drawbacks of “no” so you can avoid its pitfalls
• Learn how “Yes, and…” generates opportunity instead of problems
• Using “Yes, and…” in daily conversations keeps possibility alive
• Be aware of this one fatal trap of negativity!

For full show notes, visit 

Since the outbreak of Covid-19, teams have had to collaborate remotely out of necessity. As we start to open back up and come back to the office, you may want to continue to encourage remote collaboration. For instance, how often do your team members chat with each other in the hallway about a specific challenge? In these conversations, they identify the solution and implement it. Unfortunately, this solution may not be documented.

With remote teams, though, these solutions are often discussed with remote collaboration tools. By using these tools, the solutions are shared with other team members more easily. So as bad as the last few weeks (months) have been for everyone, there are a few positive outcomes. Improving remote collaboration is one of them. As you move back to the office, you may want to keep this positive outcome coming.

5 Secrets to Success in Remote Collaboration.

1. The Power of Group Think — When Teams Collaborate, Creativity Increases Exponentially.
2. As the Team Leader, Fight the Urge to Dominate the Remote Meeting. (This Stifles Creativity.)
3. When Collaborating as a Team, Start with Green-Light Thinking Before Moving to Red-Light Thinking.
4. A Few Remote Collaboration Tools to Make the Process More Efficient.
5. Mini-Teams and Breakout Rooms Allow Leaders within the Teams to Surface and Increase Leadership Skills.

The Power of Group Think — When Teams Collaborate, Creativity Increases Exponentially.

Anytime you get multiple minds together to solve a problem, you will increase creativity. Each of us has our own experiences and stereotypes. As a result, we tend to see things a specific way based on what our expectations are. When we add a second person to the process, new possibilities develop. The new person doesn’t have the same experiences or expectations. Two people working to solve a problem increases the chances of finding a solution more than either of the people alone.

For additional show notes, visit 

If you own or run a business you have two choices. You could search for leaders in the marketplace and try to convince them to join your team. Alternatively, you can build leaders from within your organization. When you do the latter, you have the potential to create enthusiasm within your team. You are creating a culture of growth and energy. (It is actually cheaper for your company and more rewarding to you if you do this, by the way.)

In this episode, I’m going to cover the seven best ways to build your next generation of leaders. If you are interested in building leaders from within, these tips can really help.

How to Influence People in a Positive Way and Help Your Team Grow.

Before I get to the seven best ways to build your team, let’s start with why these skills work. Although every human being is different, most of us want specific things from our leaders. For instance…

• People will do things for and follow people who they know, like, and respect.
• Every person wants to feel important.
• Leaders who make those people around them feel important build confidence in those people.
• Confident people who feel that their job is important tend to trust and respect those leaders.

Many people think that leaders have to tear people down and build them back up. This is a huge mistake. For some reason, we believe that the way to get people to be productive is to kick them in the pants. Typically, that will get you the opposite effect. Your team may comply out of fear, but they will not grow in confidence. As a result, you will have to order them to do every little thing for it to get done.

For the full show notes visit: Building Leaders from Within. The 7 Best Ways to Build Your Next Leaders

“Change is the only constant in life.”

This quote comes from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who lived 500 years before Jesus Christ. Think of the amount of change that has occurred in our world in over 25-hundred years! The earth has changed, wars fought, empires and governments have risen and fallen. In the time of Heraclitus, many people wrote on tablets. That meant carving words and images into stone. Today, writing on, or using a tablet, likely means that you are utilizing the technology of an IPad or other similar device. You may be reading this on a tablet right now.


Everything changes, whether it is to our likings or not. Our planet is a living, breathing entity that is in a constant state of transformation.

In our American culture, we can look back on our lifetimes and see constant changes. Styles of music and clothing are in a continuous cycle of metamorphosis. You wouldn’t dare walk into your office tomorrow, wearing a polyester jumpsuit from 1977. If you did, your co-workers would think that you are going out to a themed party. So, if you wouldn’t go to work in out-dated bell-bottoms and platform boots, shouldn’t your work attitudes, or more drastically, what you do in your work life, change along with your fashion sense?


Where Do You See Yourself in Five or Ten Years?

Do you think that your current line of work will still exist? In my family ancestry, I learned that I had a great-grandfather that worked as an Ice-man. That meant that he would deliver large blocks of ice to your home to put in your icebox. The icebox is what a refrigerator was called before the use of electricity to cool your food. As we know, there are no more Ice-man jobs available. Even the way we find and apply for work has changed from just a mere decade ago. Today, it is more likely that you will fill out an online application before ever shaking the hand of a potential employer. So, if your line of work is on the endangered position list, it may be the time for reinvention.

*******


Candace Cox

Author

Candace Cox has 15 years of on-air radio experience, mostly as a traffic and news reporter. Candace has also worked as an on-camera television host, emcee, actor and voice-over talent. Candace’s on-air experience makes her a favorite of audiences because of her humor and energy, and she has successfully transferred these talents to the business world to train other professionals. We are so happy to have her as one of our team building leaders.

As a business owner, I was chomping at the bit to get back to work on Friday morning. By 9 AM, though, only half of my staff had arrived. I was shocked. My assumption was that after six weeks of working from home, the team would be as excited to return as I was. As the team started trickling in, though, I didn’t see excitement. I saw an entirely different emotion — fear. The fear that they were experiencing was entirely caused by uncertainty.

I knew I had a huge problem, so I visited with a few of my team members one-on-one. (In a few cases, I don’t think I was a great leader, by the way. When you combine fear and frustration, the outcome can be somewhat challenging.) However, after a few heart-to-hearts, I began to get a more clear picture of what my team was experiencing.

Later in the morning, we had a mastermind meeting with everyone. This was one of the most inspirational and powerful meetings that I have participated in since the crisis hit.

Once the vision was set and the uncertainty was diminished, the excitement started to return.

My Need to Help My Team Led Me to a Few Shocking Discoveries.

You and your team may be experiencing something similar, so I thought that a little clarity might be helpful. Since I like to think of myself as a pretty decent researcher, I decided to spend some time recapping where we are in the Covid-19 Crisis and how we got here.

About one-and-a-half-days into the research, I was both appalled and furious with what I found.

• First, this loss of life and loss of livelihood is tragic.
• Second, many of the decisions made by well-meaning politicians have been based on lies and false data.
• Finally, it is now clear that everything that we have done to our economy has been an extreme overreaction.

For the remaining show notes, go to Note to All Governors: Be the Leader that You Were Elected to Be