Last week, I had the pleasure of listening to a webinar featuring Jason Kuhn. If you have not heard about Jason, he is a former Division 1 baseball player who later became a Navy Seal. Jason also started a company called Stonewall Solutions to teach leadership to firms throughout the world.
On his last webinar, he focused on teamwork and leadership during crisis. If you are like me, you have listened to countless Zoom calls over the past several weeks. This talk was different. Jason focused on being in the present, fulfilling expectations, and fixing what you can fix now. These tactics are important for small, medium, and large sized businesses today and can be easily summarized for immediate engagement.
Set Aside Differences for a Greater Cause
Leadership is unmasked during times of crisis. Maintaining commonality is vital. Do the small differences of business decision-making matter now, or ever? Ensure you find the common ground to maintain consensus. These decisions now are critical. Your team is watching you and will learn how to return to normalcy by your actions. I was once told by my college football coach something that has lived with me all of my life. He said, “You can say anything to me during practice, but in the game, we break the huddle and are all on the same page.”
Serve Without Expectation
Now is the time to serve your team, clients, and partners more than ever! Do you have your list of random acts of kindness written down every day? You win the fight by doing more for others now, so be proactive and ask how you can help them today. Leadership is about service without the expectation of payback. Your ability to empathize will pay huge dividends. In the business world, your long-term success is determined by your effectiveness in meeting client needs. Sometimes their needs are not a discounted price or better payment terms – they are looking for you to listen.
Lock in and Fight the Fight that is in Front of You
Now it is critical to reset your strategic plan and revenue expectations. Focus on your go-forward plan, not what happened last week or last month. Lowering and managing expectations to reflect your changing business today is critical and motivating. It’s the old adage, “We can only control what is to come, not what has happened already.”
What Can We Learn?
Reset priorities and focus on those actions that:
- Put in place those things that matter and let go of those things that do not matter.
- Stabilize your business including your goals, people, and clients.
- Focus on tomorrow and prepare for the time when the business environment improves.
The Bottom Line
Driving the fundamentals of winning starts with creating a strategic plan and building your team. At Sales Xceleration, we specialize in developing your team by focusing on these principles. We create a customized company Playbook to define processes, operating procedures, and values to establish consistency throughout your business.
Related:
Focus on Activity Management: Doing (and Measuring) the Right Things for Sales Success
One Less Hat to Wear: How Business Owners Can Achieve More Growth and Success
How Onboarding Can Help Salespeople Get and Stay on Track for Sales Success
Making a Difference: How Sales Xceleration Helps You Keep Business Owners From Making Even More Critical Hiring Mistakes
