Leadership Lessons

Leadership Lessons

What does it take to be a leader?

That question was asked of myself and a couple dozen others this summer at a half day retreat our company held in August.

The answers were plentiful and good, as most of us were in a leadership position.  Some of us had a leadership title with people that reported to them, while others were leaders due to the work they did or how they performed.

One topic on the subject of leadership was sent out to subscribers to my Sound ADvice newsletter and it goes like this:

Are you a boss, or are you a manager?

When you approach the definition of the word boss or manager as a noun, they basically mean the same thing. However, when approached as a verb, they have drastically different meanings.

 

As a verb, Webster’s dictionary defines “boss” this way, “to order about in a domineering way”.  A “manager” is defined as, “to handle or direct with a degree of skill”. It even adds in, “to treat with care”.

Poor customer service is often the result of interaction with people working for a boss who is not happy with their situation. Strong, professional, and polite customer service comes from employees working for and with someone who is a manager.

The most successful managers today hire people who have a passion to do their jobs to the best of their ability…these people don’t need a boss. These people need a manager who will give them access to the tools, training, people, resources, and environment that allows them to perform to the best of their ability.

So, if you’re a manager, here’s an idea. Instead of giving your people a “to-do” list, try asking them to give you a “to-do” list. What do they need you to do to help them be more productive or deliver better customer service?

In our Twelve Ways to Create Happy Employees, number seven is “360-degree feedback”…asking your employees how YOU are doing.

 

Zig Ziglar said, “You can get whatever you want as long as you are willing to help others get what they want.”  It’s also been said that “You can be as successful as you want if you are willing to let others take the credit.” 

If you look honestly into a mirror and ask yourself, “Am I a boss or a manager?“, what would you answer?

If you’re a boss, are you ready to quit being the boss and become the facilitator or manager of your team’s success? A culture where the “boss” works for the staff and the staff works for the customer can create a successful company without anyone working for the company!

Happy employees will deliver happy customers.

If you would like to see the Twelve Ways to Create Happy Employeesclick here now and start making happier employees, more satisfied customers, and more money!

For close to 10 years, I have worked for Federated Media and most of those years I got to work as a member of the advertising sales team for radio station WOWO. Then for close to 4 years, I got to lead the WOWO sales team and then took on the General Sales Manager position for 3 more stations.

Now again I am back to my first love of marketing consulting and advertising sales.  During those management years, I learned how challenging it is to be a boss, a manager, a leader with the title and consistently do a good job for your team and your bosses.

For those of you who are in that role and doing everything you should be doing I salute you.  If you need any help, or guidance, I have some recommended books and podcasts, just reach out to Scott@ScLoHo.net

If you would like to receive my Sound ADvice weekly newsletter, send me an email to Scott@ScLoHo.net.

You Can’t Whine & Win at the Same Time

You Can’t Whine & Win at the Same Time

Congratulations, you have successfully completed 6 months of 2022.

How do you feel about that?

Well first off, for making it this far this year, you and everyone else gets a participation trophy.

However the real trophies in life come from more than just showing up.

If this sounds like a little rant, it is, so buckle up.

We often hear news stories and articles talking about “the average” this and that.

You know what an average is right?

You take it all, the good, the bad and the stuff in-between; add it up and then divide by the number of figures you averaged.

There’s an old joke about three guys at a shooting range.  The first one misses his target by 6 inches to the left.  The next one also misses his target by 6 inches to the right.  The third guy happens to be a statistician and says, “Well I don’t even need to shoot, ’cause if you average out your two shots we got us a bulls-eye.”

No matter what you are doing, there is going to probably someone better than you and worse than you.

You certainly don’t want to be in the worst group, right?  In business those who are doing the worst are failing.

The next group, the one in the middle. These are the ones who are doing average work.  Their business is not quite failing or not making boat loads of money either.  They are just surviving, for now.  Or maybe they were surviving and then something happened and now they aren’t doing so well.

The last group, those are the winners.  Above Average.  Top Performers.  They get more than a participation trophy, they get the prize money for coming in 1st, 2nd or 3rd.

You can tell alot by observing and listening to the people in these three groups.

At the bottom, there is often a lot of grumbling and blaming someone else or something else for their troubles.  Rarely do these people and their businesses succeed.  They are too busy whining and You Can’t Whine And Win At The Same Time..

In the middle you’ve got those that wish things were better but don’t commit to the changes needed.  Their businesses are built on Hope and Hope Alone.  “If the stars align…” Right.  Similar to the bottom group but at least they have ideas on how to get better.

Those at the top are a different breed.  They are not willing to settle for mediocre.  They don’t want to be average.

Of course there are fewer of these winners than the other two groups but they are also significantly outpacing the others.

And finally when I say, You Can’t Whine And Win At The Same Time, Winners also whine sometimes too.  But they don’t get stuck there and make whining a lifestyle.  Winners push thru the tough times and realize that they are not helpless victims of circumstances.  They adapt, they innovate, they create, they find a way to move forward and don’t let the set backs paralyze them forever.

If you run a business that wants to win and you are in the Fort Wayne, Indiana area, contact me.  I have some marketing wisdom to share.

If you are an individual with a winner’s heart and attitude, contact me too because I am always looking for that kind of person to consider for openings on the WOWO Radio Advertising Sales Team.

Scott@WOWO.com is my email or you can find me online by Googling ScLoHo.

 

Can You Stop For A Moment?

Can You Stop For A Moment?

As the General Sales Manager of WOWO radio in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I lead a team of advertising sales people and marketing consultants and on Thursdays we gather for an hour for a Local Sales Team Meeting.

Naturally we will skip this week because Thursday is Thanksgiving and our company has added Black Friday as an additional paid holiday, giving everyone a nice long 4 day weekend.

However last week’s WOWO Sales Team Meeting had a focus on the Final 40 days of the year and what we needed to do.

40 days on the calendar in reality is more like around 20 business days this time of year.

Now if you work in retail, every day counts because it’s that traditional make-it or break-it time of the year. The origin of the term Black Friday was that was the day of the year that retailers finally stopped operating in the red financially and started making real money or being in the black.

Regarding the title of this piece, Can You Stop For A Moment?, for some of us that moment is now, for others it will be in a few weeks after Christmas, others may need to wait until the beginning of 2022.

What and why do I even ask that question?

Because we seem to be running at an incredible pace these days.  Even if things do slow down in business right now, your lives will be filled with other events like family gatherings and parties, and well, somehow we manage to fill all 24 hours of every day, don’t we?

How long is a moment?

Depends, of course.

I know that there are some parents who would long to have an hour each week that is entirely theirs with no expectations.  Some even long for 15 minutes a day.

Same is true with so many people.

As you and I wind down this year and prepare for the new year, I urge you to add something else to your schedule.

Call it what you want, but it’s basically time for YOU.  It’s a time that you give the very highest priority and spend it on YOU.

It could be daily, it could be weekly, it needs to be something that you can negotiate with your family, partners, whomever you need to, to set up for you and you alone.

Here’s a couple of examples of how I’ve seen this work.

I have a friend that is very busy trying to get things done at work and at home with a new baby coming and both parents working and, well you get the picture.  They are struggling a bit at work and what I see is a lack of focus.  I encouraged them to take a step back and stop for a moment.  Last week instead of the running around we had planned for the day, we took a few hours and started the process of planning for the new year.   A story about Abe Lincoln came to mind, that if you have say 5 hours to chop down a tree, it’s better to spend the first 4 sharpening the axe than to wack away for 5 hours with a dull blade.

My wife takes time daily for prayer in the morning and evening, and she also taught me the value of taking breaks.

I have found that by spending some time in the morning observing nature a few times every week, it keeps me centered.

The answer to the question, Can You Stop For A Moment really is Yes.  How you implement this is up to you.

8 Principles to Improve Your Life and Business

8 Principles to Improve Your Life and Business

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading an article on Medium.com titled: 8 Pillars of a Satisfied and Happy Life.  Here’s a link to it: https://medium.com/mind-cafe/8-pillars-of-a-satisfied-and-happy-life-847d98707e81

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon as I read it and decided that I wanted to add my spin on the 8 Pillars with both insights on how to apply this to you business and also reflections on how I do it personally.

On the business side of my life, I am the General Sales Manager of WOWO Radio, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  I lead and coach 6 full time advertising sales people on our Local Sales Team.  I moved into this position at the beginning of 2020, a few weeks before Indiana went into lock-down due to the pandemic.  This is my 8th year with WOWO and I’ve been in the media and marketing world most of my life, although I do know how to drive a forklift and run a thermoformer too.

On the personal side, my wife and I have been married for over two decades and our 5 kids from our 1st marriages of made us grandparents multiple times.  The people on my Local Sales Team at WOWO range in age from my age to my kids age and so I know most of what they go through both personally and professionally.  The term, “Been There, Done That”, applies however the world has changed since I was a new Dad, some for the better, other changes not so much.

Pillar Number One from the Medium story:

1. Allow Yourself To Be Happy Before You “Succeed”

Absolutely.  As you grow, you need to learn to enjoy the journey.  Starting a new business is challenging all the time, not just in extreme circumstances.  Give yourself credit for doing the work.  One of the ways I measure the activity of the sales team I work with is the types of activity they are doing and how much they are doing.  I know that if they do certain benchmarks, success will follow.

Similarly, my wife likes gardening and it makes her happy.  It is hard work and the rewards take time to grow, but in the meantime, she is happy doing the work.   How about you? Do you have benchmarks in your business or life that you use to measure success before the financial success comes in?

2. Have A Clear Vision

Goals need to be both short and long term.  My team has a big picture goal that I shared at the beginning of the year, and then each month I break it down into smaller chunks for each person.  Together I work with each of them to help guide them to achieve those smaller goals which will add up to the original long term goal for our team.

I’ve worked for others who had no vision or they were continually changing course which creates frustration and confusion.  As a business owner, make sure your team understands the vision for your company too. When my wife and  I plan a trip either for ourselves or to visit family, we agree on the important elements and then also plan the details.  I learned several years ago how we best travel together and perhaps you and your spouse have learned what works best for you too.

3. Devote Yourself To Something Meaningful

I really dislike most advertising salespeople.  At least the way they do business, too many are focused on themselves, not on their clients success.  That has been the secret to my success.  To help others succeed, using the wisdom, knowledge and experience I’ve learned.  That’s one way I devote myself to something meaningful.  I also am involved serving on a non-profit organizations board to give back to the community.  How do you and your employees give of yourselves?

4. Become a Lifelong Learner

The day I stop learning is the day I stop living.  My formal education is not documented with college degrees but I keep getting invited to speak at numerous higher education colleges and universities.  Be curious.  Learn from others, listen and ask questions and figure out how to apply it to your life, your business or the people around you.

5. Do Not Settle For Less

I’ve done this a couple of times.  I’ve walked away from the world of advertising and took a break, but then I returned.  Some people decide not to return to their dreams and by doing that they never know if they could accomplish what they once sought.  On the personal side of life, this is very personal.  On the business side, you are going to have to decide what is important and what isn’t.  I used to work with an auto repair shop that was going to be open 24 hours a day.  Then when the owner discovered that it wasn’t a sustainable way to run his shop, he settled for less hours.  He also discovered how to merge what his customers really wanted with his vision and came up with a business plan that was unique, and he’s doing great now.

6. Remember To Have Fun

I took my WOWO Local Advertising Sales Team out for a morning of golf and lunch last month.  It was a team building event but it was more than that.  It was a time to set aside time to just have fun.  It wasn’t a reward for hitting a certain goal, it wasn’t earned based on performance, it was simply a guilt free way to hang out on a day when others were working and have fun.

At work, at home, having fun is something we all need to include in our lives regularly, not just special events.  How do you accomplish this?

7. Take Care Of Yourself

At the end of 2020, I decided to improve my health by dropping a few pounds and lost 20 pounds in about 6 months. I’ve maintained that and am slowing dropping a few more this year.  Stress is the silent killer for everyone it seems.  99 out of 100 people you see this month have something stressful going on in their lives that you may never know about.  You need to take care of your health, and encourage those who work for you to do the same.  Physical, Mental, Emotional and Spiritual health are all needing our attention. The H. R. Department  at WOWO’s parent company, Federated Media sends out reminders about this and also provides resources that members of my team have made use of.

8. Cherish Those You Love

This is the last pillar from the Medium.com article, but it’s not the least important.  I’m blessed to have loving relationships with my family and we work at making sure we stay in touch and express that love.

While the dynamics are usually different in a business setting, how would the culture improve if you really told your staff individually what you appreciated about them?

They need to know that they are appreciated and why.  The companies that have problems retaining employees are the ones that have the worst company cultures.  As a business owner or manager, you set the example.  A genuinely positive work environment is also appreciated by your customers and clients too.

I hope you’ve learned a few things today, and perhaps go back and answer those questions I mentioned to see how 2021 can be even better for you and those around you.

 

Friendly Competition

Friendly Competition

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” is a sometimes quoted and often misquoted saying that is credited to the book The Art of War from over 4000 years ago and the Godfather Part 2 movie a mere 40 years ago.

While much has been said about that quote, today I’m going to share another personal story about a friend of mine who just passed away this past month unexpectedly and how that quote started off a friendly competition that became a true friendship and mentorship for nearly two decades.

I’ll conclude with some lessons and wisdom for you to apply to your life and business.

This friend of mine is Ron Latham.

I thought I first met Ron in 2003.  I’ll explain more about that in a moment.

In 2003, I was returning to the world of media and marketing to join a group of radio stations in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  Travis Broadcasting was their company name which a year later became the Summit City Radio Group.  Ron was one of the older salespeople in his early 60’s and I was in my early 40’s.  Ron was very competitive and instead of just being boastful, he went out and beat his competitors.

As one of 6 new salespeople that started in early 2003, he didn’t really pay attention to me or the rest of us, he just went out and did his thing while we did ours but I later learned, he took pride in being the best each month.

About a year after I started, management held a sales meeting and announced new goals and budgets for each of us.  When the meeting adjourned, as we were all walking back to our offices, most of my coworkers were unhappy, including Ron.  I asked him, what’s wrong and he told me over his shoulder, “I don’t care about their stupid goals, I have my own that are higher than those.”   I responded, “I just have one goal.”

Ron stopped walking and turned around and said with a little snarl, “Yeah, what’s that?”

I told him, “To beat you.”

That lit up his eyes with a competitive spirit that said, “Game On.”  We made a little side wager, loser would have to buy lunch at the end of each month.

Ron hated to lose, and I did too, but I’ve been what I call “quietly competitive”.  Cool and calm on the outside, but a fighter just below the surface.  Over the next several months, this lunch wager was fun.  We compared billing and the first month I won.  Probably shocked the old guy that someone like me was able to beat him at something he’d been doing for 40 years.

“Anyone can get lucky for a month,” he said as we ate that first lunch that he paid for.  The competition continued.  Month two, he got his revenge and I bought lunch.  Month three and month four came and went and I won those two months. Then it was his turn to be on top for a month while I got a free lunch the month after that.

Within 6 months a new found respect and friendship developed out of this friendly competition and while I believe I beat him by at least one month before we stopped, everyone really won.  Ron’s billing grew to new heights, as did mine and we helped a bunch of local businesses with their advertising and marketing.

Ron decided to leave those radio stations when they did some programming changes that wiped out a big chunk of his monthly billing and income, but he was a wanted man, in a good way.  He had offers to sell advertising at other places including the monthly Hispanic newspaper.  That’s a story in itself.

The publisher of the Hispanic newspaper, Fernando met Ron and did a Spanish Language weekend radio show which expanded to 7 nights a week.  The programming changes I mentioned cancelled Fernando’s radio show, however Ron joined forces with Fernando and became the Gringo Sales Manager for the Hispanic paper.  See, Ron couldn’t speak a lick of Spanish, and didn’t want to learn.  But he saw the opportunity for mainstream businesses to advertise in the paper and invite the Hispanic community to spend their money in their stores.

After Ron turned 65, he moved to California for about a year with family but couldn’t stand it and returned to Fort Wayne.  Ron had an apartment in the same historic high rise that the Hispanic newspaper was located and the paper was Ron’s main gig.  It didn’t pay a lot he said but it was his “buttered popcorn money”. He and some of his older buddies would get tickets to the local college football games in the fall, Komets hockey in the winter and Tincaps baseball in the summer.

Ron was always a huge sports fan and basketball was his main game.  However he also took up golf and other activities to stay in shape.

In 2013 I joined WOWO radio.  I learned that the WOWO radio sales team had a tradition of taking a day off in the summer to go golfing. The only golf that I knew was miniature golf so Ron offered to teach me and once or twice a week we’d spend an evening at the golf course using some passes he traded for advertising in the Hispanic newspaper.  When the big event came that summer, I wasn’t the worst, but we quickly played “best ball” to keep the game moving.  My golf skills have only gotten worse since that first year and I never was able to beat Ron.

I did beat him bowling a few times and miniature golf too.

Remember the lunch wager I mentioned awhile ago?  When Ron returned from California, he and I started a new tradition of a weekly lunch without the wager since we worked for two totally different forms of media.

Over the nearly two decades that we were friends, I learned a lot from Ron.  He started out as a bit of a mentor to me.  We explored ideas and brainstormed.  If I had a client that I needed some extra input on, Ron was a great person to bounce my idea off of.  And it turns out, he did the same with me.

My step-daughter who is now in her 30’s was on the girls basketball team in high school and Ron’s wife at the time was the head coach for another girls team in town, one that won multiple championships.  I learned a lot about the game of basketball too from my friendship and conversations with Ron over the years.

I noticed over the past year that Ron was slowing down a little bit, as all of us were forced to live our lives differently with the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic that shut down so many things including all the sporting events that Ron would have normally been doing.  He and I continued our nearly weekly lunches when the world began opening up, even if it meant a trip thru the drive thru and sitting in a parking lot “socially distanced” in our own cars.

March 4, 2021 was the last lunch we had together.  He turned down the opportunity I offered him to return to his beloved WOWO Radio as a part-time, “free lance” salesperson.  WOWO was where he started his advertising career 60 years earlier.

A week later, he contacted me in the middle of the night with a plea for help. It was a few days after he had contracted the shingles virus in his ear and the constant pain was making it impossible to get any rest.  I went to his home, contacted medics who took him to the hospital and the last time I saw Ron was when I visited him in the Emergency Room to deliver his phone.  The medical staff were assessing his situation and over the next two weeks discovered some other undiscovered health issues that ultimately made it impossible for him to recover.  His only son was allowed to be with him in Ron’s final day since the hospital was abiding with the strict precautionary protocols brought on by the current pandemic.  That was the only person outside of the medical team who got to see Ron after I saw him in the ER a couple weeks prior.

I found three pictures to share of Ron and myself.  The first was from 2009, when he and I were in our weekly lunch routine while working for different media companies,  I think he was scowling at me having another hot dog or something.

The middle picture was snapped in 2004 about the time we were in the middle of our friendly lunch wager competition at a basketball tournament that our radio stations were sponsoring.

And the last picture was a shocker to both Ron and myself.  When he was preparing to move to California, they were downsizing and Ron found a box of old pictures from the 1980’s.  Turns out we did NOT meet in 2003.  We actually played basketball on the WMEE Basketballer’s team. This picture from 1982 features a gangly radio disc jockey named Scott Howard whose only qualification to be on the team was I was the night time WMEE radio disc jockey, sitting next to a much better basketball player named Ron Latham who was a ringer for our team so we wouldn’t be entirely embarrassed when we went out to play in charity games.

With the passing of my friend who was 18 years my senior but we developed a friendship like brothers, I have some lessons to pass on.

  1.  Friendly Competition can be life changing.  While you may view your competition as the enemy because they are going after the same customers you are, that’s just an illusion.  You and your competition are different in ways that may not be obvious. Those differences is what is likely going to determine who the customer buys from.  Learn from each other and you’ll both be better. In the fast food world, some people prefer a flame broiled Whopper while others prefer a Big Mac.  Apply that to what you do too.
  2. Mentor One Another.  Just as I learned from Ron when he and I started working together in 2003, he was also learning from me over the years.  I recall a comment he made 10 years ago about how he could never do things my way because we just thought differently.  But we both used the other persons strengths to improve ourselves.  Today, I have 5 very different people on my advertising sales team at WOWO radio.  They are doing the things that Ron and I would do in bouncing ideas back and forth and mentoring each other.  How can you develop that in your world?
  3. Get Personal.  When you make it all about business or competition, you lose out on the human side of competition.  Do you know the names of your competitors family members?  Do you ever hang out with them?  If something were to happen to you, could you reach out to them for help?

Thanks for indulging me today with this reflection of my nearly 2 decades of friendship with my adopted older brother, Ron Latham that I disguised as some lessons for all of us in what can happen with a little Friendly Competition.