Episode 31 - Seize The Opportunity: Changes to Weather the Storm

Lou Quinto (00:19):

Hi, welcome to Q and A on breakthrough leadership. I'm Lou Quinto and I'm Craig Anderson. Today we're topic that we want to cover and talk about is a little bit seizing the opportunity and really to make some changes in this storm that we're currently in. And what we're going to do is we're going to look at opportunities that we have perhaps to retool some of the business areas that you have to improve processes and also to do some changing of culture. One of the things when it comes to change, as we all know, is the biggest hurdles. Most people say, well that's the way we've always done well folks, when we get out of this, that isn’t going to be the way that we've done things anymore. And so we have an opportunity when it comes to implementing change, improving processes, improving your business to really go ahead and do that.

Lou Quinto (01:02):

So the three areas that we're going to cover in looking at that is number one, talk to your customers. We're going to talk to customers to gather data, not to make any sales, but then gather data, find out what they're doing, they help you put together your business plan, which leads me to the second point and that is putting together your business plan. Again, you created your business plan at the beginning of the year or back in late fall last year. And I can tell you that his business plans aren't worth the paper they're written on right now. So we're going to talk about doing that. And then the last one is getting employee engagement because this is an opportunity to really get buying and support from our employees because as we all know, the old adage, people tend to support what they help create. So let's go ahead and take the very first topic and that is let's find out a little bit about what's going on by talking to our customers. So Craig, you've, I know you've done a lot of talking to your customers. When you gather the data, where do you gather?

Craig P. Anderson (01:56):

Well, you know, I think right now it's just important to kind of reach out and touch base with your customers and kind of see what the pulse is. I mean I think there's a bias to kind of sitting back and saying, Oh I know everything that's going on cause I'm reading papers. But that's kind of at a high level and really digging into what's going on at your individual customer level. Not to say, Oh I have a product to sell you to fix that. You know, we were talking before we started recording, I think I've probably gotten 15 LinkedIn messages from people wanting to sell me leads. That's not where I'm at right now. Right. I'm checking in with my customers. I want to see what's going on with them. If there's anything from the current stuff I have with them that we need to deliver and what they think their needs are going to be in the future.

Craig P. Anderson (02:33):

And I think the other thing I'd add to this isn't just you as the leader, your sales team, reaching out, talk to your customer service team because your customer service team or talking to your customers every day and they may have an even better pulse and they're touching a lot more of your customers every day. So don't forget about those internal stakeholders who can feed information up to you. And I think, you know, you can sit around and wait for that to happen. Or you can be proactive and reach out to your customer service folks and all your customer touching folks to say what's going on, what are you hearing? So that you can start building that back to start looking to the future for you Andrew customer.

Lou Quinto (03:08):

Yeah, and I think that's the key is calling your customers one to touch base with them and let you know you're still out there, not bad customer service. And the second thing too is to find out what they're doing. What are they hearing about their businesses? Because I can promise you if it's a good business, they're doing everything that we're talking about in this episode. They're retooling, they're looking at changing culture, they're going back and they're looking at their products and services and any information you can glean from those individuals on that would definitely, and again these phone calls are just to gather data and secondarily to just touch base to let them know that you're still out there and you still care about them. But I think in putting together the business plan, which is the second bullet point that we're going to talk about, is to pull that business plan out.

Lou Quinto (03:52):

And unlike other business plans that you've created in the past, Greg, I know you, you do the one page business plan with everybody that your, all of your clients. And one of the things that makes it, I won't say easy, but it's, you can make some assumptions. And usually those assumptions are correct, but right now any assumptions you make on what this is, what things are going to look like when we get out of this pandemic. You can't, you can't say, okay. And that's really going to be hard when it comes to putting together or revising it. Justin, whatever you want to call it, this new business plan. But you definitely need to revisit that business plan. Now don't wait. [inaudible] Greg, you and I talked about this in the prerecord is you can't wait until the everything is over and go, okay, now we know how things are looking. So let's go ahead and plan now. This is, you're, you're training for a marathon right now and do your stretching, do your training, do everything now so that when that gun goes off and we're back in the offices and things are starting to hit their stride, you began running that race. And so that business plan becomes important.

Craig P. Anderson (04:56):

Yeah. And then I will give a kudos is what the one page business plan. I actually went out and heard enough from customers saying, Hey, we need, we need a pivot plan. We need kind of a short term plan to get us through the next three months. And then kind of,

Lou Quinto (05:08):

It's a good way of putting it. Yeah.

Craig P. Anderson (05:10):

So, so we offered everybody kind of a new subscription to a three page three, three to four month pivot plan. So they can start making those adjustments and figure out already where's our short term and let's get ourselves poised for the long term. I think this is a great opportunity to realize that that 80 page document you dragged everybody through back in, you know, late fourth quarter maybe or whatever your fourth quarter is was a whole lot for nothing because it's really hard to see these big switches in the future. So you know, retooling your business plan right now saying, all right, what are the key things we've got to focus on and get done? That's where the real opportunity lies to start moving forward with your business and getting, you know, your whole team, your leadership team together, making sure they've gotten all the information from the customers in the front lines and everything else and start figuring out, alright, you know, we thought our revenues were going to be here. Now know right now they're looking to hear what do we need to start putting in place? You know, what plans, what strategies do we need to start putting in place to start at least getting it as close as we can to the tobacco?

Lou Quinto (06:06):

Sure. And I know you don't like the term, but I've used it a few times is I think now is an opportunity time to take your business and just on paper, blow it up. [inaudible] Blow it up. See where the pieces land and when you're blowing up your piece, it blowing up your business and you know on paper, take a look at what's the most essential part of your services or your product. Those are the two things that you're going to look at. And then look at your, look at your organization and find out what are those driving forces that you have that's making you are made. You have the business that you have and keep those in place and everything else you can put off to the side. So you're starting with the strong points and you're starting with the basis or the nucleus of your business and ask simple questions.

Lou Quinto (06:47):

For instance, you know, how can I, how can I deliver my product or service more effectively? How can I deliver it more economically, not only just for me but for the customers? Well you can also talk about, you know, how can I provide better customer service and what's the best way to market you know, my product and service at this point. And then lastly you know, how can we prepare the sales plan so that when this is over, we run. And so those are some questions that you can definitely do and you know, applying some good, sure. [inaudible] Critical thinking. I would definitely say this is what we call separating and prioritizing. You're separating pieces of your business and you're prioritizing them.

Craig P. Anderson (07:27):

This is a real good time to take a look at what you're offering out in the market, the products and services suite, and really take a hard look at, you know, what are our hobbies? What are those things we're doing that aren't really generating a lot of our revenue? But it's a pet project here. It's a feel good thing here. But really it's not really keeping us laser like focused on what our mission is and what it is we're good at. And that happens over time, especially when we've had such a boom run in the last several years where you can kind of let some of that stuff creep out. And they, as you said, I don't know about it. I don't know if I'd say blowing up, but certainly kind of refining around the edges and say, all right, let's get back to our core. Let's focus on the thing we're the best at, and let's differentiate and make that work because it's a real good opportunity.

Lou Quinto (08:07):

And this is a great opportunity for creativity. There's any bears right now, it looks at everything like a blank slate because we don't know. And so again, you, it's not the way we've always done things that ain't gonna happen. So the third point, let's talk about Craig is engaging employees because obviously right now is a great time to engage employees to do this work on looking at things and perhaps taking apart the business, looking at services, looking at your product line and literally just being creative with them and saying, how can we do this more effectively? How can we do this better? And now is the time to be able to implement those. So Greg, I mean, you know, we, we've talked about an engaging employees before, but I think now [inaudible] truly most companies have the opportunity to engage employees on the, which would get into a little employee ownership.

Craig P. Anderson (08:59):

Yeah. We you know, we've talked, we had a whole video on our whole episode on employee engagement and some of our remote workforce discussions we've touched on in play engagement ideas as well about really just tuning in and, you know, getting in touch with employees through the difficult time. But then the next level is start pulling them into this future plan. Making sure that everybody understands. So when you build this business plan, you know, and that's why I like having a straight forward business plan that you can communicate to employees so people can kind of sit in the audience and not because they all right, I understand that's what we're trying to do. Then you can transition that over with the employee. Say, you know, here's your role in it. This is, you know, so you see these three items up here on our nine objectives, those are the three that we're really focused on your unit to help us deliver.

Craig P. Anderson (09:40):

And you can start pulling the employees in and getting them to really align with the mission and see what their role is in it. Especially now when everything is so critical. This is a really important time if you've been able to hold onto your employees to really get everybody rowing in the same direction. And the way to do that is get everybody focused on the same mission and same vision for the company. So communicating that effectively is how you're going to get everybody on board and kind of, you know, there's a whole lot going on in the world right now. So let's get focused on what we need to do here.

Lou Quinto (10:08):

Yeah. Yeah. And the one thing I would say is almost [inaudible] in point number two also when revisiting the business plan, and I think you made the comment about getting rid of hobbies. Okay. Now's a great opportunity did to apply the 80 20 principle is to look at everything and use that. It may be not implemented to its full extent, but use that [inaudible] as a measuring stick so that you're truly looking at where you get 80% of your income and focusing on those things so that you are not focusing on all of those as you called hobbies. And this is a great way to employee engagement. Do you employ Mmm, yeah. To engage employees is because you have an opportunity, they know where, they know where the waste is and I would definitely get them to, you know,

Craig P. Anderson (10:55):

Yeah.

Lou Quinto (10:55):

Go back to our episodes on brainstorming and take a look at the brainstorming episode and give them the opportunity to truly have some good creative sessions to be able to take a look [inaudible] product services and to refine them so that when we're done, you come out of the gate running and so take this opportunity now.

Craig P. Anderson (11:15):

Okay. Yeah.

Lou Quinto (11:16):

Any key takeaways that you have, Greg, on this few minutes that we've had together on seizing the opportunity?

Craig P. Anderson (11:22):

Yeah. Well a carpet diem, right? Let's seize the day and let's take things moving forward. I think, you know, I was on a seminar the other day where somebody said, you know, you went and there's big times of crisis, like this is where you really see the money start to shift and the people who find ways to best position themselves in these opportunities to best serve their customers, to get their employees on board, those are the ones who are going to come out on the other side of this stronger forum. And I think that's really by pulling these items together, we're talking about here, you really have a great position to intentionally get your moving forward.

Lou Quinto (11:54):

You found a way to get intentional in there. There's no, okay. All right. Yeah. My key takeaway is, is now is an opportunity to clean house. And I, I meant when I talked about cleaning house, I'm talking about going in and looking at your business model. What can we, what efficiencies can we, can we make? Because one most businesses will be in a little bit of a financial bind coming out of it. And so any inefficiencies you can eliminate now, okay, we'll definitely help you on the back end as we go forward. And so taken, you know, blow up the business and take a look at what are my driving forces. Make them your key leverage points. What's your strategic competitive advantage? If you've never known what your strategic, strategic competitive advantages, now's the time to create one. So that when you get out of this, you have a banner that you can waive for the company, that you're branding that people and your customers know you by. And this is a great opportunity to do that. So, you know, don't sit back. And like many of us had probably done in first couple of days of this is to cry. Oh, woe is me. That was an opportunity. You know, they've used the expression or I know I've used it a few times. Stop the world. I want to get off just to have extra time to do something. Well, you've got the time to do some things that you've never had before. Don't let this opportunity escape you. Seize that opportunity.

Craig P. Anderson (13:10):

Absolutely. I found that too. I fall back to a quote from a Nick fury and Marvel's the Avengers until the world stopped spinning. We will continue to act as it will carry on and that's what we gotta do. Stay focused on the future. So we hope you enjoyed this episode today. I, you know, we know these are really different for us sitting in two different locations, but you know, as it is Q and a breakthrough leadership in exile but we hope you find this helpful. If you do or you know, someone else who's struggling with some of these ideas, please like, share and subscribe it with your friend to your friends and your business colleagues. And also our podcast is available on all platforms if it's easier for you to consume content just through audio. So until next time, I'm Craig Anderson

Lou Quinto (13:50):

And keep your hands washed and keep your distance. I'm Lou Quinto.