2011 July

7 Year Old Entrepreneur

Recently I tacked a couple of days on the front-side of a trip to LA, to go back to my home in Lake Tahoe. It was a much-needed break, and a fabulous time of reflecting and relaxing.

On one of my many trips around the lake, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Doing 40 miles an hour, I saw on a side street what appeared to be a lemonade stand. If you know me at all, you know that I am absolutely crazy about kids. And kids trying to make something of themselves, even more! A kid setting up a lemonade stand, when they could be playing Wii, there’s no way I’m passing this up!

So I had to find a place to turn around. I drove back slowly trying to figure out what street it was that caught my eye. And then, there she was. The cutest little entrepreneur I had ever seen. As I pulled over to park, I noticed that she was serving two bicyclist. In fact, she was sitting at the top of a hill where the street meets a bike path. Her dad was sitting on a log off to the side just watching.

As I walked up, she was finishing her “current transaction” with the bikers. As she handed them their items, she bit her bottom lip as if giddy that she had made another sale. You could tell it had been a good day. I said “Hi”, and asked her what her name was. “Charley!” she said. “That’s a beautiful name!” I said. “How do you spell it?” “C..H..A..R….L…….E.Y” Ok, I’ll admit it, I melted.

I told her that I would like two cookies and a lemonade. She peeled back the plastic wrap from the cookies and let me know that I could choose which two I would like. She started to pour my lemonade from her little glass jar with the press down spout. She then stopped, and her eyes got big as if she remembered something. “Would you like ice with that?” she asked. “No thanks.” I said. She continued to pour.

The total was $3.00, so I gave her $5.00 and told her to keep the rest. She didn’t get that, but then again, she’s seven, and adorable. Once again, she bit her bottom lip with satisfaction. I then walked over to her dad and told him that I teach entrepreneurs and leaders, and I write a blog on leadership, and could I write a post about her? He asked a couple of good dad questions, and they said yes.

I asked how she came up with the idea of doing a stand. This was actually her second time. The first time was when her parents were doing a garage sale and she thought that the people coming might want some lemonade and cookies. Come to find out, she was right. So she then asked her dad if she could do a stand at the top of the hill on their street where the bike path is. The reason for that location? Because she noticed that the bikers pedal to the top and are tired. I love it! seven Years old and she understands about location, location, location!

CLo – “What are you going to do with the money that you make?”

Char – “Wedding Build-A-Bear.”

CLo – “Nice! Anything else?”

Char – “Mmmmm…a car.”

CLo – “HAHA…that’s awesome! Did you make the cookies and lemonade?”

At this point she reaches down, grabs her foot in her flip-flop and pulls it to her back. Standing on one leg she bites her bottom lip, this time from thought process.

Char – “Mmmm…no. Mom made the cookies ’cause of the oven. I made the lemonade.”

CLo – “What else do you like to do when you’re not running a business?”

Char – “Ski….and inter-tube.”

CLo – “Well thank you Charley for taking the time to talk with me. I really appreciate it.”

Char – “You’re welcome.”

And then she shook my hand. OMG!!! I turned to her dad, shook his, and thanked him. He said: “The funny thing is that I have the boat on the lake ready to go, but I can’t get her to leave.” About that time, Charley picked up the sign and began to tilt it back and forth. “Oh yeah,” her dad said: “She put sticks on the backside of her sign so she could spin it like the guys on the corners.” That’s it, she is officially entrepreneur of the year in my book!

Question: Simple, how cute is she?!

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You’re Fired!

Here is another excellent guest post by Jon Edlin. Jon is the Marketing Manager for the Nazarene Publishing House. You can follow him on Twitter or Facebook. You should guest post! Read about it here.

I am the type of person who always sees the glass as half-full.   I can usually dismiss a person’s character flaws because I am so hopeful about helping them reach their full potential. Although my wife says she finds this personality trait of mine endearing, it has recently brought difficulty for me in the workplace.  In fact, when I had a difficult employee, I was so busy trying to develop that employee that I did not notice the rest of my team was suffering.

In March, I had the opportunity to attend Dave Ramsey’s EntreLeadership 1-Day Event in Kansas City.  I took away a wealth of information from that event, but what Dave said about building the right team really caught my attention.   Dave mentioned that when visitors meet his team, they are often amazed at how nice everyone is.

Dave went on to explain that of course he has nice people working for him.  He fires the ones who aren’t.  He explained that if you have a team member working for you who you don’t like, there is probably a good reason for that.  Chances are that person could be bringing everyone on your team down.

As soon as those words came out of his mouth, something clicked for me.  My attempts at developing my difficult employee had been unsuccessful and all the while, the morale of my team had been steadily decreasing.  I wish I could say I went back to my office ready to defeat the virus that was plaguing my team, but I didn’t.

I continued to give my difficult employee chance after chance until I lost a perfectly good team member due to the unbearable environment I had allowed.  It was too late to prevent him from moving on, but it was then that I decided to keep the rest of my team from the same fate.  So I did it.  With good reason, I fired the employee that was holding my team back.

Since then, there has been a complete 180-degree shift.  My team is now working on all cylinders. A cloud has been lifted, and for the first time I can see a bright future.

Questions: Who’s holding your team back? If you don’t like them, why are they working for you?

Related articles

• How to Foster Great Ideas (ChrisLoCurto.com)

Five Ways To Fix Bad Habits

Many leaders believe leading is not parenting. I hired you as an adult to do an adult job, so I should be able to treat you as an adult. The problem is, we ALL have childhood traits that carry over into our adult lives. And most likely, our working lives too.

Just because I’m an adult, doesn’t mean I don’t have bad habits that were instilled in me from a very early age. In fact, one of the things I see over and over again is a severe entitlement mentality. There’s this crazy idea in our young people that the world owes them something. Where they get that from doesn’t matter as much as what their parents didn’t do to fix that broken thought process.

As a leader, you get the great opportunity to receive those traits, or bad habits, when you hire each and every individual. (Don’t look now…but you have them as well.) So what can you do when some of those traits or habits start to surface? Well…fire them! Or…maybe we can take a different approach:

• Please sir, may I have some more? – First thing you should do is start by giving them a little grace. Many times I watch leaders lose their minds over some of the things their team members do. And when I sit down to counsel with them, I find they are doing the same things, just in different ways. The truth is that we all fall short. We all have issues. And until you come to understand that about yourself, you can’t help your team.

• Go all CSI on their stuff – You need to get to the bottom of the actual problem. Quite often you might notice a surface problem only to later discover a much deeper issue causing it. Spend some time investigating what you see going on. If you notice someone not giving you complete information on a project, is it possible they are covering up big mistakes?

• Open a vein – Oh, I’m sorry, I meant a line…of communication. Once you discover what the problem is, sit down with the individual and discuss what you are seeing. Now, more often than not, this is where I see leaders ripping heads off. Trust me when I say, that gets you no-freakin-where! You may feel better, but you didn’t solve the problem. In fact, you probably pushed it further down inside, only for it to surface on a much more important project. Have a calm and gentle conversation on what you think needs to be worked on. Treat the person with dignity, so they can recognize for themselves that there is an issue.

• Pete and Repeat were on a bridge… - Here is where most leaders get confused. You see, they didn’t get into that bad habit or trait overnight, so they sure aren’t going to get out of it overnight. This is going to be a process of you holding their arms up and helping them to truly fix the problem. You may have to meet with them on a weekly, and depending on the issue, maybe a daily basis to see how they are doing. And not just to see, but to be there in any way possible to help. Think of how you would want to be treated.

• WOOT WOOT! – As you see progress, no matter how small, take the time to point out what they are doing right. We as leaders have no issue pointing out what our team is doing wrong, so take this opportunity to tell them you are seeing a change and how thankful you are that they are winning. Praise what you want repeated.

Some situations make take months to see real progress. Some may be fixed quickly because the team member didn’t know they had the habit. Either way, you have to decide what’s most important to you. Roll up your sleeves and get in there, or sit on the sidelines mad and waiting for them to fix themselves.

Question: Have you ever had a leader spend time working with you to make you a better team member?

Sticking to your guns!

I don’t consider myself to be an artistic person. In fact, I don’t know of anyone who would refer to me as artistic either. But there are times when I know how something should look. In marketing Live Events for 10 years, there were plenty of times when I knew our promotional stuff needed a drastic change — that what we were putting out just wasn’t eye-catching enough.

Another one of those situations was when I was building my house. There are a few spectacular views from my property. One of those is looking over my pond with a view of a valley floor and some houses. Another is looking at a really old and beautiful barn with a hillside as a back drop. When it was time to lay out the position of the house, I immediately knew it needed to face the barn.

Once I stated that, everybody told me I was wrong. Our builder, who is a great guy and built an amazing house, said it needed to face the pond. We could put a fountain in it, and it would be beautiful. I said barn. A few weeks later, our draftsman said it needed to face the pond. I said we would lose our backyard facing the pond due to the tree line…and it needs to face the barn.

A month later the architectural review board for the sub-division said it needed to face the pond. Even my wife was like, “A fountain would be nice. Maybe it should face the pond.” At this point I called everyone and told them to meet me out at the property. I wanted all parties there at the same time to see what I was seeing.

With everyone on the property, in the rain and lightning, I asked them to mark off what the house would look like in front of the pond. They took their handy-dandy rolling yard stick thingy and laid out all four corners. At this point I looked at the builder and didn’t say a word. He looked back at me and said, “Chris is right! It needs to face the barn.” He then walked over to me and said, “You’re in the wrong business.”

Now, have I always been right with every decision I’ve made like this? Yes! OK, of course not. Not even close. But there are moments, when everything inside of you is telling you that you are right. Those are the moments you need to stick to your guns. Even if you have to bring everyone together at the same time to see what it is that you see. From that day forward, I can’t tell you the number of times people have commented on how the view from the house it just amazing.

Question: What barn-facing moments have you had in your life?

Why You Must Hire Correctly!

It is a great honor and a privilege to be able to help so many people with their businesses. And because I love it so much, I always encourage my readers to ask me questions. Doesn’t matter what it is, I will do my best to answer it. So many great questions turn into posts that I’m able to share with everyone else.

Here is one of those posts. David Branch has attended both our EntreLeadership Master Series Dave taught in Cancun, and the EntreLeadership I taught here in Nashville. He brought three of his top guys along with him to my event. Let me say, that was the right thing for him to do with his business. Getting those guys on board gave him a huge advantage.

In Q & A On Profit-sharing and Q & A On Profit-sharing Pt. 2, David and I discussed how he could pay his team more money from profit-sharing than from high salaries, which were killing his bottom-line. After we talked that through, we discussed his need to offer lower salaries and the opportunity to make a lot of money through bonuses to potential new team members. We also talked about the importance of taking the time to find right people, not just offering a high salary to get someone on-board.

Below are two emails that I received from David. The first was not too long after we discussed his need to change his interview process. And the second is one month to the day later. Enjoy:

6/12/11

CLo: What are your thoughts on what we talked about?

DB: In my view I will pass up a whole lot of potentially great people because they have past financial sins that do not allow them to take a risk.  What about the guy who feels the risk is worth it, but has a mortgage, car loan and three kids and a wife, and has to make $50k or more to just meet his bills?  Not knowing enough about our company, he may not be in a position to take that chance.  

I know it may be worth it, but hiring has gone from what used to be a single interview to see if I liked the candidate, and if I did I made them a salary or hourly wage offer.  This new way will prove to be better, but it’s a total “pain in the butt.”  I have thrown away hundreds of resumes and had numerous interviews and hired nobody. Am I asking too much? It’s almost as if I’m looking for someone who doesn’t exist.

Thanks again for the therapy session !!

7/12/11

CLo: How are things down there?

DB: After a lot of prayer and endurance, I have finally found some qualified candidates to hire.  We have been stretched so thin for so long and are getting a bit burned out.  Stewart and I met for prayer a time or two, and we prayed specifically for great people.  We have been hiring for three positions and out of hundreds found NONE.  Then in one week we found people for all the positions. 

Definitely GOD!  Thanks for stressing the importance of being patient and waiting. I found myself wanting to compromise just to get relief, and now I am so glad I held the line. Now I have to pray that our work load sustains and bonuses are good. 

Three keys to David’s success:

• The right compensations calculation

• Prayer

• Lots of patience

We can have the first two, but without the last one, you will find yourself in trouble.

Question: How has hiring the wrong way affected your company?

Related articles

• Q & A On Profit-sharing (ChrisLoCurto.com)
• Q & A On Profit-sharing Pt. 2 (ChrisLoCurto.com)