Maverick Mastery®

In this day and age it is becoming increasingly important to be able to distinguish yourself from your competition so that you become the ‘no brainer’ choice in your chosen market. Whilst there are many factors that can distinguish you from everyone else, the deciding factor seems to be the strength of your reputation and credibility in relation to your competition. This is especially true for smaller businesses and ‘one man bands’ in over populated niches.

Brand reputation is becoming the ultimate decision maker and to ignore this trend will put your business and earning capacity in peril.

If we agree with the premise that potential clients will only buy high ticket value services from those that they trust, it becomes imperative that businesses consider how to develop, nurture and maintain that trust. The next consideration is to decide how to do this in the most cost effective way for their business.

This may mean foregoing expensive marketing activity that only increases the business’ visibility but does nothing to lessen the risk of hiring the company. This ‘risk’ perceived or otherwise, is continuously assessed by potential clients prior to them making the decision to hire you. The oft quoted maxim of ‘the client needs to be ‘touched’ by you 7 times before they buy’ is derived from this premise.

Lessening the risk of a client hiring you is especially important if the business has decided to use ‘pull’ rather than ‘push’ marketing as a strategy for their business. For example, ‘push’ marketing is where the business advertises its services to its target audience, unsure of whether they are looking for their expertise. ‘Pull’ marketing is where the potential client ‘pulls’ your services when he needs it – without specific advertisement. He might decide to use your service based on a referral from an advocate of yours. This means advertising spend has not been made to secure this client.

Those that rely on referrals or social networking to secure work will realise that the most cost effective way to gain new clients is to use ‘pull’ marketing techniques to gain business.

First things first

Before building your reputation in your chosen niche you need to first understand your current position. An audit of your situation should reveal (amongst other things) your standing in relation to your competitors, whether your reputation is earning you enough referrals and whether your business message is coherent across all your markets. It’s important to ensure that your current business strategy (including networking strategy) is consistent with the reputation that you have and are building.

Reputation is personal in its nature, concerning itself with the character of the business (or person) and the intention of its (their) actions. It is essential that you are consistent with what you say and do, especially on the internet where everything that is recorded there is of a permanent nature. Inconsistency can be the biggest killer of reputation because it undermines the trust that is being established between the two parties.

Credibility needs to be demonstrated and is based on your track record and competency. One of the ways to establish credibility is to ensure that your expertise and integrity is demonstrated regularly and effectively. This can be done by providing expert opinion, a positive and strong personal brand, social proofing and having a strong trust account. This allows potential clients to sample your expertise enabling them to advocate your services or hire your business.

If your business (and/or yourself) has a good reputation and credibility it is more likely to be trusted by your potential clients, therefore increasing your revenue and sustainability. A trust account balance reflects the amount of trust in the relationship at any given time. In any one relationship there are two accounts. How we perceive a trusted relationship – say one with a client, may not be the same as they see it. It would be wise to try and understand the balance that is held in each account.

Can social networking help you build reputation and credibility in your business?

It’s important that businesses establish their networking/marketing strategy so that they can decide which social networking sites they should use or maintain a presence on. Social networking sites like Ecademy (www.ecademy.com) can enable businesses to build reputation and credibility for their business quickly. This is particularly true of Ecademy’s Life Membership Community, where building advocacy is made easier due to the nature of its composition. Ecademy encourages its members to network on and offline. Sites like LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) can enable businesses to build visibility and connections quickly. There are hundreds of sites to choose from, so finding a cost and time effective way to utilise them is imperative. Your networking strategy needs to be defined to ensure consistency of your message.

The use of sites such as Ecademy can help businesses establish themselves as an expert in their area of expertise. To establish yourself (or your business) as an expert using social networking sites requires you to be visible to the membership. It is recommended that you blog and write articles frequently, in your area of expertise, run and join clubs structured around your expertise or around your personal interests (thus developing personal reputation). How you communicate and articulate your thoughts on the public and private areas of the networking sites – will guide potential clients and advocates well. Inconsistencies or extreme views contrary to your ‘public persona’ will do you ill and could even prohibit your ability to gain business.

Freely providing advice to others without expectation of a return helps to build your reputation as an expert and provides an informative view on your character. (This is not the same as providing free consultancy!) Participating in one-to-ones to learn how you can help those in your network can be a positive enhancement to both your reputation and credibility. The return on this activity can be immense.

With the credit crunch still impacting most industries, you need to ensure that you focus your energies on delivering a consistent and compelling reason for clients to work with you and a well defined networking strategy will help you to achieve this for very little cash outlay. It is a solid, credible reputation (not just increased visibility) that will carry you and business out of the crunch and beyond. So, look at the way your brand is seen by others and ask yourself…based on the information available about me, would I hire me?

This morning I was taking advantage of the quiet of New Year’s day to browse the Internet. I came across the site Social Mention. The purpose of the site is to show you how often you are mentioned on the Internet.

When you are running a business and have decided that a good business strategy is to employ in part, an ‘attraction policy’ then being mentioned frequently on the internet can be advantageous to your business. How relevant (and accurate) such a tool as Social Mention is, is still to be determined but it does at least let you see where your content is being mentioned on the net, including the comments made by others about you.

According to Social Mention my social rank is 36/100 which means I’m mentioned once every 4 hours. Thomas Power founder of Ecademy Social Rank is 66.14/100 which according to Social mention means that he is mentioned on the Internet once every 30 minutes! Ivan Misner founder of BNI social rank is 26.71/100 which means he is mentioned once every 2hours.

Ivan and Thomas are established and effective offline and online networkers which may explain why they have such impressive Social Ranks. They are also talented and different displaying wilful independence from those that share the same space in the ‘Networking Industry’.

Are they good examples of mavericks that have understood and mastered their Industy specifics? If so should we be trying to follow their example and increase our Social Rank?

Judith Germain – Maverick Comment

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In my opinion, CEOs are extremely brave people. After years of establishing expertise in one or two key functional areas or industries; they take up a role in which they are expected to be able to understand and master all the different aspects of the business! From day one, CEOs have all the accountability in defining the company, ensuring that they have an efficient and effective Board. They also need to have an employee culture that empowers the employees and satisfies the customers, and a business model that really works. This requires a high level of aptitude across a number of competencies, failure in any one area can have a disastrous effect on the company.

Often the success of a company rests on the leadership abilities of the CEO. When in situ they are expected to need little professional development, to be a charismatic leader, an effective manager, knowledge of their industry and emerging trends and an ability to understand the differing activities of the business that makes up the whole. The more complex the company is, the higher the level of expectation that is placed upon them.

But to make things worse, new CEOs typically have on average just 2 years to deliver!

To ensure that they deliver what is expected of them, productive CEOs must ensure the successful marriage of their own management and leadership skills. In this context, management can be defined as the ability to make good decisions and leadership as the ability to execute those decisions through others. These CEOs often hire the services of an external mentor.

What is mentoring and does it differ from coaching?

Coaching begins with the premise that the answers are within the person being coached. The coach’s role is to help the individual understand that and via the use of encouraging and questioning techniques, helps elicit the solution. A coach is non directional and never provides advice.

By contrast a mentor is an expert who provides guidance and advice within a more developmental relationship. Mentoring requires flexibility of the mentor and their ability to use a wide range of techniques to guide the mentee.

Why do productive CEOs think mentoring is essential to their success and their business?

There is a high expectation from shareholders, the Board, employees and other stakeholders that the CEO is always able to clearly assess the optimum direction of the company. He is always self assured, confident and has high self esteem and can easily handle difficult situations with the Board without doubt and with aplomb.

CEOs face many important strategic decisions and to confide that they are uncertain can signal a vulnerability that may weaken their position, and cause doubt in their subordinates. This can be disastrous especially in times when the company is going through major change such as a merger or acquisition, downsizing, a strategic re direction or restructure.

There can be times when the CEO is unsure of whom to trust in his organisation especially if he is experiencing doubt in a decision that he needs to make. It can be lonely at the top especially if there isn’t someone trustworthy to confide in.

Having an objective sounding board

Often a productive and efficient CEO wishes to try out or test new ideas prior to sharing them with his fellow Board members. This enables him to ensure that new ideas are fully assessed and are in sufficient shape prior to the scrutiny that he will receive from his Board.

By working with his mentor he is able to role play the likely resistance that he may receive and therefore be more prepared when it comes to discussing his ideas. He can ensure that he is taking an objective stance rather than an emotional one and is being as strategic or operational in outlook as the situation requires.

Receiving support and advice on team dynamics

Not every Board is as productive or efficient as it should be. This may be because of the way that the CEO is interacting with the other members. If this is the case then the mentor can provide objective advice on how he can be more effective in this arena.

Sometimes the team itself is dysfunctional and is therefore unable to achieve its strategic goals, whilst the CEO is usually able to analyse the reason for the dysfunction he is not always sure how to address the problem. This can be especially true when the reason for dysfunction is due to the personalities of the team, or particular loyalty to their own department.

It is common for mentors to attend the occasional Board meeting (or key meeting) to observe the way the CEO interacts with his team as well as how the team interacts as a whole. The insight that the mentor provides can enable the CEO to clearly see how to improve the dynamics of the team and improve its productivity and efficiency.

Staying ahead of the game by receiving knowledge from other industries

The best mentors work across industries therefore easily transferring best practice from one industry to the next. This enables the CEO to remain fresh and able to more closely identify emerging trends within his own area, through more objective thinking.

The CEO broadens his horizons and experience by working with an external mentor. One way of achieving this is by leveraging the knowledge of the mentor and being able to challenge what is perceived as the only effective way to get something done.

Continuous CEO development

Once an executive becomes a CEO it is often assumed that he no longer needs any further development. This can be a flawed assumption especially when contemplating the role and responsibilities that the CEO faces, often in a challenging and competitive environment. Mentoring enables the CEO to recognise their own abilities and limitations in a safe environment therefore ensuring that their abilities are enhanced and limitations developed into strengths. Where necessary, tasks are delegated to enable the CEO to fulfil his strategic role successfully.

An external mentor ensures that the CEO remains challenged, motivated and constantly learning/developing. This enables the company to reap the benefit of a CEO continuously challenging their own assumptions, someone with a clear strategic focus and who can expertly marry the need to demonstrate clear leadership, efficient management and effective communication.

A more successful and sustainable company

Numerous research studies show that how a company is led is what makes the difference between successful and sustainable companies and failures. External mentors have the unique ability to assist the CEO and at times the leadership team in taking a more objective and strategic approach. They enable employee development, clarity of thinking and enhanced communication skills and team dynamics.

Does mentoring always work?

There are only two main reasons why mentoring doesn’t work. If there is a bad fit between the mentor and mentee or if the CEO is not ready to be open and honest with his mentor and be willing to move out of his comfort zone.

For example, I was working with an established CEO who had recently moved to a new company. The company was very dysfunctional; his top team was inefficient beset with personality and competency issues, poor morale issues amongst the employees and severe union issues. To add to his problems they were losing key customers, haemorrhaging money and the shareholders were not happy. They gave him a very tight timescale in which to achieve turnaround results.

The CEO was unable to confide in his team and was unclear as to where the true starting point was and whether there was a common root to the company’s issued.

By working closely together he was able to see clearly the issues that were faced by the company. To segregate the problems caused by his top team and the consequences of devalued and de-motivated employees. By tackling these key areas, he understood that these were the causes of customer dissatisfaction and poor bottom line results.

He learnt that his own leadership style was adding to the problem and how best to interact with others to ensure that he got the results that he wanted. He understood how to get the best out of his team and how to implement the best processes to deal with the technical deficiencies.

Under his tenure the company improved its fortunes, his team increased their competence and the union difficulties improved as they saw the employees being better treated. This had a positive effect on the bottom line. The CEO benefited from having a trusted advisor who was removed from the company, who could provide objective guidance and advice.

Mentoring is often much more beneficial to CEO’s than traditional coaching practices as it provides senior management with an external sounding bound, someone who can practically assess and advise on the problematic issues within the organisation as a whole, and will not just sit back and wait for the answers to ‘come from within’. Mentoring works when the CEO understands the needs to be challenged and to continue his personal development to realise his achievements and to ensure the likelihood of his company’s success.