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mistakes

Are You a Mistakes Repeat Offender?

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Everyone makes mistakes – we are human after all.  But, are you a repeat offender?  Do you even recognize you’ve made a mistake?  Are you constantly doing damage control?

Deep breath – you aren’t alone.

Here are some tips and guidelines to help you reduce the number of mistakes you are making, what to do when you make them, and how to prevent them from happing again.

  1. OWN YOUR MISTAKES. The worst thing you can do after making a mistake is not owning it. No one is perfect, people inherently know that although let’s be honest we often expect it. So when you make a mistake don’t try to cover it up, acknowledge it, apologize for it, and skip the part where you make excuses or try to blame it on someone else. When you aren’t an “oops owner” it shows you can’t take accountability for your actions, and it just makes things awkward for everyone involved. Be a LEADER and OWN it!
  2. FIND OUT THE ROOT CAUSE. If you work in manufacturing, root cause analysis is a term you probably hear all the time, but it can apply to anyone and any industry. Root cause analysis is finding out WHY the mistake happened in the first place so you can prevent it from happening again. Was it caused by operator/human error, a bad process or procedure, poor communication, etc.? If you don’t know what caused the mistake, then how can you make sure it won’t happen again?
  3. CREATE NEW POLICIES OR PROCEDURES. If you’ve determined that the error is due to poor or incomplete policies or procedures, then it’s time to do some updating. Whether you need to create a new process or update the ones you already have in place, it’s important to document any change that needs to be made.
  4. You’d be surprised how many times there are mistakes or issues because of poor communication. Once you’ve handled the above 3 steps, it’s important to communicate to everyone what the issue was and how it’s going to be fixed. It shows your employees, board members, clients, etc. that you care about preventing the same mistakes from happening again.

If you make a mistake, don’t freak out. Take a deep breath and figure out if you need to take any immediate steps to fix any urgent issues or fall out. Always make sure you acknowledge you made a mistake and that you will do your best to fix it. If it requires getting others involved, don’t be embarrassed – they are human too – and can often have an outsider’s perspective on why it happened or how to avoid it happening again!

The end goal – one and done and no repeat offenders.

Are You a Mistakes Repeat Offender? Read More »

feedback

How to Tell if You are Getting Sincere Feedback

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Asking for feedback is a pretty normal part of life, right? You ask for people’s opinions all the time: Do they like a new recipe you made, do they like this color paint for the living room, does this new shirt make you look fat?, etc. Do you always get the truth… maybe not? In fact, I recently saw this post on Facebook that said, let me know if you want to vent or you really want advice. It’s an honest question too because sometimes people just want validation and they really don’t want your opinion.

When it comes to getting sincere feedback at work, it can be even harder. Why? Well, to be honest, some people just don’t care to give you honest feedback. Some people don’t like confrontation, so they say great job regardless. There are others who are jealous and want you to fail, so they give you bad advice or won’t point out mistakes. Either way, it’s not sincere and it’s not helping.

People always telling you that you are doing a great job is nice to hear, but it’s really not effective and it’s completely unhelpful for growth and development.

In order to improve at anything in life, you need three things:

  • A clear goal
  • A genuine desire to achieve that goal
  • Feedback that indicates what they are doing well and what they are not doing well

Not only is sincere feedback hard to come by, but low-quality feedback is not useful, positive feedback is undervalued, and negative feedback delivered unskillfully can actually cause physical pain. When delivered thoughtfully, however, sincere feedback can provide you with actionable data needed to become more effective.

If you make strides towards receiving sincere feedback, try these steps:

Create a Safe Environment for Sharing.  You can do this by showing your peers that honesty doesn’t have repercussions. Be curious about them and ask them questions, show vulnerability, and let them know you want to learn. Acknowledge your weaknesses or mistakes – we are all human.

Be Skillful. Just asking for feedback rarely results in useful information. Try asking more specific questions like “Was I talking too fast”, “Do I talk over people or cut them off”, “You know Jason well, how can I better connect with him” – this helps people break down feedback into bite-size pieces.  

Ask for the Good and Bad. When you only hear the good or only the bad, you miss out on a lot of specific information that’s useful. If you just hear the bad, you won’t know the good things you do and risk making changes to those when you shouldn’t. If you just hear the good, you won’t know what bad stuff to fix – you need both for feedback to work. Also, just getting praise does not give you enough information to understand what you are doing effectively – “great job” doesn’t say the same thing as “Hey, your slides are kick-ass, but you should probably just slow down your presentation by 5 seconds”.

Be Receptive and Attentive. When getting feedback, focus on the person giving it so they know you are listening and value their opinion. Even if you disagree with some feedback, don’t challenge or debate them, or you may decrease the likelihood of that person offering you feedback in the future.

Say Thank You. Even if it wasn’t the most helpful information, always say thank you. The person giving you feedback likely spent a good amount of time considering your performance and how to thoughtfully discuss it with you.

Evaluate, Plan, and Act. Review all the data, consider what parts to work on, what parts to disregard and plan to fix what needs fixing. Pick one or two capabilities you want to improve, get really clear about what “improved” looks like, and then map out the action steps that you need to take. If you struggle with the action part – check out this blog.

People who are great leaders are great listeners and great learners. They are always looking for more information and ways to improve themselves. Getting and learning from feedback isn’t always easy, but it is necessary if you want to become better.

How to Tell if You are Getting Sincere Feedback Read More »

burnout

Are you suffering from Burnout?

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Burnout is a real thing and can happen to anyone. Does the thought of going to work on Monday morning leave you already feeling exhausted and frazzled by Sunday at noon? Does your 8 hour workday feel like you’ve been battling in the trenches for 8 days straight? Are you finding it hard to get motivated once you are actually at work?

You might shrug it off as just going through a rough patch or a busy time – but you could be suffering from burnout! Burnout can manifest itself differently for different people, so there isn’t one centralized definition. However, in May 2019, the World Health Organization updated and added more detail to their entry on burnout. Previously defined only as a “state of vital exhaustion,” it’s now classified as a “syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”

It’s important to note that burnout is specifically work-related and is characterized by:

  • A sense of exhaustion or depletion
  • Mental distance from or negativity or cynicism about work
  • Decreased effectiveness at work

If you’ve ever heard the saying you can’t pour from an empty cup – that’s a great analogy for burnout – you have nothing left in the cup or proverbial gas tank to accomplish anything.

So we have the definition, but what are the actual signs of burnout?

  • You aren’t excited about work anymore. Projects that you used to get excited, energized about, or make you feel fulfilled seem boring or a chore. You aren’t getting satisfaction from your work.
  • You are going through the motions. You have stopped putting in any effort or caring. You are doing the bare minimum to get by.
  • Your performance is going downhill. You are making errors you wouldn’t normally make or are missing deadlines that used to be easy to meet. You just want to get the task done; you don’t care if it’s done to your usual standards.
  • You are exhausted – all the time. You feel physically and emotionally depleted and drained. Even getting out of bed to go to work is a challenge.
  • You start having physical ailments. The symptoms can be different for everyone, but can include insomnia, chest pain, headaches, getting sick more often, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, and even GI issues.

What to do if you are suffering from burnout.

Once you’ve come to the realization that you are suffering from burnout, what do you do? The simplest and easiest step is to take some time off, but that alone won’t solve the issue – it just gives you a little breathing room. Most often you’ll need to make a more significant change like changing your attitude or changing your workload or work situation.

Often times you can recognize negative habits and thought patterns and work to stop them when they happen. If you associate with being a perfectionist, you are more likely to suffer from burnout.

Changing your work situation can have a few different options. The easiest might be adjusting your workload. If you have too much on your place, burnout can happen. Talk to your boss to see if you can lighten your load. If it’s the job or company itself, it might be time for a change. Moving to a different department and doing something different for the same company could make a big difference. Otherwise, it might be time to look for a new job elsewhere.

Burnout is hard to recognize, and it doesn’t go away on its own. Identifying and then addressing burnout requires some conscious thought and effort and the only one who can ultimately fix it is you.

Are you suffering from Burnout? Read More »

website

How do I know if I need a website makeover?

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Truth be told, no one wants to hear that their website sucks. It can be a very awkward conversation especially if a business owner is in love with their current site and is in denial. What may have been cutting edge 5, 10, or even 15 years ago is just no longer going to cut it today. #TruthBomb

We get it, having your website created probably took a lot of time, decision making, and money, but if your website just isn’t converting anymore or it’s very clunky for your viewers to use – then it’s time for an overhaul.

The goal of any website is to convert visitors into customers and if your site design and/or structure is a barrier in that, it needs to be fixed. Identifying the problems that hinder your site from being conducive to conversion and visitor engagement is an important step in the right direction.

Below are a few reasons why a redesign should become a priority for your company\’s web presence and some negative effects you could face by not taking action now.

  1. Your bounce rate is too high. Every website should have Google Analytics installed so that you can review your bounce rate – this the percentage of visitors that only visit a single page on your website during their session. The average bounce rate is about 40% to 55%. Anything higher suggests that your visitors are having a poor user experience.
  2. Long load times. Is there anything more frustrating than when a website takes FOR-EV-ER to load! There are several tools, like pingdom.com, that can help you figure out your load time. If it takes longer than 3 seconds, you should make some updates to speed it up.
  3. No on-page SEO. In order for your website to rank on search engines like Google and Bing, your website needs to have on-page Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Each page should have its own unique keywords and title tag or H1 tag. Search engines use these tags and keywords to create listings and how your customize these can affect how and how often your website is displayed when someone searches your keywords. There are other ways to increase your SEO as well including adding links, meta descriptions, alt tags, etc.
  4. Stale content. Yes, adding fresh content to your website matters – without it you will struggle to attract and retain new visitors. Fresh content increases your site’s exposure in search results – one of the easiest ways to add content is a blog!
  5. It’s still an HTTP. You need to have a secure site and upgrade to an HTTPS site – this lets visitors know that your site is secured by an encrypted network communication protocol. An HTTPS scrambles the data transmitted to and from your site to prevent unauthorized users from reading it.
  6. It’s not mobile responsive. This is a big one! 3 in 5 users will visit your site on a tablet or mobile device. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, visitors may abandon your website. A mobile responsive website means that not only does your website look good and function great on a desktop, but it’s compatible on a mobile device – the design uses proportional units of measure rather than fixed so it can adapt to the device it’s viewed on.
  7. It’s clunky aka hard to navigate. Visitors should be able to easily find the content they are looking for on your site. Whether you put the information on your homepage or in your menu, visitors shouldn’t have to look hard to find what they came for. Navigation can affect every aspect of your website performance!
  8. It doesn’t match your brand. You already know how important branding is to us here at Red Barn. Your website is a direct reflection of your brand, your colors, logo, styling, pictures, and even font should all match your brand.
  9. You aren’t using CTAs. A Call to Action tells your visitor what to do next. It can be something simple like read this article, download this whitepaper, click here to email or call, etc. it gives them direction on what they need to do next to get information or to work with you.
  10. You have bad links or 404 errors. Having broken links or links to pages that are no longer available can really affect a user’s experience on your website. It can also slow down your site’s speed and performance. If you don’t want to check every link page by page, a great resource is com.

In addition to the list above, you should also make it very easy for people to find your contact information and social media profiles – make it easy for them to contact you and follow you. It’s also important to note that if you are in an industry like banking, you may be required to have an ADA compliant website – that’s a whole different animal, but you can read a previous blog about it here.

Don’t look at upgrading and updating your website as an expense – it’s all part of your marketing strategy which should be seen as an investment. After all, marketing is designed to bring in leads that convert to sales. If your website is crappy and outdated, odds are you aren’t making the best first impression to your prospects and could be losing sales and not even know it. Need an honest assessment of your website or thinking of giving it an overhaul, give us a call!

How do I know if I need a website makeover? Read More »

clients

How to Get the BEST Clients

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This month in our private  “The Thursday Club” we are diving into the Law of Attraction – think friends, clients, acquaintances, etc..  What you put forth, you attract. What you say, you become.

I’m coaching on how to create a personal brand that attracts the right people and clients into their inner circle.  Because you are who you surround yourself with – yes your Mama was right.

Here’s where many businesses go wrong – they think that brand trumps people.  When your brand excludes the people connection it becomes a commodity and then often the price is the point.  Not always – but often.

How to attract the BEST clients?  Be authentic.  Don’t fake it.  Be honest, be real and deliver on what you promise.

 Some stories…..

I’d like to share why I bought a Tiffin Motorhome. 

I did a bunch of research and found that it is a family-owned business, that customer service was their #1 priority and they stood by their word.

ALL of their marketing talks about it.

ALL of their social media screams to it.

ALL of their EMPLOYEES honor those values.

Their tag line is “Roughing it Smoothly” – it just sings to me.

They have Clubs and Get Togethers for Tiffin owners – and again they go above and beyond.

They charge a premium for their products, and I’m willing to pay that because I want to be able to pick up the phone and talk to Bob or Trent Tiffin if there is a problem.

Their brand is ALL about the people!  Their employees – their owners – their family. 

Not everyone cares about the level of customer service I do – some are more concerned about the price – and that’s ok!

Not everyone wants the RV I have – again that’s ok.

Tiffin Motorhomes is a prime example of using Attraction Marketing to woo people like me.

What they put forth – they attracted.  They think of all the little details and they have an avatar of ME in mind.

Now let’s take my company  Red Barn Consulting

 If you look at our marketing, what we put forth, who we are – we are very intentional.

We aren’t for everyone.  We know that.

We want to work with people who we like, who we can bring value to and who can afford us.

Jenn and I are not corporate, we are more country than city – and there isn’t a suit in either of our closets.  We go above and beyond to make sure our clients are happy and if you aren’t for us, we will let you know.

So if you attracting clients who aren’t a good fit and your “perfect client” eludes you – go back to your marketing and your messaging – there is something off.

Tell YOUR story – make it about people, not your logo.  You’ll see a shift.

How to Get the BEST Clients Read More »

improve sales

Improve your sales skills even if you aren’t in sales

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Sales, regardless if you are an actual salesperson or not, is just part of life and your career. Sales doesn’t always mean selling a product or service to a customer, in fact, you are probably giving sales pitches just about every day. That’s right, every time you pitch an idea, make a suggestion, or even go on a job interview, you are “pitching” yourself. So how can you improve your sales skills if you don’t pitch people often?

First off, selling kinda has a bad rap. You typically think of a sleazy used car salesperson, telemarketer, or door to door salesperson. But if you think about it, sales is really the most fundamental life skill. People think sales is pushing someone to buy something they don’t need, want, or can afford. But really, sales is moving someone to take action. And if you think about everything you did today, I’d bet quite a few of your actions involved selling. Am I right?

People are often uncomfortable with sales because they 1. Don’t understand it and 2. Can’t get past the used car salesman cliché. Selling is all about persuading, inspiring, and leading. It’s about collaboration and driving change. The best salespeople make you feel like the sale was your idea. Why? Because you trusted them, they had a genuine interest in your problem, they provided a solution that they knew would fix your problem. You wanted to buy from them.

People often buy for 2 reasons, to gain pleasure or avoid pain. Your job is to figure out which one it is. Sales really is about networking and listening to your customers. Find out who the decision-makers are, learn as much about them ahead of time as you can. When you talk to them take an empathic approach, one that focuses on understanding the other person and what they need. Serve, not sell.

What do the best salespeople have in common? They plan and practice. You wouldn’t show up to a golf tournament and expect to win having never swung a golf club in your life, right? The best in the biz have mentors and coaches who help them practice and make sure their conversation flows – they help them improve their delivery. Practice on friends, peers, coworkers, family, etc. until you get your pitch just right.

Making your “pitch” can be very nerve-wracking at times, but even with all that adrenaline flowing, it’s important to stay calm and not ramble. People don’t want to listen to someone drone on and on about how great something is. Selling should be a conversation, not a lecture.

A good salesperson knows when to fold ‘em and when to walk away. Yes, the late, great Kenny Rogers knew what he was talking about. Most salespeople hear no at least a few times before they make a sale, but they know when to press on, because that no is really a “not yet”, and when to throw in the towel. They are flexible and understand the path that their customer has to take in order to move forward.

Sales is a numbers game – it’s highly possible you will fail more than you succeed. However, it’s important that you don’t quit. You need courage and to always remember the long game. Sales is never rarely a one and done deal, and most times it’s actually not about you. If a customer is happy where they, they won’t get pleasure from buying and aren’t experiencing pain, then now is not the time. Check back in 3 months.

Have any great sales advice to add, we’d love to hear it! We also wrote a blog on increasing sales without a sales team, check it out.

Improve your sales skills even if you aren’t in sales Read More »

The Power of Flexible Work Schedules

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At the Red Barn, we have a standard 8-4 schedule, but we still consider it a flexible work schedule – meaning Jenn and I will typically log in to Skype around 8 am EST to connect and Jenn usually checks out around 4 pm to head to the gym but that’s about as structured as we get.

I learned early on in my career that my most productive and creative time is before the sun comes up.  (I’m writing this before 5 am)  I also know that by 2 pm on most days my brain is done for the day – mainly because I’m up at 4 and I’ve put in a good 8 hour day.  I try my best not to schedule meetings in the afternoon – but that doesn’t always happen because like any business I have customers and it’s important that I meet them where they need to be!

I know the productive times of my team and I let them work when they are in the zone and I surely don’t push them to do work when I know it will be a struggle – unless we are in an all hands on deck situation for a client.  PS – we try to avoid those moments but it happens!

Knowing your team is critical.  Knowing when they are productive is key if you want to run an efficient and effective ship.  This also includes watching for the “I need a mental health day” cues.  Everyone has a bad day or even a day when you just “can’t” for whatever reason – I just hone in on those cues and give my team the option to go home, quit early or run away from life for a few hours if that’s what they need to do.

In the end, I focus on getting GOOD work out the door – I really don’t care when that work gets done. I do care HOW it turns out.  I don’t care if someone wants to not work on Monday and would prefer to work on Sunday – I just need to know ahead of time.  I also don’t really care about the number of PTO days taken – in fact, I usually have to remind team members to take their vacation time.  Because I don’t hang PTO over their head and I only track it because I have to for HR reasons – the PTO time never gets abused.  Well, at least it hasn’t up to this point.

The flexible work schedule doesn’t work for every employee or for every business – but if you are open to trying it and seriously letting go of the corporate structure mindset – you just might be amazed at the results. Need an example – look at Microsoft – they had a 40% productivity boost when they switched to a 4 day work week.

Happy Employees = Happy Clients = Increased Revenues

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time blocking

Want to be more efficient? Block your Time.

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If I want to get something done and be efficient – it needs to be in my calendar, that\’s how I block my time.  If it’s not there it doesn’t exist.  I take my calendar to the next level and use the Time Blocking Method.

I learned this little trick over a decade ago from Chris Brogan –  – I block out 45 minutes in my calendar to do certain tasks.  For me, 45 minutes is manageable and not overwhelming.  Chris uses 20 minute blocks as an FYI.

Here’s how it works.

When I get my new planner each year – yes, I have a paper planner and I use a digital calendar for my phone – I go through the entire year and block out any major things that I know about.  Business trips, family vacations, holidays, etc.

Next, I dive into the days – it always starts with self-care.  If I don’t take care of me, there is zero chance I can take care of my clients.  Trust me on this one – it’s important.

Every day from 5-7 am I have “Me Time”.  This is critical because I’m not one of those jump out of bed and run around like a crazed woman.  I need to ease into my day.  Some days – like today, I began working at 4:30 am because I felt like writing, but most days 5-7 includes drinking my coffee, reading, meditating, exercising, journaling – whatever feels right on that day.  I rarely – I mean rarely, change this routine unless I’m traveling.

I’m a morning person – so next, I get the MOST important things on my calendar for the beginning of the day.  Usually the creative things and meetings.  I’m not a fan of afternoon meetings because my brain isn’t as sharp.  Here’s a time hack – use a calendar scheduling tools such as Calendly or ScheduleOnce – ONLY offer the times you WANT to have appointments.  I’m a bit flexible on this especially if it’s a prospect – if the ONLY time they can meet me is at 2 pm and it’s a client that fits our niche 100% I’ll meet them at 2 pm.

I also try to book days to work on my business versus in it.  Mondays are my work on Red Barn Days.  Depending on what is going on at Red Barn I may have some client phone calls or work – but I TRY my best to never schedule appointments on Mondays (or Fridays).

Tuesday-Thursdays are all hands on deck client workdays – this is when I work IN my businesses.  Fridays are flex days for me – sometimes we work a half-day – sometimes we don’t work at all.  It depends – I leave these days open and again, try not to schedule client appointments on Fridays.

The secret is to be structured AND flexible at the same time.  I don’t lose it if my time blocking has to shift – but I do try to honor it.

As for the paper planner and digital – why both?  I’m a pen on paper person – always have been, but I also need to have the efficiency and transparency of a digital calendar for business  So I keep two.  It works for me and I don’t mind keeping both current. The paper calendar allows me to write notes and it also acts like a journal and a place for me to dump ideas – my digital calendar is simply for tracking my appointments.

Hope this helps shed some light on how to be uber-efficient! Do you think being efficient is a blessing or a curse – read more here.

Want to be more efficient? Block your Time. Read More »

customer experience

Marketing Trends 2020 – customer experience

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What we do as an industry has dramatically changed over the past decade.  We’ve shifted from trying to convince people to buy, to do, to act, to honing in on our customer’s journey and customer experience.

CX will rule Marketing and Advertising in the next decade.

The Customer Experience (CX) is king. People no longer want to be told what to do, instead they want to be educated, they want to be wooed and they want an AMAZING customer experience – one that they willingly will pay more for.

Read that again:  They will pay MORE for a better experience.

Not that cheap, one and done is gone – there will always be price shoppers, but the trend is more on “show me what’s in it for me” as in the customer not the vendor.

So how do you have a Fab CX?

  1. Put yourself in YOUR customer’s shoes. You need to know them inside and out.  What makes them tick, why do they buy from you – and why do they not?  Knowledge is complete power here.
  2. KNOW your Value Proposition and make sure your team does too. It comes from the top.  Empower your team to make decisions on behalf of bettering your client experience.  Be it a refund, sending flowers, giving a bit more – the list goes on.  In the end you’ll not only increase client retention – but employee retention. Happy Employees = Happy Clients.
  3. Over Deliver – I mean OVER DELIVER. Just woo the socks off them.  Be Chewy – train your team to LIVE your value prop and DELIVER. DELIVER. DELIVER.
  4. Share your happy client stories – but let it be focused on them – not you. There is an art to it as to not look self-serving.  Again, put yourself in their shoes

Marketing today is less about telling people what you do and more about showing people how you can improve their life and help them – even if it doesn’t involve what you sell.

CX should be at the core of your 2020 business and marketing strategy.

Marketing Trends 2020 – customer experience Read More »