Check out this month's Inc. Mag!

I recently had the chance to be interviewed by a PR firm to share the story of a crazy happening that took place at my office last Halloween. The firm sent it Inc. Magazine's way and they must have thought it was pretty crazy too...they included it in this month's publication! Check it out in the latest edition of Inc. Mag - page 33. You can also check out the article here.

(For an added bonus to really see what happened that day, check out photos of the event here.)

More Planning = Less Work

As a MM, its easy to assume you don't have the time to plan properly. You deal with the squeakiest wheel in the moment and then move on to the next fire. Problem with this is that it keeps you in a constant state of work.

I've made an effort over the last 6 months to focus on planning the next steps of any project I'm working on days in advance. I then tell my clients exactly when we will talk next to review that next stage. So on Wed. I'll say, "let's talk next Tues @ 10:00 to go over ___". The result, my voice mail messages have gone down from 60-80 per week to around 15 per week. People are calling me less asking me questions about their projects because we're answering their questions before they have to ask them.

Always plan ahead. Make it your goal to set what you and your co-workers are going to work on, at least one day in advance, if not sooner. Do the same for your customers - make sure they know at least one day in advance what to expect. This allows you to truly manage time, which always gets you better results. And you'll be working smarter, not harder.

Tried...and True?

Staring at the same problem the same way usually gets the same result. Right? Pretty straight-forward.

Still, I find myself doing this all the time. If I've created a system or a process to accomplish something and it works, I will keep doing it that way over and over again rarely stopping to think if there's a better way. If its getting the job done, then it must working...right?

Maybe.

I had two things that happened last week that made me chew on this a bit more.

My first occurred when I set out to mow my grass on Sat. I have cut the grass the same way since the first time I cut it when we moved in. I figured out a good way to cut the rows early on, and I've stuck to it ever since. However, this past Sat I wasn't in the mood to spend the normal hour it takes me to cut my front yard, so I started thinking - Is there a quicker way to do this? I surveyed the land (which basically means I stared at the yard) and determined that it might be quicker to cut my rows horizontally rather than vertically. The result, it took my 15 min less than in normally does.

The second example happened when I was telling my boss about a problem we've had come up at work a number of times in recent months. I was telling him how we've had to explain a certain part of our process over and over again. His response, why don't you just put that info on every page of our presentations? This was a simple solution to the problem, but I had been staring at it too long to see it.

So as MMs, we need to stop and think before we tackle our work. See if there's a better way to do it and don't assume the tried and true are still the best methods. If you are too close to your work to see how to improve it, talk about what you're doing with someone else and invite them to comment. Just because it has worked in the past, doesn't mean it is or ever was the best.

Details are the Difference Maker

The other day I was in a Chick-fil-A in Decatur (where I live), and was amazed by the way they had stacked up the ketchup packets, sauce containers, straws, and all the items in the condiment section. They were in perfect stacks. It was hundreds and hundreds of tiny packets of salt and pepper and all kinds of other things - all uniform. We're talking easily some thousands of individual items. That's a lot of work, when you think of all the customers taking those packets out of the bins every few minutes of every day.

As MMs, our jobs are filled with lots and lots of details. Details that all have to be captured, organized, remembered, communicated, and on and on. Great attention to detail can be the difference between someone saying you did "good" job and someone saying you did an "incredible" job.

Be aware of the details, pay attention to them, take notes about them, remind them to others, and ultimately see that they are acted upon. Make it your goal to see that nothing slips through the cracks.

Here's an immediate application - start making all your scheduled calls at least 1 minute before you told someone you'd call them. Do this every time you talk to them for a month and see what happens.

Serving your client's interest...or your own?

When its time for a meeting with one of your biggest dollar-producing clients, you're usually going to roll out the red carpet. We want to put what we think is our best foot forward in order to make them feel important. But when you stop and think about it, all of those efforts are based on what's most advantageous to my or your company and is not actually about the client at all. Its about firming up their business.

I had an unexpected bout with this last week. The #2 revenue-producing client I work with was looking for some work to be done. I was booked up solid the day they wanted to meet up to chat. As a MM, my first thought was that I needed to take care of it, so I'd just let them know we'd need to do it another day since I was all booked up on the day suggested. But I also realized that time was of the essence for the client. So I turned them over to our newest employee, as he could provide the service they needed in the time frame they wanted.

It was originally supposed to just be a phone call, not a meeting, which seemed doable for a new employee. But before I knew it, it had turned into a big meeting with lots of people. My boss was asking me why I had turned over a big meeting with a big client to a brand new employee still in the learning process. I was wondering the same thing.

After the meeting, my boss followed-up with the client to get their feedback. Their response...they loved it! Said we had always been good with quality of work and professionalism, but speed was one thing we had not been so great at in the past. In their eyes, it didn't matter that it was a new employee still learning, they just saw that they were being serviced more quickly.

We had accidentally stumbled on something really important: Its not always about what seems to make the most business sense, its about what makes the most sense for your customer. Its risky, but it keeps the client's interests first. Revenue will follow.

Steward of another man’s vision

I learned this lesson from my first boss at my first job out of college. I was an intern at the time...

In frustration with one of his current managers, he told me a quality he was always seeking out in good a MM. He said to me, "...ultimately, I'm looking for someone who will advance my cause and my vision. I'm looking for someone who will be a steward of my vision".

That statement has stuck with me since then, and I've tried to apply it at every job I've had. It has brought me a lot of places and continually helps me put things in perspective for what my role is as a MM.

The goal - figure out what your boss’s vision is...and own it. Make that your personal vision. Always approach everything you do at your job as a MM as if you were the owner of the business. Make decisions like it was your own money being made, being spent, collected, or lost. Do this in everything you do, and you’ll start seeing heads turn.

We're Meant to be Leaders, not Parents

As a MM, ever asked someone to do something 3 times and ultimately just done it yourself? I know I have. You tell yourself you're just "doing it for them", because it needs to get done and that co-worker is busy doing other productive things.

When I stop and consider it, what's really motivating me to do this is fear and a lack of trust. I am afraid that my co-worker won't live up to their end of the deal - that they won't take care of what I asked them to do. This is a wrong approach - it isn't fair to my co-workers.

I've been reading Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It, and one point they make in the book is that as Managers, we are meant to be leaders, not parents. We're all adults and should be and can be trusted. We should treat our co-workers as adults and trust them. Lead, don't parent.

Systemize, Delegate, Repeat

As I mentioned a couple of months ago in Everything should be repeatable, we have been looking for a new member of our team at work. Well, he just started on Mon, and I've definitely been learning more lessons about myself and my role as a MM.

I've had to confront the fear once again of what feels like reducing my role and skill-set to mere repeatable processes. My fear is that by doing this, I am just cornering myself out of a job. If I'm handing someone else my bag of tricks, aren't I just telling my bosses that they don't need me anymore?

Its a fear I've faced before, and honestly didn't think I would this time around. But here I am facing the same nagging sensation.

The truth I have to combat these fears with, and that we all have to do as MMs, is that we're more than just a set of skills. Our roles must be to continue to advance the companies we work for. If we're doing our jobs well, growth will continue to occur around us, and hopefully our roles will also continue to grow/change/expand with it.

So here's the challenge to myself and to you when you find yourself in a similar position. We need to delegate much of the role we have been doing as a MM, give the new member of our team all the tools he/she needs to do their role with excellence, and continue to look to expand our business by method of clients that are raving fans (i.e. happy clients), better processes, and better profitability.

If we continue to do that, you and I both as MMs will probably be hiring another person down the road, and I'll probably find myself facing the same fear again.