by Admin | Mar 13, 2017 | Business Relationships, Culture, Mindset, Prospecting
Are opportunities plentiful for you with your relationships? Or are you experiencing a ‘drought’? “In like a lamb, out like a lion” is the phrase commonly used to describe March weather and we can certainly identify with that in Kansas. This is a state where you can literally experience all four seasons in one week, from blizzard to spring thunderstorms – we affectionately call this ‘Thundersnow’ (cue AC/DC playing Thunderstruck in the background). I think these crazy weather patterns really provide great insight into the rhythms we adopt in our prospecting effort. We start and are gung ho with tornadic breeze levels of effort, lightning fast execution of basic ideas and then it fades into a gentle breeze that doesn’t even move a leaf along. I had the distinct pleasure of sitting in on a presentation on innovation given by 9 Steps grad Jon McGraw of Vision Pursue and Jose Pires of Black & Veatch Leadership Institute of Business Excellence. During this presentation, Jose spoke about how ideas are everywhere, discipline to execute however, is very rare. I see this so often with professionals I engage with in the community and recognize that the majority of the value I bring as a coach/mentor is to remind them to identify the right level of activity and follow it EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. of EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK. of EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR. Yes I raised my voice. The biggest lesson you learn when embarking on any journey is to stay the course and recognize it is a very long, arduous journey full of fun pit stops and distractions that can divert you from...
by Admin | Jan 23, 2014 | Culture
As someone reading this blog you are already demonstrating your own willingness to grow and your ‘Thirst’ for improvement. In a former blog post I related my personal experience with cialis my horse of what happens when someone is not thirsty and how it can be life threatening in some circumstances. While this may be an extreme example, if you have struggled with inspiring people in your own organization you may be feeling a little thirsty yourself but not quite sure how to inspire it in others. I thought I would relate an example of a favorite client we have worked with last year in the banking industry and how an innovative leader is creating a thirsty culture. Alterra Bank is a leading bank in the KC lending market. They are a business-focused community bank founded in 2010; by executing on their niche business strategy, the bank has doubled in size since 2010 with plans to continue a fast pace of growth. We have been working with them on finding and on boarding relationship managers who just happen to be lenders and private bankers. One common thread resonated with me as I interviewed their current team that has been responsible for their success to date – they are all highly competitive. As we were looking for relationship managers to connect them to, we asked a few questions: 1) What do you read? 2) What last class/continuing education did you participate in? 3) Tell me about your extracurricular activities. The answers to these questions brought us individuals that who excel on a very fast paced, results driven team. Did it...
