EntreLeadership - #284: The No. 1 Skill You Need Now with Carmine Gallo

Episode Date: September 17, 2018

In the age of automation and artificial intelligence, there is one skill that has yet to be replicated by a robot: persuasive communication. Best-selling author Carmine Gallo calls it the fundamental skill needed to increase your personal value by as much as 50%. In fact, he says it’s so powerful that mastering it will make you irreplaceable in business today. Tune in as Carmine shares two easy ways to up your own communication game. entreleadership.com/podcast 5 Habits That Kill Team Unity from EntreLeadership Marketing to Millennials Guide from Infusionsoft Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you are speaking with verbiage that only a PhD or another peer would understand, then you're making it too complicated for your audience. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders by leaders for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Contrary to popular belief, ideas do not sell themselves. Not most of the time. Now, there's some great ideas that when you hear them, you know it's changed the world. Everybody in the room gets it.

But for most of us, our ideas don't sell themselves, and it is required that we cast vision around those ideas properly. So in this episode, we're going to talk about ideas and how to get your ideas from your head into the hearts of your team and in motion in the marketplace. We're going to do that with the help of our good friend or return guest, Carmine Gallo, he's the author of five stars, the communication secret to get from good to great. Speaking of communication, we are so excited about a new segment here on the show where Daniel Tarty, our senior vice president of all business initiatives here at Ramsey Solutions is joining me in studio to take your business calls. That's right. So we've got that coming up and, of course, the great free

resources you've come to know and love. Let's get to it. Carmine Gallo was our guest back in episode 83. He wrote a great book that I recommend for anybody who communicates publicly. Whether that be a keynote or you're doing sales presentations, it's called Talk Like Ted. Again, that's episode 83. Well, Carmen's got a new book out entitled, Five Stars, The Communication's Secret, to Get From Good to Great. And what I love about Carmine and his books are they're based on anecdotal research. So it's really just airtight content, really, really good stuff. And as we think about globalization, automation, artificial intelligence, and all the things that are disrupting every field that you can possibly imagine, just having a good idea is not going to be enough. You're going to have to move people, and that is the art

of persuasion. Can't wait for you to learn from Carmine Gallo. Here is our conversation. So why follow up Talk Like Ted with this book? How is this a little bit different before we dive into it? Well, when I wrote Talk Like Ted, which has become one of the best-selling public speaking books around the world, and I'm very gratified for that, a lot of people look at TED Talks as a presentation on a stage. And so they interpret my book, Talk Like Ted, as a book that helps them deliver better presentations in front of large groups, which it certainly does, but it's not necessarily aimed at people who just want to give a TED talk. It's public speaking habits in techniques from some of the world's best speakers. Because I think the TED Talks have elevated public speaking. It's really the gold standard. So I wanted to begin expanding it because over the last few years, I have met young people who are just graduating and getting their career started. I've met a lot of small business owners and entrepreneurs and people going from middle management to leadership positions. The people who stand out across any field and across countries as well are

those who can communicate their ideas more persuasively. I started looking into the history of ideas. I've talked to scientists and historians and economists. And what they've told me, and this is the theme of five stars, Ken, what they told me is that mastering the ancient art of persuasion and communication is no longer a soft skill. It is the fundamental skill to get from good to great in the age of ideas. Mastering communication, and you'll be irreplaceable and irresistible. I like that. And here's some data.

According to a recent survey, 94% of hiring managers say an employee with stronger communication skills as a better chance of being promoted to a leadership position than an employee with more years of experience but weaker verbal skills. And it really is true. It starts, though, Carmine, as you know, all so well, with just communication ability. If you get good communication ability, that's the building block by which you now become persuasive. But if you can't communicate well, you certainly aren't going to be able to be persuasive. Why do you think, again, this is kind of an intro here before we dive into some of the content of the book.

Why is it that we're seeing that data from hiring managers? You know, why such a big number? This is what's so counterintuitive about the theme of my book and what I found so fascinating. as globalization, artificial intelligence, automation combined to disrupt every career and every industry, your value is no longer locked up in just how quickly you can retrieve information. It's no longer locked up in our hands or on the farm. It's in our ideas. But ideas don't sell themselves.

If you cannot advocate and champion your ideas, persuasively, they're not going to matter. You're not going to get promoted. You're not going to build that company, attract stakeholders, rally investors, attract and motivate employees and teams and partners. It all comes down to communication. I actually started writing and researching five stars when I talked to an economist at the University of Illinois and Chicago. Her name is Diedra McCloskey. And there's a number of economists who study this, but she was the first person to tell me something that kind of blew my mind. She said, Carmine, do you understand that persuasion? Good old sweet talk. That's what she calls it. Good old sweet talk. Persuasion is now 30% of the U.S.

economy. I thought, well, 30% of the economy, what do you mean by that? And she actually showed me a lot of research, which demonstrates that if you take all of the job categories in America today and you start multiplying and dividing up how much of those particular careers, are based on one person convincing another person to buy something, to change their mind, whether that's management, leadership, entrepreneurship. You take all of the categories. Some have to be more persuasive than others. Plumbers may not be that persuasive, but if they have their own business, they need to be,

but still not as persuasive as, say, a salesperson. So when you start combining all of these and you do the research on it, an entire 30% of the U.S. economy is now based on persuasion, and it's only going to go higher. And that's actually been peer-reviewed and replicated in different countries. And here's why, Ken, if I could just tell you this in about 20 seconds, this is what's fascinating

and why we're in a completely different environment today. Historically, in the ag economy, in the agricultural age, if you could plow a field a little faster than the farmer next door, you wouldn't see a big increase in your wealth. During the industrial age,

if you could assemble a widget faster than the person standing next to you on the factory floor, you wouldn't see a big increase in wealth. It was the factory owners who owned the wealth. Today, for the first time, anyone who is a little better, and we're talking about trying to be a lot better, but today, anyone who's just a little better at expressing their ideas can see sudden massive increases in wealth unprecedented in human history. That's not my idea. This isn't my original idea.

I'm the messenger. This is what historians, economists, and scientists are telling me. I think that's incredible, and it's a very empowering time to be an entrepreneur today. That's right. Now, you said this a little bit earlier, and I'm going to recall our audience back to what you said. It was a bold statement, and you write it in big, bold letters. It's part one of this book. Why Great Communicators are irreplaceable.

So that's a bold statement, because we've got this colloquialism that we've all heard. No one is irreplaceable. Here comes best-selling author, Carmen. Carmine Gallo and he says, great communicators are irreplaceable. I'm going to let you expound on that bold thought. I love it. I'm going to give you one example that I know recently. A salesperson at a major technology company contacted me not too long ago and gave me a little of his history. Two years ago, he was a sales engineer. And his career was pretty capped off. It was limited. He wanted to become an evangelist, which is much higher salary, much more visibility, and you get to travel the

world. At the time, as boss said, Steve, you're just an engineer. Why don't you just stick to what you know? And he stuck to what he did best, but he started reading books, started reading some of my books, like Talk Like Ted and some others, started reading other books, watched TED Talks, started working on his presentation skills. Within two years, not only is he now an evangelist, he was recognized, by the CEO in front of 500, 800 other salespeople at this year's conference, and the CEO said, we need another 10 steves. His position was about to be eliminated about a year ago, and that's when they gave him the evangelist position, because another competitor said, that guy is the best communicator we've got. We want him, because nobody can explain the technology as well as that guy

at company XYZ. They made him a bigger offer. And so his current company said, not only are we going to match and elevate that offer, we're going to give you the title that you originally wanted. They cannot afford to lose him. He's irreplaceable to them. You can have the greatest product in the world if you cannot explain that product in a way that gets your customers excited about the product, connects with people emotionally, then that product may not be as successful, nearly as successful as it could be.

So, yeah, in every company I've ever worked for or with, in terms of a communication consultant, the people who are the better persuaders, the better communicators, they're the ones who get promoted. They're the ones who get the leadership positions. And even if that particular position might be cut, there's always another company that's willing to jump for that person. Great persuaders are irresistible and irreplaceable. I believe that. I believe that after 25 years of studying persuasion. Yeah, I love it.

Now more than ever. Now more than ever. Yeah, and I agree with you. Now, let's bring this down to everybody listening. Carmine, I appreciate what you're saying, but I don't do a lot of communication in my job. I don't have to communicate that much. This is, I appreciate you coming on, but I'm not sure this book is for me. Okay, so are you asking me to respond if that was somebody. Yeah, let's blow that up, because you and I know that's not true. But there are a lot of people who think that way. Of course, I'm making this scenario up. But the reality is this is for people who are in non-public communication roles as well, because I don't think we see how important it is that we are actually persuading well and communicating well.

Ken, again, I'm the messenger. So I don't make judgments about any of this stuff. I just talk to people. I talk to billionaires like Richard Branson. I study some of the greatest persuaders and leaders of our time. And I look at all the studies. And they all tell me the same thing. In fact, over the last few months, LinkedIn and McKinsey, the giant consulting company,

both LinkedIn and McKinsey have come out with major surveys, global surveys. They both found exactly the same thing. The number one skill in highest demand and lowest supply is communication and leadership combined, right? Those two put together. But let me give you an ROI. Because a lot of people ask me, well, what's the ROI on improving communication skills? This isn't me. I didn't say this. This is Warren Buffett, who repeatedly has told people publicly that we all have to invest in our skills, in our skill development. We have to be learn-at-alls

and not know-it-alls, especially in these times. He says the number one skill that will increase your value by 50% instantly is becoming a better public speaker. Warren Buffett publicly acknowledges that he was terrified of public speaking early in his career. But he said in order for him to attract more clients, he had to become better at it. So we took at that time a Dale Carnegie course, a public speaking course, learned to be a better public speaker, volunteered to teach at a local community college, became a better presenter, a better speaker, which he says was the number one skill that got him from where he was as a stock, investor and a financial advisor to growing to where he is today. In fact, he thinks so highly of that

skill, it's the only degree that he has in his office. In his internal office, and this is on CNBC, Warren Buffett was the most proud, not of the MBA degree, not of the business school degree, but of the public speaking certificate. So if you want to raise your value by 50% instantly, public speaking and communication skills are the fundamental skills that you need to go from average to great. That's the point. You can't be average. You know this. We can't be average anymore. Average only guarantees below average results. Let me give you one more example. Also in the book, I was talking to a venture capital investor behind Airbnb. It's a sort of under the radar, but it's a very influential firm called Y Combinator. They are seed investors

to what becomes some of the biggest tech companies of our time. So they were the original seat investor for Airbnb, and they're very influential in Silicon Valley. I talked to one of the partners. He corrected me, Ken. He corrected me, the communication guy. I said, okay, we're talking about this soft skill of communication. And Kenny stopped me. He said, well, wait a minute, what do you mean soft skill? I said, well, it's because a lot of people say this is a soft skill. And he said, Carmine, if you cannot convince me as an entrepreneur, you can't convince me the investor, to go along on your journey, to get excited about your vision, and you can't do that through narrative, I'm not interested. He said, communication and storytelling and persuasion,

those aren't soft skills. They're fundamental to success in entrepreneurship today. And he was adamant, Ken, and I'll never forget that, because he corrected me. He said, I don't like you using that word soft skill. It's not. Well, let's be honest, that communication and persuasion, those skills are huge in just getting along with peer-to-peer relationships and growing peer-to-peer relationships to move up the ladder in any business that you're in. If you're not communicating well or persuading coworkers or clients, you're not going to move up. So let's dive in now. In part three of the book, it's how to get from good to great, specifically how to get from good communication and good persuasion to great communication and great persuasion. There's so much

here. I'll just throw it to you with a basic question and let you teach. What are some practical things? People that are listening in, they're watching right now, that they can do to begin to see growth in this area. Well, I'm glad you mentioned that. You're right. Part three, after I developed the argument, part three is very actionable, tangible, specific tips that you can use today to become a better persuader and a better communicator. I'm going to give you a few that over the last few weeks since my book has been out. People have been asking me about because they sound a little counterintuitive, but they're absolutely fundamental. The first tip, and again, sounds counterintuitive, if you want to sound smart, use short, simple words. Third grade language is preferable.

Third grade language. I brought this, some show and tell. I think we can see it there on the video. There is a high-tech startup in the health insurance space in Silicon Valley. It's called collective health, and they were named by the Wall Street Journal as being one of the startups to watch. This was in 2017. So I contacted them while I was writing the book, and I noticed something. All of their health insurance material is very simple, like incredibly simple. And I said, what's going on here, guys? The founders are surgeons, professors, economists, and they said, well, Carmine, we've done all the research. And we have found that most people do not know, nearly as much as they say they do about any topic, especially health care. So when you ask people a

simple question, like what's a deductible, which is the simplest term, by the way, in health insurance, the simplest. Most people still can't give you an accurate answer. And then when you get even more complicated, as health insurance jargon tends to be, you've lost everybody, including people who work in health care. So according to their research, they have reduced all of their language, not just their marketing material, but on the material that they send to employers for health insurance, they have actually reduced their language to third grade language. And you can measure that with certain tools that are used to measure the readability of textbooks. Educators use it. I use it myself. It's based on the Flesh Kincaid model. What is that tool? What is that tool? So if I'm writing

something, a blog post, and I want a third grade it up, how would I do that? First, Ken, do you know how hard it is to reduce content? to third grade language? I know. It's actually, it is very hard to do. I imagine. I think the chapter where I wrote that about third grade language, I tried my hardest to reduce it to third grade language. And I think the best I did was get it to like sixth grade language or something like that.

You know, I acknowledge that. It's very hard to do. I use an app called Hemingway, which is a paid-for app, but it's not that expensive. But there are other apps. They're all based on what's called Flesh-Kincade models. So these are like readability apps. And they're used for textbooks, so you can actually put in text. And they look at sentence structure, how simple sentences are.

They look at words. Are your words being written for a Ph.D. level? Or are your words being written for more of a grade school language? Third grade, by the way, is probably a little low. The apps that I use tend to be okay with eighth grade, ninth grade language. They said, that's good. That's good. Remember that famous ad, or certainly your viewers have,

heard about it, the crazy ones ad. Remember that famous Apple ad? Sure, sure. Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the square pegs, and the round holes. I took the content from that entire ad campaign, put it into the readability app and it was third grade language. Here's the point. If you want to reach a wider group of people who might be somewhat unfamiliar with your product or service, make sure that your language and the words you use are in grade school language. If you are speaking with verbiage that only a PhD or another peer would understand, then you're making it too complicated for your audience. Yeah, so that goes for it, because I'm a big fan of vocabulary.

So I'll call myself out. I don't know. My producer, Will Rutter, is behind the glass laughing right now. I think anybody that's listened to this program for a long time knows that I like a good word. and I don't try hard. I'm very well read. I'll just lay it out there and I enjoy good vocabulary words.

Sure. And so I'm calling myself out on the carpet here. I have no problem here. So you're saying when I use a word like, boy, I wish you could tell me a word that I've used recently where he was, I said something the other day and he was making fun of me for saying it on a podcast. Do you remember the word, Will?

You don't remember the word. Precipice. Precipice is one of my favorite words. I used it in an interview question. if you're on the precipice, and I wasn't trying to be, whatever. But are you telling me when I say precipice that I lose some people? No, I'm actually not. I like great words too. Oh, it was ancillary. He just said it in my ear. Ancillary was another word I used. Are there shorter words for ancillary? Absolutely. Oh, of course. And here we can go back to Winston Churchill. And again, this is all

based on the research I've done. These aren't my ideas. Winston Churchill, who was one of the great persuaders of our time. Winston Churchill said short words are best because short words are the most native to a language. They make the deeper connection. Go to the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, where they had the original inaugural speech. It gave me goosebumps. It's the original speech that he read. And you will see red marks where JFK himself crossed out long sentences, long words, and replaced them with short words. In fact, one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century is four minutes shorter than a TED talk. And it's because he was a good editor. He cut words. He reduced sentences and made them simple and clear. That's good. So instead of precipice, Carmine, I'm going to say edge. Edge.

There it is. Better word. See, folks, I just told you know, I'm learning. I'm learning. I'm paying attention. Really good stuff. You also talk about pathos, which I got to tell you of everything you wrote about in this book, this is for me, to me, the most important thing if you read nothing else in this book. And I'll tell you why, Carmine, for me personally, it's you can be somebody who does not have great grammar. You can be someone who's not educated. And you don't always have to, you know, have the greatest outline. But if the audience can tell that you care and that you've got a verve, a passion behind you, there I use another word I shouldn't have used, people can feel that. An audience can literally feel that.

I want you to speak to what you call the pathos principle. Yeah, I love that chapter. That's my favorite because you might recall in the beginning of this conversation, I said that we have to master the ancient art of persuasion. This is what should be empowering to all of our listeners and viewers today. We know how to do this. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. We know how to communicate well and effectively with other people.

people. The formula was handed to us 2,000 years ago by a really smart guy named Aristotle. Aristotle was very clear. Persuasion cannot occur in the absence of pathos, emotion, connection. Right now, the best tool we have of transferring emotion to one another is stories, storytelling. That's why storytelling is such an important role in business today. But that pathos, that emotional connection, we all all of our behavior, including stock picking, and when we choose to go in and out of a stock market, why would choose certain careers, why we choose certain schools over another? All of it at some point is driven by the narratives that we hear around us and the narratives we tell ourselves. The way we process our world is through stories from other people.

Anthropologists have found this. Storytelling was a major milestone in human development thousands of years ago. That's what Aristotle was getting at. If we cannot connect with each other on an emotional level, you can have a great idea, you can have character, you can have evidence, and you can make a well-structured argument. But if you cannot connect with people emotionally, you'll still fail to persuade them, still fail to convince them. And that's why emotion in my book can, it's not a bad word.

It's not a bad thing. We need to understand how to connect with people emotionally if we're going to change any minds. The ultimate, ultimate, ultimate example of this is Martin Luther King Jr. who just could move an audience. He still moves this. When you watch a YouTube clip, if you watch his final speech to this day, the last 90 seconds of that, it's just absolutely unreal. And this was a man who didn't even write that. If you study that, which you do and I do, he was just, as we would say in church world, he was just letting it go. And he says, that's absolutely right. Yeah, it was unbelievable. Yeah, and Ken, the interesting part of Martin Luther King is that if you look at the dream speech, in the scientific literature of persuasion, they use the dream speech quite a bit because you can go through each and everything that we just talked about. He lays out evidence, he lays out logical arguments, but he also knows how to use metaphors and analogies that are relevant to those people at that time, the sweltering heat of injustice. And he's saying it at the link of

memorial at a time when it was one of the hottest summers on record. He used the right words at the right time. And then he scanned the crowd. He could register what was resonating, what wasn't, and that whole dream speech, the whole dream section, I have a dream, was not in the original manuscript. He turned it on the fly because he knew that that would connect with this crowd better. I wouldn't even know the words for that. That is brilliant persuasion. But he was a man who studied Winston Churchill's speeches. He practiced his speeches. The dream speech didn't happen until 25,000 speeches later. He had already done 25,000 speeches over a long career before the dream speech. Yeah, he was a preacher. I mean, he was practicing in the pulpit. Yeah.

He was practicing. And so I always tell people, you have to practice. This stuff, storytelling comes naturally to us, but to be a good communicator, especially in business today, we do have to work at it. You have to be creative and you have to practice. You have to try to learn. If you want to stop learning and just say, well, it doesn't apply to me or I talk all the time. I'm a naturally gifted speaker. Then I think you're going to really plateau and stop learning as much as you can. And unfortunately, I don't think you'll build a business that you can and live that life. that you imagined, unless you really turn up your skill at public speaking and communication. That's so true, and it does not have to be, again, a keynote speech.

This is just general public communication happens on a day-to-day basis. Carmine, this is a great book. We just barely scratched the surface, folks. Five stars, the communication secrets, to get from good to great. There's so much in here. He covers fear of just taking this on as a new challenge to really push yourself so much here. Carmine, tell them where they can go to get maybe some more resources around the book. I know it's wherever books are sold, but where can they connect with you to get more on this book

and more on what you're up to? Yeah, the nice thing about five stars, this is by St. Martin's Press. They did a beautiful job on the cover. So if you want a hardcover copy, it's actually a very, it makes a very nice presence. But I know a lot of people download books on Kindle. It's available on Kindle, and it's available on audiobook as well and on Audible. And I narrate the audiobook. And so it's been very well received.

So I hope people enjoy that format as well. Otherwise, if you just want to know who I am and learn more about all the books I have, just go to Carminegalo.com, which is a good Italian name, so hopefully you won't forget it. That's so true. Carmine Gallo, G-A-L-L-O, Carmine-Gallo.com, and you could connect with me on all my social media platforms. And do you have a free recipe for Stromboli or anything awesome there? Anything at all? Come on. I mean, a good Italian guy like you, you've got to have some secrets.

I love Zamblione. Have you ever tried that Zambalioni, that egg dessert? I haven't, but now I want to. Oh, man. Now I want to. My parents come from southern Italy, so I'm a first generation. So I grew up on great pasta. Well, we are glad that you are in America. What a great gift to all of us. Thanks for your time. We're much better for hanging out with you. Thank you again, Carmine. Thank you. Thanks for inviting me. Big thanks to Carmine Gallo for joining us again. The book is Five Stars, the communication secret to get from good to great wherever books are sold. The Entry leadership team bringing you a great resource this episode. It's entitled to Five Habits that Kill Team Unity. Now, the number one habit that kills Team Unity is poor communication. When you let the team know how you got where you are today with sacrifices and victories, it creates trust, your ability to tell the story, the cast, that vision, we'll bring the team together, and you will have a very cohesive environment. Now, communication is just one of the habits. There are four more, and it's critical that you get all of them.

So with Carmine's lesson and this tool, this is going to really help you. So here's how you get the five habits that kill Team Unity resource. Text episode 284 to 33444. That's episode, then the numbers, 284. Text that to 33444. or you can get the link in the show notes. It's episode 284 at entreleadership.com. All right, I mentioned Daniel Tarty would be joining us this episode and in subsequent episodes. Really excited.

Daniel Tarty is our senior vice president of all business initiatives here at Ramsey Solutions. Primarily, that's Entree Leadership, the division, and business boutique, which is obviously fueled by my good friend, Christy Wright. Daniel came in as the very first salesperson at Entree Leadership. So he not only understands it, he has truly become an entree leader and moved up the ladder by demonstrating tremendous leadership

and not only growing as a leader, but then developing other leaders. So this is a tremendous resource. So here is Daniel Tarty answering your questions. Corey, you're on the Entree leadership program with Daniel Tarty and Ken Coleman. Hello, good afternoon. Great to hear from you, Corey. How are you? Doing well, thanks. All right. So what is your question, Corey? Well, I am a small business owner, of course, and I have a small team, and I need to start doing some annual reviews. I've never done them before, and I was just calling to see if you could share some best practices so that we can make them productive and give us good bits to park somewhere to go from here. Oh, this is good. Daniel, how many annual reviews do you think you've done in your time at Ramsey Solutions?

I'm just curious. I've done quite a few, and they have varied. This is perfect. You know, let's talk about this because it's a hot button. First, I want to hear, Corey, what is making you think? think you need to do these? What's what's the why that's driving you towards pulling out the annual review and setting up this process? Sure. Well, we have grown quite a bit in the last two years and we haven't ever really sat down with an organized method of checking in and seeing where we are

and if we're meeting our goals and if we're not, who's productive and who's not that sort of thing. So I just wanted to have sort of a plan for talking through with each one of our employees or our team members to see where they are, where they can be going and where they can be going stronger and that's kind of it. Okay. And then what are you hoping your team members will get out of this process? What are you hoping they do as a result of this conversation you're going to have? I would like for everybody to kind of walk away with some ideas of where they could be doing things better, where they could be more productive, but also to know where they have been,

where I just feel like they've been doing things very well, where they're succeeding, where they're winning already, and then some ideas of how we can work together even better. Got it. Okay. So let me just encourage you. Those are all good things. Most of the time our desire as leaders is to get all of that stuff on to the table and have meaningful conversations. The problem is there's such a stigma around annual reviews. I've never met anybody that says, I love annual reviews. I love getting reviewed or I love giving the assessment to somebody. I think there's just so much of that that feels like we're getting graded as people. And it takes us back to our worst fears from high school when we got an F on a test and we just felt like a failure, there's almost never a situation where you can put a score on somebody that they don't go there, even if it's a positive score. And so here's what I found to be an effective way to help it actually be developmental. If you will get your team together and go through an exercise with them and don't go Google annual reviews and let me print one off and have this sterile transactional thing and say, hey, everybody fill this out. Let's just jump in here

and talk about it. It'll backfire. It'll blow up in your face. Or it'll feel forced or to feel mechanical. There's a lot of risk there that your team will feel like they're getting graded and not being developed as people. So instead, get everybody in a room and say, guys, I want to start having conversations about how we're doing, how you're doing as individuals, I want to be able to celebrate you. I also want to be able to help you see areas where there's a gap that you can grow so that you keep developing to become a better version of who you are. And then let's spend some time as a team talking about what do we value as a job. a company. When we say, what do we expect from our team members? I like to have everybody

just take a pat of sticky notes and give them five minutes to fill up as many sticky notes as they can and say, put everything down that you think is important to being an ideal team member here at this company based on our values, based on what you know about me and the things that are my pet peeves, based on things that you feel like are important or things you expect from your peers, and then fill up as many sticky notes as you can, and then take another few minutes and have everybody put the sticky notes up on the walls and start to chunk them into categories, and you'll quickly start seeing themes. Everybody will be saying, like, oh, we really value speaking up in meetings, or we really

value clear, articulate communication. And so there's something around communication that we value here. You get that sticky note list down to maybe 10 or 12 things, and then you go, all right, let's hold ourselves accountable to those 10 or 12 things. What do you guys think? What we're doing here is we're trying to create buy-in from the team. We want them to feel like they helped create the things. that they're going to be scored against.

Then you can turn those into a forum and say, let's do a scale of one to five, five being amazing, one being terrible, and have that conversation. But if you skip that buy-in step, most of the time the team is going to feel like, ah, this is this sticky, yucky thing I have to do, and I'm getting graded on something I'm not even sure I understand. Whereas if I'm part of the conversation, I get to help shape it, it'll completely change how much I look forward to doing that and embrace that conversation in a way that's developmental, and I'm actually going to be prepared to do better things as a result of the discussion instead of just feeling shame.

Does that make sense? That makes a lot of sense. Yes. Thank you. Good stuff. Thank you for the call, Corey. Daniel, appreciate that as well. If you would like to call in, you can do so. 844-944-944-1070.

That's 844-944-1070. You can also email in podcast at entreleadership.com. Say, hey, I've got a question for Daniel Tarty. We'd love to get it on the program and our team will get with you. So two ways, leave a voicemail at the phone number or you can email. Again, that's 844-944-1070 or podcast at entreleadership.com. All right, Infusionsoft bringing you a great tool this episode as well. It's called Marketing to Millennials.

And this is an e-book, all right? Marketing to millennials. Now, here's the deal. 30% of the world's population is defined as millennials. Here's another stat from my head. Millennials are now the largest demographic in the American workforce. These millennials grew up with the Internet. They've had iPhones and a Facebook account before graduating high school.

41% of millennials don't have a landline phone, and they rely on their mobile device for their connectivity. And here's the tragedy. With all that data stacking up, only 15% of small businesses market directly to millennials. Folks, you need to know these people. They're spending $200 billion and, you're spending $200 billion. and counting annually. This episode has been about communication and this resource, the e-book guide from Infusionsoft, will help you communicate to what is probably your biggest target audience.

Marketing to millennials, don't miss this. You can get the link in the show notes, episode 284, entreeleadership.com. Click on podcast, episode 284. Well, folks, that's going to do it. On behalf of Will the producer, Tim the engineer, and the entire Entree Leadership, team. Thank you for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon. Hey folks, I want to make you aware that we have other great podcasts from Ramsey Solutions. Here's a sample of Christy Wright's Business Boutique podcast. Hey, I'm Christy Wright, and I help

women all over the country take their ideas and passions and hobbies and turn them into profitable businesses. If you have an idea in your head or a dream in your heart and you've ever wondered if you could make money doing it, I'm here to help. Join us on the Business Boutique podcast where we are equipped. helping women to make money doing what they love. If you'd like to hear full episodes, just search Business Boutique in iTunes or go to business boutique.com.