Start With A Win - 5 Trends Business Leaders Need to Follow in 2023

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

This might surprise you, but the priorities of successful leaders in 2023 aren’t simply increasing revenue and productivity. While these are certainly important goals for any business owner, this year leaders are focusing on building relationships and practicing clear communication. Here are the top trends for feeding the momentum of growth and expansion in the new year.Be Present: In order to retain loyal employees, bosses need to be actively involved in the day-to-day environment. When people feel seen and heard, they are more likely to stay with a company and work with higher levels of productivity. (02:40)Use Video: To enhance virtual correspondence and build a more authentic online presence, utilize visual forms of communication rather than simply using text. (04:55)Create Valuable Content: Offer something of value to those you influence and lead. This builds branding and creates a relationship of reciprocity. When you provide what someone needs, they are more likely to do business with you. (09:55)Use Extreme Clarity: Embrace the power of the word “because.” When leaders take the time to explain their reasoning, employees are more likely to acquiesce to requests or expectations. (12:43)Communicate Regularly: Create a routine of checking in with clients and employees on a consistent basis to invest in relationships and address any issues. (16:00)   Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://www.instagram.com/adamcontosceo/Listen, rate, and subscribe!Apple PodcastsSpotifyGoogle Podcasts

Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this. And coming to you from Start With A Win headquarters here at Area 15 Ventures, it's Adam Kantos with Start With A Win. Coming to you remotely at Brand Viva is producer Mark. How you doing, buddy? Hey, I'm doing fantastic. Awesome. Hey, I'm going to continue on some of our business conversation today. Last week, we talked about your account, your relationship account with your customers, with your personal relationships, things like that, and making deposits versus making withdrawals if something happens. But also, withdrawals are being made every day you do nothing because we have inflation. Inflation is the devaluation of

the dollar or the devaluation of your relationship over time. So we talked about building into those things. But today I want to talk about some things that leaders need to be doing. So really what the top business leaders need to be and are doing in 2023 to improve their businesses and continue the growth that they started. Because everybody seemingly comes out strong at the first of the year. And we're in probably February now. We're recording this around the first of the year, but this is being released roughly in February, but there are five current trends that I see happening already. And that I know a lot of business leaders are working on. So you ready to dig into those? Yeah. I'm, I'm excited, you know, because everyone's kind of that shooting star, right?

You burn hot and heavy, excited for the new year. And then, oh, and then you start to fade really quick. I think they say like, it's something like within four to six weeks, you're done. Right about now, everybody stops working hard. It's that February doldrum. Realistically, it happens. A lot of businesses, you're right, you see, boom, a little bit of a takeoff. And then February, you see some coasting. You know, everybody's like, oh, I'm over the excitement of the holidays or over

the excitement of my business for the first of the year. The CEO's already had that rah-rah meeting. Now we're not hearing from them because they're on vacation or something like that. Please help me. What am I supposed to be doing? So let's talk about those five things, okay? Yeah, let's do it. The first thing, be present. You as somebody running a business, leading a business, even if you're standing behind a cash register in a business, you need to be present. You need to be present for the customers.

You need to be present for the other people that you're doing business with, like vendors, other associates, partners in the business. Like let's say you're at a pizza place and there's a liquor store next door. Go over and say hi, because the people that buy on pizza are buying some beer also. So let's make sure that we maintain those relationships and be present because a couple of things. First of all, presence creates trust. You think I, I think I might've said that before. That's right. Yeah. And top of mind,

first in line. You got it. Top of mind is first in line. Here's a statistic leaders that I mentioned in the last podcast, and I want to hit this again because this is incredibly important. And this is presence for you leaders with your employees. If you're a leader manager, what have you, you need to be present with your employees. That's because 79% of employees said they left a company because they felt not appreciated or recognized and their leader wasn't even talking to them. It seemed like their leader didn't care. Have you ever gotten a cold shoulder from somebody that you're in some sort of a relationship with know, relationship with, and they just stop paying attention to you. Well, how does that make you feel? Not so good. Yeah. Not good.

How does it make you feel when your boss does that to you? It sucks. Cause then you start thinking about all the different things of, you know, am I doing something wrong? Am I doing something right? I don't know. Am I not performing properly? What's going on? That's totally right, Mark. In fact, probably one of the top things that gets into your head as a human being is abandonment. Abandonment. And that's the feeling that people have when they're not being communicated with by somebody that they believe cares about them.

Abandonment. Ooh, that's a hard word to stumble stumble. Yeah, that sucks. So that's the first one. Be present. The second one, and this is another one that I've harped on. And by the way, none of these things are brand new, but they're all incredibly important. They're all foundational to growing your business, growing your relationships. Use video. Hello. I mean, come on folks. If you didn't start using video in like 2019, 2020, I mean, it's 2023 for crying out loud. Um, I remember doing a presentation at a REMAX convention about using video and I opened with video killed the radio star. Oh yeah. Good one. I remember that. Yeah. That was one of those early videos on MTV. Yeah. And it sucked, but the song was very catchy and the concept was incredible because it was so true. It's video creates that presence.

So let me give you a statistic here. And this is really, really fascinating. Up to 90% of communication is nonverbal. Okay. So if it's nonverbal, what does that mean? That means somebody needs to be able to see you, right? It doesn't mean you can read the communication. Sorry. That's one of the lowest points of communicating that you can do as an email or, you know. And it's the worst too, right? Because depending on someone's writing style, the way that you perceive the way that it was written could be negative opposed to the person who was writing. It was like, Oh, I thought I was pretty positive in this email. And the person

reading, it could be like, Oh my gosh, they're upset. Right. Or, or if you're kind of like me and you're just like giving a matter of fact answer, people are like, yeah. Uh, are you mad at me? It's like, no, I'm just giving you an answer. Yeah, exactly. Well, you could have used a little bit of emotion in it. Well, I'll send you a video next time so you can see me smiling and my eyes and things like that. And you'll know that I'm not upset or just being really sharp with it. But you're right.

The reality is the best way to communicate, obviously, is in person. Why? For a couple of things. One is we build that trust that we see with the hands, with the face, the smile, the eyes, things like that. But additionally, we hear the intimacy of the voice combined with that. So we like our brains like to put multiple input mechanisms to work in order to determine what does this message mean. And video allows us, video with good lighting, got good lighting here, a great camera, and a very crisp sounding microphone really makes a difference here. So use video, okay? Yeah, well, and the other

thing I would say too, I do a lot of research on people, especially for this show, trying to find good guests, business leaders. And I'll tell you what, when I, if I go on, on YouTube or someplace to look for them online and they don't have some sort of video presence, I usually pass on them because I, you know, for me, I want to see, okay, how is this person, you know, carry on a conversation? How do they, um, you know, hold themselves and, uh, you know, what kind of animations do they have? And I like to see that before I commit to bring in somebody on the show. And when, when someone sends me an email, like, Hey, you know, you should have so-and-so on. And then I go look for them and I can't find any good video content. I'm like pass, you know, like, and they could be great potentially,

but because they don't have a presence online of video, I usually, you know, it's a sign for me that, okay, that they might not be good. You know? Yeah. You know, what's interesting is when you, and you and I both interview a lot of people who are into marketing and content delivery, you know, content marketing, both of those things. And we research a lot of people that way. And you're like, ooh, this person really looks like they know what they're doing,

or they wrote a great article. And you're right, you go onto their social media and you're like, they have no video. Yeah. Or it's like a quote card that you don't see them or hear from them. So you really don't know what it is. It's just might be a repost of something that they created. People want to know it's you and they want to know what matters by the way. And Mark, I know we've talked about this before. I've done millions of dollars worth of business because of video with people that have

never met me before. They called me to say, Hey, I want to do business with you. And I go, why? And they said, because I've researched your videos and watched you online. And I know you're the type of person I want to work with. Yeah. So you, you have to ask what is, what does video deliver? It creates and delivers the values that you operate your business under. Totally. So let's move on to the next one because this kind of goes hand in hand with video or gives you an opportunity to. That is create valuable content for those you influence and lead. Create valuable content. What does that mean? That means that, first of all, you need to

be learning in order to be creating. Because you can't just continue to spew the things that you've learned in past life. You have to continue to grow your brain so you can understand the perspectives, the angles, the language, things like that. Because language is always changing, but how it pertains to a particular item needs to be realigned, which means essentially you could go in and find a leadership concept. You can go back to the 1950s and listen to Earl Nightingale, who had a fabulous voice. I encourage everybody to look up Earl Nightingale and listen to a fabulous voice. I encourage everybody to look up Earl Nightingale and listen to that, his deep voice talking about leadership. They have like his

whole collection on Audible. You can get it there. It's unbelievable. Yeah, it's great. But the words that he uses are different than the words that we use in 2023. And what people want is to know that you understand where they are. You should always meet people where they are with something to help them get further than that, which is that great valuable content that will help them move forward. Why is this important? This is important because of the factor of reciprocity, which essentially means that if we're giving something to somebody that is valuable to them, what's valuable to them? Something that either makes them money, time, or happiness, or money, time, or freedom, if you want to put it that way.

And if it does one of those things, they're likely to return the favor by doing business with you or sending something back to you in some way, shape or form. So leaders create and deliver valuable content. Well, and too, I think for a leader, when, like you were just saying, when you can speak to someone in their own language, essentially, you know, the words that they use, there's a sense of, I think, confidence that the person who's following experiences with that leader. Like you understand where I'm coming from. You understand where I'm at. You understand where I've been. You get almost like an emotional connection with that person because they're kind of talking your language. You know, I'm sure you've been to a seminar or, you know, you've read a book or something like that. And you're just like, oh, my goodness. Yes. Like, I'm feeling this connection here. This is great. It's inspiring.

I think a good leader, right, can speak that language and inspire people through that, which I think is really important. One hundred percent. You are absolutely right. This next one, number four, use extreme clarity. This is really interesting because when we are communicating with people, which we've talked about extensively now, and we're delivering value, there needs to be clarity. This is fascinating because Harvard Business School did a study with a person named Ellen Langer, and they tested employees on clarity and what likely will cause those employees to give grace. And here's the thing, let somebody cut in line to use the copy maker or the copy machine. So why would somebody be successful in cutting in line, a line of employees that want to use a copy machine?

Because they gave clarity as to why this person needs to cut in line. So they tested some ungodly number of people. We're talking like thousands. And what they found was 60% of the people asking to use a copier were successful when just going up and asking you to use a copier. So 60%, six out of 10. And I would venture to guess that if you went to try and jump into a line someplace and asked if you could, let's say six out of 10 people would give you some grace and let you jump in that line. But there's also, I mean, frankly, those odds are not all that great, especially when you compare it to giving clarity. Now, what is clarity here? Clarity is they use the word because. Because I have to get this done quickly, I'm sorry, or something of that nature. But they use the word because. When they use the word because in explaining why they needed to jump in line at the copier, it went from 60% letting them in to 94% letting them in.

Now, think about that, leaders. How do you communicate clarity to your employees? Do you just give them the directive and say, this is what we're going to go do? Or do you say, this is what we're going to go do because it does this for our customers, because it does this for our company, because it does this for everybody as an employee here, what have you, simply put, the because matters. Now, if you remember as a child, a lot of people, you know, the kids would say, why?

And why? Because I said so. Exactly. So here's the reality. Just tell people why and say because and make it a win-win if you can possibly make it a win-win. And if there's a prepayment of gratitude back their direction, for instance, I'm sorry, can I jump in front of you and use a copy or next because I have a class in five minutes that I have to go attend? And I promise you, I'll pay you back somehow. I mean, that is fantastic. That wasn't even part of this. And they got 94%

simply because of, because. Yeah. We're getting a hundred percent. Yeah. With reciprocity. Totally. Totally. So that's number four, use extreme clarity. The fifth thing that top leaders are doing in 2023 to really grow their business and grow their connection with their customers is communicating regularly. What does that mean? Because I get a lot of people say, well, I communicate. I sent out an email once a week. I'm like, timeout. Remember what I talked about with video? Non-verbal, non-video communication is not as powerful. And frankly, people don't remember getting it. And also, let me ask you this. What were in all those emails that you glanced at this morning? Do you remember them?

Now, did you watch any videos this morning? Do you remember those? We learn like 70% better when we see it, hear it, and are participating in it because of that emotional connection than if we just read the words on a screen or on our phone, which are teeny tiny. And by the way, you're used to scanning, not reading, but when you're listening, you're absorbing. So when we communicate regularly, this is one of the big things that I found as a breakdown in CEOs and in leaders is they think that the fact that people know what they're supposed to do with their job means that they're just going to go do it and that they don't necessarily have to communicate. So when I was the CEO of Remax, I ran a regular communication tempo that I thought was awesome. And let me share that with you. So once a week, I would meet with my direct reports.

So I had a team of executive officers that I would meet with once a week. Every other week, I would meet with them. Plus Plus we would have a secondary meeting where they would bring in all of their direct reports. So you're looking at another 30 to 40 people on top of that. And then once a month, I had a meeting with all of my employees, which was 700 to 900, depending on when, what companies were buying, things like that. But what I would do is I would communicate regularly and they could depend on that. We would ask questions, have them submit questions ahead of time. And we always talked about our values and expectations. We always open the meeting with, here's our set of values. In fact, I was talking to Amy today,

my executive assistant, about values and how important that is in a business. The values statement that I put forth at REMAX was more, M-O-R-E. And I would always open and say, look, let's all remember our values. I had a backdrop that would be behind me during that conversation that had all the values on there. And it said more. M is deliver to the max. O is be customer obsessed. R is do the right thing. And E is everyone wins. And that was so powerful for everybody because the question was, are you living to the values of the organization? Then at the end of that meeting, we would always do more awards. We called them more cards where during that month, if somebody gave more, did more, became more, things like

that, they exhibited our values really, really in an outstanding way, they would be nominated by one of their peers. And we would call them out in that meeting and say, Mark, great job. And your picture would show up on the screen with, you know, your name and things like that. And they got the recognition in front of all their peers that way. So it sounds like if you're a busy leader, that you need to make sure that you put this on your calendar so that you can show up consistently. You have to cover these five things. You really have to cover these five things in order to be a pertinent leader in today's business world. I mean, I don't care what level you are in the business as a leader,

manager, things like that. You have to be present. You have to use video. I know that one hurts the most, but come on, folks, got to get going. There's a reason why it's on all of our phones. We're on Zoom for two and a half years, by the way. You have to create valuable content and deliver that to people. You have to use extreme clarity, remember, because is that magic word. And you have to communicate regularly. Like you said, have a scheduled regular tempo of that communication. I mean, it sounds kind of elementary that we're doing these things, but the reality is it's the little things that make great leaders done consistently. And these are some of the little things. Yeah, this is, this is great. And listen, if you

don't know where to start, if you are curious on how to do some of these things, if you want to grow as a leader, if you head over to adamcontos.com, we have come up with an entire course that teaches you how to be a great leader, all these nuances. And then it also teaches you how to execute on some of these things like making video, the kind of equipment that you would need and gives you all those tips and tricks. So if you head over to adamcontos.com, there you can find more great content as well as downloads and PDFs, and you can sign up for the Leadership Factory course. And so until next time, remember, start with a win.