No time for negative energy!

Wow! What a response to the 1st "Mid-Week Mentor, A 30 Second Business Time Out". Thank you and please feel free to forward to other business minded people in your organization or personal network.

Now, let's get busy...it's already the second business week of January 2010.

Lee has 30 days to turn major rental retail sales branch revenues from last year to reasonable numbers and customer satisfaction scores must be increased...just to keep his job. Sounds like fun! The company is giving him one day of training and then he must drive five hours home and meet his new crew at 6 a.m. the following morning....oh...wait...did I forget to mention his newly inherited crew of employees are all union.

It's no wonder when I came across Lee he was considering drowning himself in a few beers at the Outback Steakhouse. What a day for Lee! By happenstance, I sat down beside him at the bar and ordered a diet Coke, a steak and started asking questions. It didn't take long for Lee to down his beer, switch to water and begin taking notes.

After I heard how unfairly life was treating Lee, now that he had finally gotten his dream management job and only 30 days to prove himself in an unfamiliar environment...my first question was going to be simple. I kind of like the guy because he is 29, full of vim, vigor and vitality; so I raised my hand and asked the following: "Ok, Lee, so you got 30 days, what's your strategy?" His reply was humorous but quite normal. He looked me in the eye and said "I think the timing is right and I hope the economy is on an upswing and we will ride the natural flow of increased spending." I smiled and said I had bad news for him, the last time I checked "HOPE" was not a good business strategy. So, let's start focusing on what you can do in 30 days versus what you can't do in the next 30 days.

He agreed and so I continued to help by asking a few more pointed questions:

> Tell me what business outcomes you must hit to keep your job?

> To the best of your knowledge what is the current reality?

Once we examined the difference, Lee became excited about thinking specifically about "action steps" he could take to make the outcomes become a reality. We are now thinking strategy! After an hour of give and take Lee is at least 1) armed with a strategy 2) has four specific actions to take around (*sales, *service, *motivation and *12 questions to ask in his training session).

My final advice to Lee was to stay focused on keeping current customers and winning new customers and he would have his job after 30 days.

Stay tuned....we should have an update from Lee in two weeks.

Action steps for you:

1. What strategic steps are you committed to?

2. Are you willing to lead your team, from this day forward, to staying focused on what you can do versus what you can't do?