Thanks to all the “A Players” at WeGenerate who force us all to grow both personally and professionally ever day. You know who you are!
Insurance professional with 10 years of experience in advanced lead generation and health insurance sales.
When you hire up, you’ll always force yourself to grow. It’s one of my favorite strategies we use at WeGenerate to continue to push our personal and professional growth. Most recently, we’ve hired our first COO. It’s forced me to have to reflect on how I’ve operated the business for years, and more importantly, how to teach him to carry the torch. Here’s what’s I’ve learned. 1. Leadership is never earned through a position but rather through production and people development. 2. When entering a new organization you can never “surpass the master.” This means to listen more than you speak, make observations, and share opinions. 3. The first 3 months should be spent integrating with each area of your business, allowing for them to build personal relationships and indentify all areas of improvement. 4. Attack low hanging fruits FIRST. These are small changes that can be made without stirring the pot. As a new leader it’s critical to earn trust in your organization by BEING RIGHT AND PRODUCING before tackling big projects. 5. Create a thought framework that will be their lifeline. Feel stuck? Refer to the thought framework. Developing questions to challenge them throughout the day will keep them on track. 6. Create KPIs for each department to set clear expectations. 7. The most important time of the day is the morning and the evening. Use the morning to set the vision for your new leaders day and use the evening to reflect on the positives and negatives that happened. 8. Extract important lessons that come up throughout the day to show how your thought framework helped you navigate the issue and remove obstacles. 9. Never make your new hire feel stupid for asking questions or nervous to speak openly and honestly. Live your core values so they become embedded in their DNA. 10. Enroll your leadership team into the vision of why this new person will change your business. Spend the nesessary time to allow for each person on your team to adopt the same beliefs of your new hire that you have. If your team isn’t sold out your operator will have an uphill battle. Leadership is lived. Be in the trenches with your team and they will stay in the trenches with you forever.