Before I get into those takeaways, here’s a little background that may give me some authority on this topic. I am an entrepreneur at heart, yet I work for a major corporation. I never thought that my entrepreneurial spirit and upbringing from business owner parents would allow for me to not own my own business. I’ve been proven wrong. I have realized the unique position of an intrapreneur, innovating and helping to change an industry from inside of a major corporation. I’m inspired and empowered to do this because my management team at Old Republic Title, ortc.com, embodies these lessons better than any other group of leaders that I’ve ever met. And this feeling is unanimous amongst those of us that work for Old Republic Title. The leadership that we enjoy from Bill Thomas, Steve Yeager and Ryan Wood creates not only a sense of empowerment, but also a deep loyalty.
So, here are some thoughts and takeaways-
First, when you have people that you absolutely want to have as part of your business, look at life through their eyes–asking, what can I do to make this person’s life better? In other words, ask and find out the following questions:
- Where are they at in their life?
- Where they do they want to be in their life?
Then, position yourself as the very best means to help them get from where they are to where they want to be. Be sure that the vision of your business is big enough that the vision for their business and life, can fit inside of your vision. When you speak about your vision, tie it back to how this helps them fulfill on their vision.
As I shared some of these takeaways with a friend of mine who used to be a part of a very successful real estate team, and has now left to be on his own, we discovered something. He shared that in all of their team meetings and individual conversations while on that team, the talk was about the vision of their team and company. That’s nice, he shared, but I was never asked about my vision nor did I see or hear how that success would get me to where I wanted to go… so I knew I had to leave if I was going to fulfill my vision.
The oft-quoted gem from the late Zig Ziglar, zigziglar.com, comes to mind ‘You can have everything you want in life if you will just help enough other people get what they want.’
We often think of this quote in terms of our customers, but it’s just as true with the people that work for, and with us.