In my last article, I talked about the value of momentum and its components as viewed at WhiteRock.  Where momentum can ebb and flow for assorted reasons and periods of time, overall, momentum will be continuous if you have your team empowered and pushing for a common goal.  This goal should align with the leadership vision and mission.

I recently went through a very eye-opening exercise with April Stercula of Limitless Business.  We created a True North worksheet (our GPS) filled with action steps, assignments, financial information, system improvements, and more where I could see the relationship of the end-goal to what we are doing today.  And me and my team were not as aligned as I had thought and hoped.  Why?  I didn’t have the playbook detailed well enough for them to see the picture as I saw the picture.

I chose to share this worksheet in full with our team.  Yes, it can be uncomfortable to bear your soul, but I believe in them, and they believe in me, and I needed to show them the confidence and true love I have for them all by making them owners of our True North plan.  The momentum that came from that step has given us flow.

Flow is so beautiful.  I believe God has flow and that He wants us to flow with Him.  He wants us to follow His Plan that has been provided to us in The Bible.   He loves us and wants us to follow Him.  I believe flow produces momentum and momentum produces flow.

Momentum Flow Requires Action

For me to get comfort and joy from this rhythm of our business, momentum flow requires these actions from leaders:

1. You must relinquish control and empower your team – this sounds cliché but the action of this will free you as a leader and free your team to stretch and reach for the True North for themselves.
2. You must genuinely care for your team – there is nothing more important than the team. Take great care of your team and your team will take great care of your customers.
3. You must demand a systematic platform to measure your success toward your True North – the customers will experience a higher value. Your team will delight in this higher value because they deliver with confidence and are trusted.
4. You must review the True North plans consistently with your team – keep the navigation aligned as all of you work toward the same goal in detailed steps that all have agreed to initially.
5. You must be comfortable with the shortcomings and innovate them out of your way.

There is nothing sweeter than a team that is working toward the same goal.  It is fun, challenging, difficult, rewarding, exhausting, and full of flow.  This flow is divine, and God loves it!

Knock.  Seek.  Ask.

Engage your team for the fruits of flow.  And as always, I would love to visit with you on the topic.  Reach out any time.

Momentum.  I love looking up the definition of words.  I found several definitions of momentum online:

1. PHYSICS – the quantity of motion of a moving body, measured as a product of its mass and velocity.
2. The impetus gained by a moving object.
3. Momentum helps you get over the initial hurdle of not being able to start something and then pushes you through to the end. Momentum helps build positive thinking and energy to help you progress towards your goals.

At WhiteRock, we define momentum very much like above.  To us, momentum is gained in our business when a target audience shows adoption in mass of a service that we already know how to do very well.  It requires flow to get over a hurdle or to start something.  There must be movement.  One of my favorite concepts about flow comes from this.  In a football game, momentum might be scoring in the final minutes of the first half so that you go to the locker room with positive attitudes to come out and take over.  Or, in a baseball game, where the pitcher shuts down the opposing team in the 9th inning to win a game and stop a losing streak.  

Obtaining Momentum

How do we obtain momentum in a start-up business or a small business that wants to grow?  Let me share briefly WhiteRock’s mindset about the components of momentum, how to sustain momentum, and how to know when there is a momentum shift in your favor.

To know when momentum exists and how to sustain this energy, first, let me share the components in our business to know when momentum has arrived:

#1. Common goal of a team

We had to create a True North plan.  Meaning, what are the tangible results we want to gain at a relatively long-term point in time for the company, our team, and our customers?  This True North is the road map daily.  Based on current data and forecasting from that data, we created metrics that drive our daily behavior.  Revenue, gross profit, marketing touches per month by buying persona/industry, MQL/SQL conversions, sales opportunity close rate, and others that might be your True North.

#2 Common formula for Influence

Our formula for how we approach our daily work:

Influence = Mindset + Skillset x Toolset

#3. Measurement of the journey of a suspect

WhiteRock wants to know what the logical path is of acquiring a customer.  Our path looks like this:

Suspect

The buyer doesn’t know us but our ideal customer identification process helps us match a suspect that has attributes of our current customers.

Interest/Impression/Influence

Our potential customer has demonstrated these attributes in our marketing message on a channel which they have a recordable event in our system that notifies us at the right time based on a measurable quantity in our system.

Engagement

Our potential customer takes the next step by communicating with our sales development team in several channels and methods.

First Meeting

Our prospect agrees to meet with us so that we learn about their pain point and whether we can solve it based on priority, budget, and similar mindsets.  Can we work together to resolve the pain point.

Sales Qualified Opportunity

WhiteRock and the prospect are aligned and we will discover, price, plan, and propose the solution for acceptance.

Onboard and retain the customer

WhiteRock works to perform with excellence and assures that the value received by the customer is equal to or greater than the price paid.

These components together provide the ability to identify when momentum is occurring via a Dashboard that will send a notification when a percentage uptick occurs in any one of these stages of the journey.

Sustaining Momentum

Next, how can your team sustain momentum?  Once momentum is reported, the team MUST adhere to a set of principles to “up the game”.   These principles are part of a previous post that you can find here.  For sustaining the momentum, the team must:

#1. Be consistent

Follow the processes, procedures, and policies in operations and sales that delivered the momentum to you initially.

#2. Don’t get distracted by mistakes

Correct and move on but also understand where and how the mistake took place.  Take action to shore up if needed -System error or Team Member error.

#3. Defy complacency

You worked too hard to get the momentum.  Stay to your principles and communicate this repeatedly.

There is nothing more deflating than to gain momentum than “go flat”.  The objective is to convert momentum to normalized business volume.   From your systems, organization, and discipline, determine changes to your team and/or process capabilities and capacities.  

Momentum is obtained through hard work that is founded on the business principles as described in recent articles on Healthy Leadership and Influence.  

Would you like to have a strategy session with me to learn more about this and how we help?

Last week, I shared how we at WhiteRock think about influence.  Today, let’s dive into what are important points for a leader to be healthy and capable of delivering and receiving healthy influence.  

Recently, my brilliant wife and I were talking about the three main channels that the brain receives and distributes activity.  These three channels of activity are feeling, doing, and thinking. 

Feelings can be categorized as anger, fear, pain, joy, passion, love, shame, and guilt.  Doing is action, and thinking is consideration of an action or feeling.  What my wife and I believe is that God comes to us on the feeling channel.  This is where, if we sit with a calm and voiceless period, He will provide us with a message via a feeling.  I believe this because I have experienced this in my life many times.   To be healthy, one can act on this message.  I also believe that thinking is where we can become unhealthy.  The statement “don’t over-think it” can be proven true many times when we over-think a scenario.  This can be overcome by a proper planning process.

Leaders can gain a lot from this type of psychological method of understanding our brain’s channels and, with a healthy dose of daily prayer, quiet time, and reflection, gain a comfortable “pitch” to our lifestyle and leadership style.

Craig Groeschel, one of my favorite podcasters, shares in his podcast about leadership the six types of leadership styles.  Craig identifies these as the following:

Unpredictable Leader 

Unpredictable leaders produce hesitant followers; this leader has no consistency. Craig shares that about the value of consistency – great leaders consistently do what average people do occasionally.

Domineering Leader 

Domineering leaders produce compliant followers but not committed followers.  What we really want is for our team to have the mindset of an owner.  They should be asking lots of questions.

Secretive Leader

Secretive leaders produce guarded followers; we communicate that we don’t trust them.  Craig shares that we must communicate, re-communicate, and over-communicate our vision and direction to our teams.

Passive Leader 

Passive leaders produce disengaged followers.  Rather than ignoring a problem or having tough conversations with your teammates, DO SOMETHING!  When the leader doesn’t address the problem, the real problem is not the problem, but the leader is the problem.  Reject Passivity!

Healthy Leader 

Healthy leaders produce faithful followers.  This leader extends trust but never demands the truth.  The healthier you are, the better you are as a leader.  They seek persistence but never demand a push to perfection or continuous improvement.

Empowering Leader 

Empowering leaders produce great leaders. This leader is a healthy leader but is all about the people in the organization.  Give responsibility away.  Get full ownership by giving it away.  You don’t get competent staff; you build them.  We have to say no to a lot of things, but we have to say yes to the right things.  Pushes the ability to say yes deep into the organization.  How to do it?  Lead yourself first.  What disciplines are lacking in your life?  Lead others.  Then, you lead leaders!  Then, you lead teams of leaders leading teams of leaders.  Don’t do things I can do but do things I cannot do.  Be yourself because people follow people who are always real.

People will work for a paycheck, but they’ll give their life to a vision and mission they believe in. As a leader, it’s your job to cast a vision that compels your entire team to lean in. I highly recommend Craig’s methodology and the psychological methodology of being aware of your feelings, actions, and thinking.  

What type of leader are you?