Tim Chan is a good friend of mine who works at the Leader Impact Group. I sat down with him on Sunday Brunch and were discussing some principles of leadership. He told me about someone he admired, and his name is Braden Douglas who has worked with Frito Lay Marketing, Proctor and Gamble and was Director of Marketing for Power to Change. At the age of 30 he has his own business Revelation Marketing, which currently employs 14 people. The following leadership advice that I’m about to share will be part of his talk that is coming up on June 2nd in Vancouver, read on for all the details of what the talk is about.
Here are three great tips for being a leader in business
Tip Number 1: Choose the people who will influence you, or life will choose it for you.
This struck a chord with me. It made me pause and think about my own life, am I surrounding myself with positive people who are influencing me in the best way possible, or am I letting life happen to me? Meeting the people we want to meet who can be a great influence in our life is never easy. It can be a difficult uphill battle at first, but if you don’t take you first few step up the mountain you’ll never be able to reach the peak. Tim was telling me how Braden has the simple philosophy of “Measure the Five Closest People You are With.” The original measurement is income. Take the income of the five closest friends you have, and chances are that’s what you’re going to make for the rest of your life. But it’s also about improving your social skills, your leadership skills, your involvement in the community, and so much more. Your five closest friends are a reflection of you.
We also discussed about hiring people. About who we choose to hire can make such a big impact on how we run our company or the department we work in. Learning to ask questions that are outside of the box can tell you the characteristics of the person. For example asking: “What are your favourite movies that you enjoy watching?” or “What kind of books are you currently reading?”
Tip Number 2: Carve Out a Unique Position for Yourself
This can be similar to having your own niche in business. One of the keys to running a successful business is to have a unique position in the marketplace. This about having a business that you’re passionate about, that you consider a strength and the market has value for.
But part of being unique is being able to increase your perceived value according to the market place. The more perceived value you have the more unique you are the more employable and well paid you will be. After all expertise in specific areas can be expensive. (Who wouldn’t want to find an expert that would know how to cover up the oil spill by BP right now?)
Tip Number 3: Know what the core values are for your own company, your business and yourself.
Think about it this way, if you were to run your own company, and you left on a 3 month vacation, what kind of things would anger you once you came back on the first day? Would they be bad customer service, poor interdepartmental communication and then really ask yourself what’s really important about those areas?
For example Braden talks about creating burning relationships. These are relationships that you have the desire to build, to create a long term steady relationship where you do your absolute best to serve your client or customer.
And what do you think is important when it comes to business leadership? Let us know what you think.
If you’re interested in knowing more about Braden Douglas then check him out speaking in Vancouver on Jun.2nd @ 7:00pm in Downtown Vancouver. For all the details click here.
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