Leadership and management skills are not coded into our DNA. Even the best leaders must hone their skills over time with hard work. You can do this through study, research, experimentation, and sometimes... trial and error. Even during the optimal times, keeping a motivated team is one of the greatest challenges. And no matter how good things are right now, every company will go through some hard times. During those tough times, you'll question everything you knew about how to motivate your t...
I have to admit that I am uncomfortable when given constructive criticism. You know why? Because I’m human. Guess what… You are too. (You are also human.) So, if most people are uncomfortable receiving constructive feedback, is it really constructive? In addition, is there a real difference between constructive criticism and destructive criticism? Well, the answer is both “yes” and “no.” Any type of criticism can be destructive to a relationship no matter the motives of the giver. On this epi...
You’ll hear people tell you that you need to create “SMART Goals” or that “You have to make your professional goals line up with your personal goals.” Or, “The best way to develop your future self is to create an action plan of smaller goals moving you toward more attainable goals.” I suppose that all of those things are true. But my advice is not to overly complicate the process. In “plain speak,” figure out where you want to go, determine a route to get you there, and start moving. Here is ...
For the entire month of November we have focused on increasing revenue for your company, and the steps you need to take to do so. A few weeks ago, we started off by telling you about networking and how increasing your sphere of influence is the first thing you can do to make people interested in your company. After that we looked at how to generate new customers for your small bussiness, then last week, I showed you how prospective customers, those folks that are going on to your websit...
Many small businesses pay thousands of dollars for pay-per-click ads and content marketing for lead generation, only to lose their qualified leads because they wait way too long to follow up. The truth is, timing can make or break your lead conversion process. When website visitors search for valuable information, products, or solutions, they expect instant results. If they fill out your web form or leave their email address, and your sales team takes hours—or worse, days—to respond, th...
So, last week, I showed you how to network more effectively in those business networking events. And, when we got to the Business-to-Business networking, I mentioned that you want to focus your business networking on the problems you solve for a specific market. The more narrowly defined the market, the better. On this episode, I'm going to show you how small businesses in 2025 and 2026 can find new customers. By the way, if you are a local company who sells products or services to a local ar...
I hope you had a fun and scary Halloween. Happy November to everyone. For the month of November, we'll be covering a series of episodes about how to find customers for your business and/or how to increase revenue through sales. Most companies, big and small alike, are ramping up for the end of year and trying to crush the lofty sales goals you set this time last year. So, in this series, we're going to do our best to help you maximize the sales number for the rest of the year, and help you ge...
Hey everyone, I'm Roma, filling in for Doug this week to talk about a few of the most successful ways I've found useful in climbing the corporate ladder as a woman. There are a lot of things working against us both societally and culturally when it comes to specifically corporate life, and there's a few tips I've found extremely useful in navigating this environment and persevering in the field. I'm also joined by Amy Maybury today, one of our absolute best senior consultants and ...
We recently brought a few new team members onto out staff here at The Leaders Institute. And during the hiring process, we were flooded with dozens and dozens of highly qualified candidates who all told us the same thing. "Companies just aren't hiring right now." I thought that was odd. Although GDP was -0.6 in the first quarter of 2025, GDP is growing at the highest rate it has since 2005 (absent the pandemic recovery years.) Our theory here is that with that kind of GDP growth, companies wi...
There will always be difficult employees in any organization. Be it a 2 person group, a mom and pop operation, or a fortune 500 company. Rotten tomatoes are inevitable, and your job as a leader is to make sure those couple rotten ones don't spoil the bunch. The problem is, how can you handle them when you don't even know which ones they are? Difficult employees come in so many different types and trying to solve every type with the same solution is a losing battle. It also gets a...
Now I know it's only October and we haven't even seen Halloween yet, but I wanted to do a short episode on Christmas parties, end of the year parties, holiday activities, that type of stuff cause whenever it comes to planning those, now is the time to start. Here at the Leaders Institute, we help companies and clients organize team building activities year around but right about now until about December is our absolute busiest time of year. That's because right now is when every company...
This week I've got a special guest, Amy Maybury who is one of our senior consultants, sales people, and instructors here at The Leaders Institute. Amy is in the process of writing a new book about owning your job and position and as we start getting into the interview she'll tell us how she kind of accidentally became an expert on this topic we're about to talk about. Through her life of early success, risks that paid off, and risky life decisions she's developed a career that has...
On this episode, I'm going to focus on how to really develop leaders because it's a major goal for really every organization, no matter the size of your company, and right now is a great time to start planning for your future. In fact, if your organization has a culture of internal leadership development programs, you're going to be able to attract new team members as well as retain the top talent you already have. So basically in this session we're gonna pull back the curtains an...
What if you could transform a routine training session into an unforgettable team experience that sharpens your groups skills and leaves a far deeper emotional impact on them. Well on today's episode, I'm going to reveal a powerful method to make communication, problem solving, leadership skills; make the training for those type of concepts stick with your team way more, and leave way more of a lasting impression. And also, there's one really big secret I'm going to share with you that ...
Since we are at the very start of the holiday season, at least for businesses (and yes it is the start of the holiday season for business), company leaders both big and small have to start planning. Whether it's holiday parties, sales kickoffs, or, of course, annual meetings, the planning has to begin now, and it's worth planning them the right way. In the case of annual meetings, the importance is apparent. Most companies only get all the employees together once a year, and typic...
A couple of weeks ago, I released an episode about how people learn by doing, and I touched upon how to make training sessions more interactive so that your participants actually learn better and the information sticks longer. Well, on this episode, I'm gonna show you how to make training sessions way more fun and way more interactive. I'm going to give you five of the biggest things that me and my instructors use when we go out doing training courses to make the classes way more fun, ...
In today's episode, I'm going to cover a few of the several ways that managers or supervisors can learn a lot from looking at the skills that coaches possess. A common issue across so many managers, supervisors, and bosses out there is, regardless of how qualified they are as managers, they struggle desperately with being good leaders. Being a good leader, creating an effective environment, and manifesting real teamwork in the workplace are skills not often really taught to new manager...
One of the most common things that we hear after we lead a workshop or training seminar is, "I have to be honest. I was really dreading having to come to this class. But I think I had more fun and learned more in this session than I have from any other training program." The reason why we get such good results is that we learned early on that people learn by doing -- not by hearing and seeing. So, boring lectures with a ton of bullet points don't typically work very well. On this episode, I'm...
I was traveling recently, and the person sitting next to me on the plane asked me what I did. I mentioned that companies hire me and my team members to come in and make meeting more fun and interesting. She said, "Give me your card. I just left one of the most boring and taxing meetings ever organized." And actually, that happens a lot. When event planners organize meetings, their time is limited. And they want to maximize the time they have available. So, the technical, business related topi...
When people hear the phrase “corporate team building event”, they usually think of outdated or awkward activities. Maybe it’s trust falls, a pizza party, or that cringeworthy moment when everyone shares “something interesting about themselves.” In other words, not exactly exciting. But team building doesn’t have to be cheesy. They can be fun. They can be powerful. And most importantly, they can make a real difference in how your team members work together. Choosing the right event is easier t...