Leading Through Change | The Better Than Rich Show Ep. 13

Navigate Uncertainty

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Navigate Uncertainty 〰️

Leading Through Change

Change is a consistent part of just about every aspect of life. Businesses introduce new changes every day for the betterment of their business, employees, or customers. But change can be difficult to navigate and lead.

People aren’t against change, they love the outcomes of change, but don’t enjoy the period of transition nearly as much. Everyone wants to be able to free up their time or energy but learning the new process that creates that flexibility, might still be a bit of a pain.

Before introducing any kind of change we need to dot all our I’s and cross all our T’s. We don’t want to bombard our people with a million different things and no legitimate plan of action put into place. There should be zero loose ends by the time our team learns of the new changes and begins putting them into place.

The Two Types Of Change

The first type of change is small incremental changes. We put changes like these in place when we already have a system that is working within a program but not at its fullest potential. These changes don’t radically change anything, and they can be discussed or relayed over a simple team meeting followed by an email.

An example of a small change is deciding to change a messaging template for a currently decently operating system.

The second type is a full change. These changes do radically change things within the business. Larger changes need more management, quality checks, and reviewing. These larger changes need more prep like training for the team etc.

An example of a large change would be switching out a hiring department's entire onboarding process would be a bigger change that might take longer to learn.

Transition Period

Depending on how much a new plan changes things for our employees helps us gauge how long the transition period needs to be. If it’s a small change, it can be don’t instantly and put into place that day. With bigger changes, instead, it might take 90 days to roll out a new system. The rollout period should match the intensity of the task and the amount of change that has occurred.

Sometimes we have to break down the introduction of a system to ensure not to overwhelm our team, which might look like introducing a section of the program at a time. People need to be constantly reminded of the end product that is trying to be achieved during the transition period so they can be reminded of all that they are working for.

How To Know If The Change Is Working

Once we’ve put our changes into action we need to check back in to see the results. We need to know if the change is working! Staying on top of data collection for all departments, especially around the time of a big change is important.

Data doesn’t lie, and it can tell exactly how the business is doing and what areas need more work.

Consistent department meetings help get qualitative data from the individual departments. It’s important that not only does the business owner know what is happening in every section of the business, but when all the departments are working together and understand each other's goals the business works like a well-oiled machine.

Another great way to ensure the change is being applied and working are by doing quality checks on your team. How well do the people in our organization know the policies and procedures? Certification is especially important regarding large changes to ensure that everything was viewed, understood, and put into action.

Changes should always be documented in a place that can be reviewed and accessed at a later date. This ensures that they can reassess anything they may have forgotten. If all changes are documented then when mistakes are made after the RAMP period, this documentation can be referred to for reference of company policies. We have to be the Policy Police and ensure everyone is changing what needs to be changed and sticking to it.

Mike Abramowitz 0:11
Welcome to the better than rich show with your hosts Andrew Biggs and Mike Abramowitz. The better than rich show helps ambitious leaders who are on a mission to leave the world better than they found it. change their perspective on what's important, increase their income and impact and systemize their life and business. If you've ever struggled with finding your purpose and felt disconnected or distracted or found yourself going through the motions, this show will remind you that what you do matters and will re inspire you to chase your highest dreams. It's time for you to become better than rich.

Andrew Biggs 0:46
Hello, and welcome to the better the rich Show. I'm your host Andrew Biggs and I'm here with my host, Mike Abramowitz. Mike, how you doing today?

Mike Abramowitz 0:54
Always great day, Andrew. Glad to be here.

Andrew Biggs 0:57
Awesome, awesome. Well, I'm excited to dive into today's topic, how to lead through change. I think it's such an important topic. That's a timely topic, considering just how fast paced our world is moving just how much certain decisions that are being made across the nation could affect how you operate your business. So it's gonna be fun to break that down. Before we do though, man, like I'm gonna hit you out of the blue like, how you bent give me like the scoop. I know people love our business content, but they also just to hear love to hear about how his life what's been moving and shaking in your world, man, give you the scoop there.

Mike Abramowitz 1:31
Yeah, things are really good. I've been home with James, now since September, and we just went to the zoo for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and then the aquarium, and then we're able to go to the zoo again. And it went really well this past weekend. So that's been really nice to see him progress. And we're starting to do some taste testing with him. And because he's one, he just turned one, but his actual due date isn't until April. So he's like still adjusted. So he's not like quite one years old yet, but Right. Yeah, so it's been really fun for him. And you know, business is good. We finished off January in that vector number four in the nation over 100,000 in sales for the year so far, for the month of January, I have eight awesome clients that I'm coaching directly and working with the accountability group is doing well. And it's been, it's been really fun, just kind of serving and getting acclimated to what my genius is and how to leverage that genius to help the marketplace. So it's been it's been a really great last several months for sure.

Andrew Biggs 2:38
Absolutely. And to be able to do that. All right, and manage the household. So thanks for just give me the scoop and be willing to share kind of how things are going for you. Awesome, man. For me, yeah, well, we got the baby, we have a Gabrielle who's now two months old. So that's really exciting. He's two months at this point. And he's just rocking and rolling. I actually just had a meeting with our midwife and we're discussing, you know, him and how he's doing he's so great. And then, you know, we're rock and roll with the business, obviously getting going with our Tampa bathtub, we really can't wait for Mike and I just so you guys know, put together the agenda for that event. It's pretty much finalized at this point. And I mean, it's going to be a world class that we can't wait to be there, and to rock people's worlds. So that's really exciting. And then yeah, we're just navigating what's it like to be a father of two? Is a new question for me. And it's a fun question. And it's fun to kind of coach Elijah as well, on how to be a big brother. So that's a whole new challenge as well. So something for you to look forward to, potentially, we'll see. But, uh, getting into today's topic, around navigating change, how to lead through change. You know, change management is a topic, you can go take a course, you know, at business school on change management. It's something that as a business owner, you need to know how to do it. And there's right and wrong ways to do it. And so I would love to maybe ask you as a starting off point, how do you go about thinking about change management and when you think about the beginning of the problem, what comes up for you as a starting point?

Mike Abramowitz 4:24
Anytime specifically, to a business I mean, anytime change exists in business or in life, people actually like change, change is not a bad thing. In fact, people enjoy the outcome of change. But what I have found is they hate transition. So the transition between where they are and and the actual change that's gonna take place that gap called transition is not as enjoyable. So what I what I've really discovered and I know we'll kind of jam on is really how to navigate through it. transition into change is what I have found is, is really what requires the most attention. Because some people, you know, if there's any type of change we're going to put into place, they're going to be like, Here's Mike, again, trying to do another new thing, is this really gonna stick? Or is it a fad, you know, and you got to, so you have to offset some of those curiosities or concerns from somebody saying, it's another diet change, you know, it's, it's a, here's another policy they're trying to put in place, we'll see how long this one lasts. So you got to kind of navigate through that during that transition. And that's where the reinforcement and the follow up and you know, the documentation, all the stuff that we're about to jam on, that's where a lot of that shows up. So that's my starting point. Usually, it's like, thinking about what is what is going through their mind through the transition phase? And how do we address those those concerns or curiosities.

Andrew Biggs 5:51
And I love the way you frame that as people like change, they like the ultimate outcome of once the change is ultimately implemented. Because, you know, let's face it, you wouldn't be putting a change in place, if we didn't think it was gonna be good for that if we didn't think it'd be good for the business. And so we're putting a change in place that we know is going to get the business and the team where we want them to be. But that transition period, well, I'm so used to this, well, this is the way we've always done it, or whatever the story is, well, I don't want to learn this whole new thing, it's gonna take some time, and it's gonna take some getting used to, maybe there's even some costs and opportunity costs in the meantime, while you're actually learning a new system or implementing a new program. And so people don't like that transition period, I love the way that you put that people like change, but they hate transition. You know, I was thinking about this a little bit, you know, there's really two types of change, ultimately gang, that you are going to want to be implementing in your business. And I mean, the first one is kind of like small incremental changes. And this is when you already have a system in place, you already have something that's working inside a program. But ultimately, it's not working to its fullest capacity. And those are quick hitting, those are easy. It's kind of like a quick update a little memo here, a little email there a little chat, you know, message here, a mentioned in a team meeting, followed by an email or something like that, where you're providing new information on policies, procedures, maybe introducing a new technology, but it's ultimately not going to radically change someone's day to day operations. And then there's other changes that you make that are wholesale changes, it's a complete, you know, what 80, from what you've been doing in the past, and when you make those sorts of changes, there's different types of considerations that you need to bring in. Namely, what you need to do is you need to make sure right, that everyone understands the full scope of what's happening, you need to give yourself a lot more time for that change to kind of stick and be taken on fully adopted. And it's a whole different question, when you're working with these sort of large scale wholesale changes. You know, Mike, especially starting, I would say, probably around 2019 2020, I noticed you start to implement some really cool strategies in your business, I'd love for you to open up about some of the strategies you've implemented, whether it was on the wholesale side, or the quick hitting side, that ultimately was allowed your business to navigate some really turbulent times really elegantly, what would you say there?

Mike Abramowitz 8:16
You know, there's, there's so many, and I'll just kind of rattle them off in no particular order. But, you know, navigating into a live in person training seminar, and transitioning into a zoom training seminar, how to navigate through in an in person live demonstration, and navigating into a virtual zoom presentation. So those are two and then navigating through on leading, like a conference meeting of like making like big phone jams and booking appointments together as a community and moving those over into the virtual climate. Now, we were kind of equipped for some of those. But the monitor the small little modifications were, how do we communicate these to these individuals, the same expectations and standards that we want for them that we had in life, but also now we're going to do in the virtual climate. And a couple other changes that we're now currently putting into place is like, some little bit larger scaled text, like a text to schedule option for booking up a client's for appointments versus old fashioned pick up the phone, write it in the calendar, so some sort of automation text to schedule option for booking appointments. We're also navigating through different onboarding, an onboarding process from the interview until their training and and having, how to document their their, their progress through their onboarding videos before they get to the seminar so that way, we're able to influence the user outside of the live session, and it's It's taking them through like an onboarding series before they even get to the live session. This is something that's so powerful. And where this came from is, I was talking to a real estate agent building his downline, and he's looking to build his downline. He's like, the challenge of building my downline is it just takes so much time to train them. I said, What if there was a video series that they went through before they got to you, you know, to, you know, the end result of the training as you shadow me, but before they get to you and arrange a time to shadow you, you already have them equipped and prepped of with some of the small nuances or large nuances that you want them to be trained on, before they observe you do an actual sale. And that's like, wow, okay, we need to put some of that stuff into place to simplify the training process and make the user experience better for the trainer, and also for the user. So they can feel more confident coming into into their training. So these are just a couple of no particular order. Some big changes, small changes that we put into into place.

Andrew Biggs 10:57
Awesome. And I think that, you know, the natural progression of you going through the design phase, which is something we've covered on previous podcasts, if you haven't had a chance to listen to those, make sure you go back, you know, episodes, 710 1112 are really good for that. But if you haven't had a chance to do that, do that. But this kind of the natural progression of you redesigning the different systems in your business is change, right? We are ultimately designing something so that we can change it, change the way things are currently operating. And so this is just the next step. And in a lot of ways, it's it is how to actually implement and effectuate the change instead of just thinking about it. Right? Because it's kind of fun to sit back and think about it. And it's Oh, wouldn't it be cool? If would it be cool? If they got a tax? Wouldn't it be cool if the people just popped on my calendar? Wouldn't it be cool? If every single time I did this, this automatically happened? Those are fun things to think about. But what about actually getting adoption from your team and then actually having an implemented and watching it run, and working out the kinks? And all of those things. So these are just some things that come up for me is that it's just a natural progression. One thing I like to go ahead,

Mike Abramowitz 12:12
to your point, having these consistent meetings, and like I need to be on top of collecting the data that's necessary. So therefore, I need to figure out what is the data necessary for us to collect before I could manage the data collection? So I have to in the design phase thinking, Okay, how do we know if this is working? How do we know if the change is actually a beneficial change. And so there's been times in my career and you know, I especially fall of 2020 2020, we went into this really awesome policy process program. And then about six weeks in I'm like, this is not working. Yeah, we got all this data, I'm like, we got to go, we got to retreat back a little bit. And and it was, it was interesting to be able to see that. But if I didn't have the data, I didn't reinforce that, I wouldn't have known that it's not working. It's not it's not producing, you know, profits and progress in the organization.

Andrew Biggs 13:18
Cool. So a couple things I want to double click on just to circle back. So let's stop this for the audience here listening, getting if you're listening to this, these are some things to write out. One is you do your homework first, and you've got your I's and cross your t's before you introduce anything to your team. So often I see people what they're doing is, oh, I got a really cool idea. I just had a call with my coach. And then guess what they do. 30 minutes later, they're on the phone with their with their top Reiki official or whatever their second commander, we're gonna change this, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. And the person is just like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Where's this coming from? Right? This is out of the blue. This is totally different. This is way too much for me to handle right now. I'm literally in the middle of another meeting, and I'm handling this, I'm handling that. And there's 60 different things that you didn't think about before you presented it to someone else. Now, you might say, well, Andrew, that's moving too slow. Well, I'm not saying move slow. But I am saying move at a measured pace, move at a pace that's appropriate for your business. And you know, some businesses are more speedboats, but others are, you know, a little larger, you know, maybe a pontoon or yacht. And some are like, you know, massive cruise ships or the Titanic. And so you need to be thoughtful about how you implement this change so that your I's and cross your t's. Number two is consistent meetings, right? Mike mentioned, making sure that each department has consistent meetings, so that you can check in to see is the change working? You can get qualitat get sort of like qualitative feedback from your team on that, right. That's what those meetings are for, so that your team can report back how things are actually feeling how things are implementing some concerns that they might have about a particular change. So those consistent meetings are useful for that. And then he's also capturing data so he's getting quantitative data. And he's using a qualitative and quantitative approach in order to figure out is this change actually working? Or not. So those are just a few different points that came up for me that I wanted to make sure didn't get skipped. Mike, what comes up for you there?

Mike Abramowitz 15:15
In the meetings, I just wanted to make sure was captured, we have an all hands meeting. So it's like all the department managers on one meeting, where they do report outs of like, what, what we call is, start stopping keep is often so at the end of every meeting, they do a start stopping key, what do they need to start doing? That's not currently happening? What do they need to stop doing? That is currently a distraction are not working? And what do they need to keep doing that is working? So at the end of each meeting, we get that, so then we start at each meeting where they do a report out, Hey, how did your start, stop and keep from last week, go, you know, and then they'll do like a report out as far as that goes, then we'll have our meeting. And then during that meeting on the all hands meeting, we just, we just give updates on the different departments, hey, this is what we're noticing in each departments, why would it be important for the sales department to know about what's happening in the recruiting department as an example? Well, the user goes through all the departments. So I want to make sure that the departments on the front end of the process know what's happening on the backend, and vice versa. So they can just be consistent, congruent. Now that meetings only an hour, it's a very short meeting. But then also, we have a specific department meeting with anyone who's relevant to that department where we spend about 45 minutes to an hour just solely on that department, and picking apart what is actually needed. What are the holes in the ships? What are the start stopping keeps, and bringing more attention to those? Awesome,

Andrew Biggs 16:42
awesome. And again, this level of detail, you know, it's probably more than most of y'all are doing. So if you're not doing these things, definitely make sure you're implementing them sooner rather than later. You know, one thing that comes up for me when I'm implementing change with any businesses implementing change is kind of like almost like a rollout period, right? There's that transition, and you need to be thoughtful about what is that transitionary period, you know, what does it look like, I like to call it a ramp, right? So are basically ramping towards a new program. But that ramp might actually take some time, some changes, those quick hitting ones happen overnight, and we're going to talk about that too. But these larger changes, you know, maybe you're implementing it over the course of 90 days, or at least three weeks, or, you know, maybe it's six months to fully move through a new program. And so if you're putting a new plan in place, you've got to make sure you understand the ramp. And then there's milestones for different periods of the ramp. So you understand, here's what our ideal scenario is, I'd love for this change to take place over the next three weeks. In the meantime, we're going to be testing things out and want a lot of feedback, I'm going to give you a lot more grace about making mistakes, because I know you're this is new, you're just getting used to it. But by the end of this 90 days, or three weeks, or however long that rent period is, I need to know that everyone's in line with the new rules, the new policies, procedures and technologies. Along with that, sometimes you kind of have to take one bite of the apple at a time. And so maybe you're actually only implementing part of the program to start just to make sure people aren't overwhelmed, then you're going to introduce another part, you know, next week, and then another part the week after that. And so we're going to slowly over time, move this ship in the right direction. A lot of times, kind of like when a new, you know, a person wants to come up with new year's resolutions, right? Like, and they sit down, they're like, Well, I'm gonna work out six days a week, I'm gonna change my diet, I'm gonna spend this much time with my family, I'm gonna only take cold showers. And it's just like, wow, you weren't doing any of these things. And now you're gonna do 17 different things every single day. Hmm. I don't know if that's really going to work for you, you might want to rethink that strategy. And the same thing can be applied to a business, where it's like you're trying to change so many things overnight. Your people are confused as hell, to be honest. Right? There's like, I don't know which way is up, I don't know which way is down. Everything that Mike's taught us to start is no longer true. I'll be honest, those job ads that I keep getting, you know, asked about on LinkedIn, they're starting to look a little bit more enticing. And I don't really know if I want to stay here. That's what comes up for me in terms of like ramping, and then not overwhelming people, Mike, what comes up for you,

Mike Abramowitz 19:31
and that confusion brings chaos. And that's what you want to avoid. So so they're these these touchpoints this constant communication is really important. And I am going to ask you the question, I'm going to say my what I want to say, but I want you to answer it's like how do you know they're qualified at each of those benchmarks? So I want you to marinate on that question. But one of the things that that I think about is promoting and telling them this is the desired outcome. This is the big picture of what what the end result looks like they need To be reminded of what is that end result consistently. So it's like, this is what we're getting towards. And then it's like, this is the MVP, the minimum viable product that we want to make sure. Because this, this minimum viable product that we get done, will still create positive change in the organization that will move us closer. So like, then VP on each of those benchmarks, or each of those milestones. So how do you? How do you, like know if your your staff or these individuals are actually, like, capable of doing or like actually include, you know, incorporating some of this change that they've learned the skills necessary for the change? Or they're following through on that change? What shows up for you on that one? I'm curious.

Andrew Biggs 20:43
Yeah, totally. So two things come up. One is having some sort of certification process, right? Too often, this change management is a little too informal. And don't get me wrong, if it's like you and one other person. And that's how you run your business. Maybe you don't need to like, Okay, now I'm going to quiz you on all the changes, and I need you to fill out this test I did on Google Forms or something, if you don't get at least 85%, like I'm firing you tomorrow. I'm not saying you have to get like that. But especially if you're trying to scale and you're trying to make changes at scale. You know, when when you do that, actually kind of testing or certifying someone or recertifying him, you know, I kind of think about it, like a financial planner, or an accountant who asked to keep their licenses up to date or a real estate agent, you have to go to these continue education classes and stuff to make sure that you're always up to date on the latest laws or the latest updates to the to the penal code, or whatever it is that you do. That's, that's very affordable. If you're in the insurance space, you got to keep your licenses up. And so well, people should be keeping their licenses up for your internal operations, right? How well do they actually know the policies and procedures that in terms of like the if then statements and the rules of how your organization runs? Are they kind of flying by the seat of their pants? Or did they did they learn really well, you know, when they started three years ago, but now, you know, their their certification is outdated. So you might want to think about that, you know, just as an example, when we used to run the mobile gaming support for Clash of Clans, and Supercell is the publisher, but all their games, basically, we ran all their support. So we about 400 people or so just out there project. So when they changed the policy, we had to get that information out to 400 people, right? Of course, we can send an email, we can shoot a chat in Slack, or teams or WhatsApp or whatever the the communication tool choices. But how do you actually know that those words are people a, even open the email and read it, and be actually understood what it what it said and are actually implementing it. So the only way to do that is to have continued certification that comes out from time to time, especially when there's wholesale changes that are made. The second thing is just you continuing to reinforce things and kind of like be the cop, right? You kind of have to have some enforcement, you have to check in, especially early on so that people mean, you know, you mean business, right? And when I make a change, I'm going to be kind of a little bit of a jackass to people, and then be like, Hey, we just changed this. I know it's new, but you need to get it right. And I'm gonna be a little bit more anal retentive about are they actually following it until I'm confident they are? And then maybe I'll, you know, ease back a little bit and turn my attention elsewhere. So those two things come up for me. What are your

Mike Abramowitz 23:39
thoughts? Yeah, it's interesting, because we're navigating through, like I said, a couple of these changes. And at one of the department meetings this week, specifically, I call the roleplay. I was like, alright, you put them on the spot. Hmm. I put on the spot. I said, I you have a couple of these conversations tomorrow. Let me hear how you are having those conversations. Go ahead and pull up your outline. And, you know, let I'm just going to be a fly on the wall you talk to, you know, Justin, just kind of let me hear. And it was it was a good quality control is a good quality control. Sure, you find she had to find the outline. It was It wasn't like just on the browser. So I was like, oh, okay, so it's not something that she might have been using all the time. Right. And then through the conversation of roleplay. What is this show? This shows that number one, I'm in the know of what she knows. Number two, I didn't reprimand her at all. I took responsibility for and I said I apologize. You know, I apologize that this what that this was confusing that this wasn't clearly laid out. So let's clearly lay it out. So that way if I do a quality control the future it's there's no there's no confusion at all. So we created, we put a whole new like policy and document together and typed everything out. I said how do you feel about this going into going into tomorrow? It's like, Oh, I feel so much better. It's great. We'll follow up next week, we'll see how those go. And also send me some updates on WhatsApp after each of those conversations. Another example for one of the other departments, I said, What is the policy? If we're going to excuse someone or accept someone? Do we have that in writing somewhere? Um, we might say, Cool. Let's make sure that's in writing. So next time, I never have to reprimand, I never want to rip in the person, I want to recommend the policy or refer back to the policy. So if something's not getting done, it's like it's in writing. So we went through, we created a document and it's in writing. I said, Is there any questions on this? Again, I apologize for any confusion that was put into place? Is there any confusion moving forward? No, this is cool. We'll refer back to this each week just to make sure we're on the same page. And now we have it in a document. And then we sent it also to our communication channel and WhatsApp. And then, at one point, maybe in the next few days, I might just say, thank you so much for helping us navigate through these changes in our organization, it's for the betterment of our organization, this is what we're building towards, thank you so much. This is going to create positive change beyond you I love I want to be here forever, but there's a change, you might not be here forever. So the legacy of lineage that you're going to leave behind is going to be felt when you're not here. So thank you so much for taking this seriously. And bringing that in into the into the conversation again, leading with the end in mind bringing it to the present, and managing them through that ramp, like you were talking about.

Andrew Biggs 26:23
Right. And you mentioned something that I think is vastly overlooked in a lot of small businesses. And even in many medium sized businesses. I think large businesses kind of get this right. But you mentioned getting things in writing. Why in writing me, you kind of mentioned it, but can you just circle back and like, make sure people really understand why do these changes need to be documented? And in writing? What are your thoughts? Yeah,

Mike Abramowitz 26:48
I mean, things change all the time. So things are changing, and things are getting thrown at them all the time. It's like, you know, we got to make sure we're referring back to something that is tangible, like not it's not a feeling feelings are fleeting, we have to have something that's tangible to refer back to. Because if we're saying, I think we talked about it once in that conversation a while ago, it's like a witch conversation a while ago, we've had a lot of those. So it's like, and that's partially by the way, one of the things navigating through change, every conversation, the start stopping keeps, I have them document them, and they post those in the chat for that reason. So it's like, Hey, you wrote this, you saw this, right? Like you said, you were going to start this, you said you were going to stop this. So that's one little nugget there of why start stopping keep documenting those is a really good idea. And what we do with those is they put it in the chat, and then I have my VA, just take them from the chat and put them onto a spreadsheet with the date. So it's very easy to see it's like these are your startup keys from this date. So it makes it makes it really organized. Even better, if they fill out a Google form of their starts keeping its auto populated, but I just thought about

Andrew Biggs 27:56
right now we've gotten that that you haven't gotten that far yet. And that's what's beautiful about systems is you can always kind of become better. And also you got to start somewhere, right? And so it's that fine balance between like, what is the MVP? And then what's the optimal? And how do you kind of like given the time constraints in your, whether it's time constraints or money constraints or whatever? resource constraints? How do you come up with something that really works today? But it could also be that are tomorrow's I love that. And I say that what I mean, if you're listening, I think just that idea, making sure everything is documented all the time is worth the price of admission? Because it's it's just so important. And how often have we had conversations with folks, and maybe we come to an agreement, we come to a conclusion, it's like, okay, this is the new direction, we're gonna go in gang. And here's the update, and I'm excited, you're excited. Here we go. Right, and what's not really captured in writing, right? It's not really recorded anywhere. And ultimately, what happens is, you know, a few weeks go by two weeks, three weeks, six weeks, you know, 18 weeks, and then it's like, you know, you look up and it's not being implemented, and you're like, why isn't it being implemented? And someone's like, Ah, I don't know, I never I don't remember that conversation. I remember I was changing that. Okay, well, I do what when I don't know is like, sometime back in like, November ish. You know, it's like, Well, did you follow it up with an email? Did you follow it up with some sort of written communication? I mean, this is especially important. When you're, you're trying to manage team in like theaters, expectations, follow through to topics of compensation, right. I've had people get communicated with from their boss, right. And probably they've done this to their subordinates, but their boss will say, Yeah, you know, I think we're gonna promote you. Probably like in January or something, right? Like, oh, cool. getting promoted in January. That comes to me getting promoted in January. It's gonna be super cool. And then guess what happens come January. Well, the goalposts get moved, right? And it's like, it was never recorded in writing. And they're like, Yeah, well, we kind of talked about I said, I was maybe gonna promote you, and maybe you might earn a promotion. But, you know, that was just like conjecture, we were just kind of shooting the shit, right? You know, I don't think we're really gonna be able to approach it till August, to be honest, you know that you have some more proving to do. And so all of these things matter. And you know, that's even like a lesson on how to coach up, right? I manage your team through change, internally, even people that lead you, but these are just points that happen all the time in business, because people aren't getting things in writing. It's just such a simple lesson.

Mike Abramowitz 30:42
Yeah, and there's, there's a couple of really good technologies that are out there, I'm sure you know, you as audience can can share a bunch with us. But, you know, we've alluded to like Google forums and WhatsApp and slack and whatnot, there's one that was fairly new introduced to me is called Session lab. And oftentimes dirt, you know, if you're running a training, and you need to create a change on the fly, and, you know, there's like a change to the schedule, for example, and you need to communicate that change immediately. What's nice about session lab is you just put the agenda in there. And if you need to move, like, if you're ahead of schedule or behind schedule, as it needs to be a real quick, rapid change, you could just drag and drop and move the schedule around. And it's real time where everyone else that's like, not necessarily in the meeting, they can just go to the session lab and just see that you created some change with the agenda. And you don't have to do a report out, you don't have to send a message all you could just send his trigger, hey, check session lab, there was a change, you know, and then they get to see exactly what the changes as an example. So even if there's a lot of technologies out there that can support, you know, navigating through a lot of this change as well. I'm sure there's a bunch out there that others know about. But that's just what I wanted to share.

Andrew Biggs 31:52
Totally. I've never heard of session lab. And it sounds awesome. And I think there's just just so many things like that. And what the way you want to be thinking is, how can we make sure everyone's looking at the same thing at the same time. And especially with you know, our most of our teams these days are remote, right? I think there's a very few people here listening where it's like we every single day, our entire team comes to the same physical location. So it just requires that people working remote get updated in real time. So we have to have some sort of shared place, right. That's the whole idea of having like a drive, whether it's like an iCloud Drive, or a Google Drive, Google Docs update in real time, right. That's why those are so useful, because if you make a change in Florida, I'm going to see it here, Arkansas. And the same thing is true for you know, any other sort of platform, like a CRM or something like that, we need changes to be able to to happen in real time. And for us to be able to see them, if we're all working on different versions of the software, different versions of the document. We're working on outdated things, right. So it's, I'll be honest, like, using real Excel, using real microsoft word these days, like when someone sends me like a real file, I'm like, What is this man? Like it, it's just kind of outdated. I know, Microsoft has created their own versions of those, like in the cloud, that to compete with Google Docs and stuff. So if you want to do that great, but just working on a an old fashioned Excel file on your own computer, you know, I think it's really, really dangerous working on your own Microsoft Word project on your own computer, it's really, really dangerous, because you're going to have a version, you're going to email it to your business partner or something like that, they're gonna have that old version, you're gonna make some edits, and they're not going to see him. So no matter what the philosophy behind all of this is, we all need to be working on the same tools at the same time. And then the other thing around technology is just, you do need some sort of quick hitting chat, you know, ability. Or you could use email, if it's a little bit more old school in terms of how you operate, and you're confident that everyone's gonna check it, but these chat tools like Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, you know, there's a number of them out there, obviously, Microsoft Teams, but if you need some sort of quick hitting chat function, so that in real time, if you do make a change, there could be a communication back and forth to make sure people are aware of it. So that's what comes up for me.

Mike Abramowitz 34:21
Yeah, I think, I think everyone that's listening to this right now, if you go back and just think, you know, just think about all the technologies that Andrew just said, and say, How can I incorporate some of these into my business, even if you're not going to change something right away? But it's like, how can I just make it a little bit better, a little bit better for the user, because that's ultimately what we're trying to get accomplished. We want to make it better for the user internally and also better for the user externally. And what's nice is what works internally, you can often bring to your external users as well and offer them value of things that they may maybe don't know how to use, and we do that all the time. time. So it's like, for us internally recruiting text, the schedule. That's where the idea said, oh, let's help our external users start using text to schedule because this is really efficient on the internal side. Let's use that on the external side to for our sales reps, or also our clients. So just something to keep in mind. There's a lot of really great tools. And yeah, I'm looking at my notes, all all my boxes have been checked. And I'm really glad that we, you know, made time for this topic. I don't know if there's anything else specific that we might have missed on this topic of creating change or helping people navigate through change.

Andrew Biggs 35:35
Yeah, absolutely. You know, one thing I will just stare there out the topic of technologies is, you know, CRMs, whether it's you know, HubSpot sales force, Active Campaign, Infusionsoft, you know, Zendesk, there's all sorts of different CRM platforms. If you have some questions on that, though, don't hesitate to shoot us a DM or something. But you kind of need one, right? Here's the reality. And there's just so many companies that just, you know, don't have all of their customers in one place. Or maybe they outsource that to some other, some other department or whatever. And, you know, it's gonna hurt you, if it doesn't hurt you. Now, it's definitely gonna hurt you later, because you didn't capture all this information about your customers or your prospects. So, you know, while we're just on that topic, it's super important that you get that, you know, buttoned up and that you have something as a repository, even if it's just a repository for contact information and personal details. So, hey, this was super fun. I really enjoyed it. And I hope all of you listening got a ton of value out of it today on this topic about navigating through change in your business. If you have any questions, obviously, let us know. Obviously, also make sure that you follow us on Instagram. I'm Andrew Biggs at Instagram, Mike, what's your handle on Instagram again? At Mike Roberts at Mega Brad, let's face it easy. Well, hey guys, thanks for joining us again and remember to leave today better than you found it. We'll see you next week. Have a good

Mike Abramowitz 37:10
thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the show, please share it with others post about it on social media or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest from us. You can follow us on Instagram at better than underscore rich and join our Facebook group at the better than rich show. Thanks again for listening. We look forward to seeing you next time and remember, leave today better than you found it

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