What Differentiates a Great Manager From A Good Manager

My mantra is ‘either lead, follow or get out of the way’, simple. In every given situation, you are either a great manager or good manager. The differentiation will determine the outcome for your staff as well as your clients. Here is how I differentiate the two and the impact they can both have on a business or organisation.

A Great Manager Manages him or herself first

1. I believe that the biggest difference between a good manager and a great manager is that unlike a good manager, a great manager not only manages others but also manages him or herself too.
2. Great managers allow their staff to lead, make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. They lead from the front, not afraid to do the work they are asking their staff to do and not allowing their ego to get in the way.
3. A good manager asks their team to do it, a great manager does the task WITH their staff and also allows the team to put in suggestions and comments based on client’s requests as the staff are usually closer to the customer than the manager. I do this with my own team.

Common entrepreneur mistakes?

1. A common mistake is thinking they need to work all the hours God sends in order to make it work and not realising that they have a business to fit their lifestyle not the other way around.
2. As an International Speaker, Award Winning Sales Trainer, Executive Business Mentor, Property Investor and Founder of Event of Champions®, I run 3 separate businesses. My time is precious and so is my health. I make time to work out, rest and not over work myself. Some entrepreneurs find it hard to look after themselves first as they are the driving factor behind their business.
3. One last common mistake, entrepreneurs feel since they have an amazing brand, product or service, customers will come to them. NO, they will not. You have to constantly go after your target audience, follow up correctly and learn how to have customers selling you – it’s what I call my KLTS principle. This I teach through my 7 Steps to 7 Figure Sales® Training Program for corporate companies and entrepreneurs.

One or two key pieces of advice you’d give an entrepreneur?

1. Never stop learning. Constantly find ways to sharpen the axe and form possible collaborations and joint ventures to create bigger and better business relationships. I encourage this through my Event of Champions® event which is taking place all over the world in 2019. Find out more HERE.
2. The second for me is Never Quit! We all know the statistics that 80% of businesses fail in their first year and up to 50% never make it past 5 years. Shocking but true. Most businesses fail because of lack of cash flow, ingenuity, collaborations and changing customer needs. My answer to businesses; change, innovate, collaborate, launch out into different countries, give something first if you want to get something back, learn my ‘7 Steps to 7 Figure Sales®’ and hire a business mentor like myself who can look at your business and give you a strategic business growth plan. Take my FREE Entrepreneur Assessment here.

The secret to good time management?

I don’t believe in Time Management, I believe in CHOICE Management. Everybody has the ability to choose what is the most productive way to spend their working time. In my business growth training, I teach on ONLY doing Income Generating Work in your business rather than just being busy. See all my upcoming events here.

My secret, is having each day broken down into 30-minute time slots that are structured on income generating activities alone. Everything is put into my diary, I have one diary for everything and if it’s not in my diary I don’t deal with it during my working day. Period! I treat everything in 3 different ways:

• Is it Urgent?
• Is it Important?
• Can it Wait?

This way I can deal with the things that are pressing or most income generating and leave the other things for another day or get someone else to deal with it.

Social Media Channels – What I suggest and Why?

It all depends on the business and where your customers hang out. You can’t just pull one out of a hat, you have to do your research as to where your ideal customers are.

As a speaker, coach and trainer – my ideal customers are usually on LinkedIn because they can afford my fees and are the kind of clients I am looking for. I often use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram too for my events.

If you are a traditional brick and mortar business – LinkedIn or a Facebook Business Page may be the thing for you but do your own due diligence.

Your Employees – what traits should you value most

1. Their ability to take calculated risks and have an opinion. I encourage my employees to have an opinion and bring their ideas to the table too as they deal with my clients face to face more than I do.
2. Employers should also value their employees up to date knowledge and know-how with technology, especially if those employees are millennials. The way in which GenXers think or process information is quite different to that of millennials.
3. One last thing, employers should value most their employees’ ability to work unsupervised and anywhere. I often travel a lot for my speaking business and Event of Champions® and I have to trust my staff to work unsupervised but checking in on them daily. The reason we have a business as an entrepreneur is so that we can have freedom, both financial and time wise. Your staff’s ability to work unsupervised is one trait employers definitely must value.