This blog post is taken from one written earlier in the year, but the subject is something that defines us here at Hotel AG, and I wanted to share it with you again.

Years ago, I read a book on the different stages of business, and it made such an impression on me that I have never forgotten its content. The title was called the “Four Stages of Business.” Stage (1) the personal contact or the face-to-face of what you do for a living, (2) the management stage, (3) the analytical stage, and (4) bankruptcy.

It’s really very, very simple and so incredibly true. Stage one for a doctor, painter, lawyer, CPA, builder, hotel broker, car salesman or pretty much any other sales profession known in the world, is meeting someone and doing business with someone this week that you didn’t know last week. If you are a manager, consultant, trainer, writer, receptionist, your stage one is being the best at seeing and interacting with people in your care. Simply put, whether you are meeting clients, training staff or answering phones, don’t hide behind emails. Get on the phone or face-to-face, but whatever you do, put the human element to it. Emails are great and needed, but you also have to have the personal contact. Everyone that has a business and has had to meet a payroll understands the value of the personal element; I have found that this is really when the relationship starts, and it is what keeps the relationship fresh. It is literally the very lifeblood of a company and of a profession.

Stage two and three are also easy to understand as well. When people get afraid and intimidated by what is required in stage one, they hide behind emails, busy work, idle chatting, and then want to analyze everything. What happens is a slow fall into stage four, which is bankruptcy. That’s right, if you are not spending a good deal of your time in stage one you are headed for stage four.

The Bible says in Proverbs “the stall that has no oxen is always clean.” Do you understand it? It means that if you don’t have any oxen, sure it’s easy to keep the barn clean. It is always easy to keep it all straight and organized and in its proper files and the desk clean when you don’t have anything going. Stage one is the raw, uncomfortable, unpredictable part of business that is also the very most important part of business and life itself.

So, regardless of your profession or your business, the place to spend 60-70% of your time is in stage one. It’s the most uncomfortable stage, but it’s also the most rewarding. KT

There have been many books written on the subject of leadership in business. I think it is kind of funny that many of the books have been written by people that have never been in an at-risk leadership role.

My definition of at-risk leadership is if your job is based on the profitability of the company. I am not talking about a professor at a college that has a PhD in business. I have a friend of mine that was one of the greatest leaders I have ever known, and he told me once that people’s opinion of what is important changes when they have to meet a payroll. He is right because it is one thing to have lofty ideas, principles, and theories, but it is an entirely different thing when it is your company or job and your neck on the line.

While I am far from the example of a leader, I have found that the following ideas need to be in the leadership process somewhere.

• Always be humble
• Never be arrogant
• Be willing to learn
• Be willing to listen
• Be honest and transparent in all dealings and leave your door open
• Discover why you do what you do
• Find the vision for the company
• Be willing to delegate
• Never gossip about anyone else inside the company or outside the company
• Praise – construct – praise
• Be willing to do what others are unwilling to do

I encourage you to think about good leaders you have known and respected in the past and see how many of the above items the person practiced. It is my guess that the person you are thinking about was a lot like this outline.

You want to know something else funny? These same qualities above are also the qualities your bosses look for in people that they promote to higher positions. They are universal for anyone that is a leader or anyone that will become a leader. KT

Self-esteem in life is a cornerstone building block for a healthy, well-balanced life. Self-esteem in business is also important and is only achieved through being real and being honest.

You have seen people just like I have that when you meet them, their eyes don’t match their words and their face. There is something that is wrong, and you can see it when they speak. A child can read deceit in a person and back away as well as a dog can tell if you are trustworthy.  If we really listen to our hearts, we can also read deceit.

Allow me to give you a mental example of self-esteem. I believe your self-esteem in business is like a fragile egg; when you are honest and do what you are supposed to do, it adds a layer of hardening lacquer to the egg. After years of doing what is right, your self-esteem, in our example the egg, will not break and will not be fragile if dropped. When you lie and are deceitful, it strips a layer of the lacquer off and one day, maybe not today, but one day your self-esteem will suffer a break.

It is not always true, but many times the people that operate day in and day out with deceit usually end up losing what they so desperately tried to hang on to.

There is no place in business for a “slick” factor. People who are slick really believe others cannot tell and cannot see it. They are incorrect. It can be hidden for a short while, but just like the egg example above, the layers eventually come off and are exposed for what it really is.

I had a friend in my line of business that started at the same time as I did in the early ’90s. We actually ran parallel paths for many years as we both grew in the business. When the last financial crash happened, our businesses were struggling. This friend had a huge financial overhead and had made the choice to operate dishonestly to survive the downturn. Without telling too much of what happened, he basically lost his business and his credibility.

See, what you compromise to keep you usually will lose; in the case of this friend, that is what happened. He compromised his ethics and lost what he was trying to save. When you conduct business honestly, it is always easy to remember the facts because they are the truth. It is when we lie and use deceit that the remembering part becomes a problem.

Self-esteem is one of the greatest gifts you will ever have in business, but many people don’t even know it is a gift until they lose it. So my friends, choose what you want the next five years of your life to be like and choose to do it right because self-esteem is something of great value to obtain. KT