Voyage Team Goodness was  on Fox 40 (Sacramento Affiliate) this morning with Bethany Crouch talking about our giving spree with Angelwish that will start tomorrow (3/6/2010) morning at 8 am Pacific Time at G Willikers Toy Emporium in Old Town Sacramento (1113 Front Street, Sacramento, CA).  Angelwish is an amazing charity that our employees chose to support because of the work they do with children affected by HIV/AIDS.

We held an essay contest in conjunction with the Giving Spree.  Our topic? Describe the perfect day for you and a sick friend. Where would you go? What would you do? The winning essay was penned by Aiden Sacco of Newcastle, CA.  You can read Aiden’s essay here.  Aiden invited his sister, Hailey Sacco, and two other essay finalists from his school, Hannah Fryer and Natalie Fardos to be on with Bethany this morning.  Bethany narrowed down the essays to our top 4 which included Aiden, Hannah, Natalie and Nonie Lei Reyes Small (Daughter of Team Goodness member Rita Reyes).  The winning essay was chosen by our 6 special judges from the Sac City Rollers (Purdy Girl, Rosie GiveittoHer, Trippin’ Billie, Pity da Foo, London Britches and Passion Bye-Ya).

6:45 Segement

7:15 Segment

Josh Harmatz (CEO, Voyage Home Loans) and Shimmy Mehta (Founder and CEO, Angelwish) talk about the charity, motivations and the importance of supporting causes in the above videos.  You will also see Aiden and crew working their way through G Willikers in preparation for tomorrow.

Tomorrow should be an extremely fun event, so please join us at G Willikers at 8 am.  The Sac City Rollers will also be there celebrating with us and hanging out with the kids.

As I’ve worked to put on this event through some major frustration and disappointment at times, I’m very pleased with the outcome and am excited that Team Goodness will be able to help so many kids and their families.

Some quick thank yous to some very special people:
Shimmy
Troy @ G Willikers
Bethany
The Sac City Rollers (Thank you Anastacia!)
Katrina Silberstein of Voyage Team Goodness
Lisa Sacco for helping to coordinate essays
The employees of Voyage for their generous donation to make this possible
Rita Reyes, Heidi Saris and Mike Smith for their assistance with the event internally
Josh Harmatz, Paul Ueckert and Nick Lucia for matching the employee gift

Voyage Team Goodness will continue its work to make local impacts and inspire others to make an impact in theirs.  Together we call all make small differences locally which will lead to big impact overall.  Have a great weekend and I hope to see you tomorrow!

Ryan Lucia
recruitment@voyagemtg.com

Sharing is Caring. Help us make this event HUGE!!

Has someone ever called you a born leader?  Maybe they haven’t?  If someone has, it’s a pretty nice compliment.  Do you know why it’s a compliment?  That’s a tough question to answer, isn’t it?  Think about it for a moment.  What did you do to deserve a compliment like that?  How did you lead that impressed that person?  What did you do specifically to achieve “Born Leader” status?

Is that too many questions for one paragraph?  Well, now that you’re thinking I’m going to breakdown what I think are strong attributes for a good leader.  While I’d argue that leaders aren’t born, but built I think even those people that have always led were built that way because of their circumstances, their surroundings and their development.  I’d also argue that leadership can be developed at any age, and a smart manager and leader is always learning, developing and re-inventing themselves.  So what are the traits and attributes that good leaders share and are constantly developing?

Patience
Since this is the first thing I wrote about, we’ll start with this one.  Click here to read more.

Listening
I talked a bit about listening here, but it’s important that we touch on this again.  As leaders and managers there are many things and people vying for our time, right?  We have to be sure we listen to our people when we talk with them.  Being distracted by your computer, email, phone or another employee means we aren’t listening and focusing on the task and person at hand.  Just stop and listen.  To effectively lead and manage we have to ensure we understand our people, their needs, challenges and motivations.  To understand those things and to coach effectively we have to listen.

Details
While I struggle with this every day, the best leaders I’ve served under or worked for have been detail-oriented.  While I’m not suggesting we all have to be amazing at managing the details, we do have to strive to always pay attention to the details and become more detail-oriented.  My experience has led me to believe that people with operational backgrounds tend to be amazing with details.  Career salesguys…well, they struggle some versus their operational counterparts.  Why are the details important?  Your people may struggle with the details, so it’s important that someone can help them where they need it.  The buck stops with you, right?

Charisma
It could be argued, very successfully actually, that every leader can’t possibly be charismatic by general definition.  Some people are lucky and blessed with good looks, height, size, an amazing personality, or a great presence.  If you aren’t, luckily, some of these things can be developed.  While size, height and looks are fairly locked, it’s easy to work on things like presence and/or your personality.

Presence
It’s all about how you carry yourself in front of a group!  Organizations like Toast Masters can help you with not only your presence, but your public speaking, storytelling and presentation skills.  Not only will this help you with your leadership, but it will also help with borrowers, your managers, and even your vendors.

Presence can also be about your style or clothing.  For example, I’m not the tallest of men, and I’m definitely not George Clooney, but I decided that part of my presence will be my clothing and style.  I have suits that are not your standard black, gray and blue.  I have olives, chocolates, tans, and others.  These help to make me standout in a crowd.  I’m also a fan of suspenders, and almost all of my suits have them.  Paying attention to those details will make you memorable and have, in my experience, always seemed to help my presence.  Maybe it’s just my imagination.  One of my strengths is presentation and I’m very comfortable in front of a crowd, but presence is also about your mental state so I’ll stick with my suits.  Improve your mental state and improve your presence.

Personality
This one can be helped by Toast Masters again, but it’s as effective as just talking to people.  If you’re shy, quite or reserved normally, you are going to have to jolt yourself into action.  I knew this guy in High School who was great when you talked with him one-on-one, but he struggled in groups because he was shy and quiet.  Now, he’s a DJ in the LA area.  WHAT?  He obviously had to force himself out of his comfort zone to redevelop his personality and charisma.  He changed his presence, and now has a business based around his charisma.  It can be done, but it’s going to take you breaking out of your comfort zone, interacting with a ton of people, testing new “personalities,” and redeveloping yourself.  This also goes for people that may not be shy and quiet, but are gruff.  Choose who you want to be and develop that.  Soon, that wanted personality will become your actual personality.

Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm comes in a few flavors.  I’ve seen the people with over-the-top enthusiasm, but most people see through that fake enthusiasm.  While enthusiasm is important, you have to use it properly and it has to be genuine.  A big part of genuine enthusiasm is passion.  If you are passionate about something, I mean really passionate, it will carry through.  Genuine enthusiasm is 100% based on your personal passion for something.  If you don’t have a passion for something it’s going to be tough to be enthusiastic about it.  If you lack passion in something make sure you deliver your message in a way that doesn’t deliver fake enthusiasm.  You might even need to question if you’re doing the right thing, if you lack passion for it.

These are a few of the traits that I’ve seen in the successful leaders that I’ve worked for, worked with or had the opportunity and pleasure to know.  What are some other traits that you’ve noticed or possess yourself?  What are some areas you could improve upon to further develop your leadership and management skills?

Ryan Lucia
recruitment@voyagemtg.com

Please Share to Grow the Conversation:

Does anyone beside me detest being micro-managed?  I mean really, really get ticked when your boss is breathing down the back of your neck asking for details on deals or projects you’re working?  Have you told yourself that you’ll never micro-manage your people when you become a manager?  If that’s the case then this article is for you.

I need you to step back for a moment and truly define micro-management.  Think about it for a second because in reality, micro-management can mean different things to different people.  To someone like me who is a very independent worker/thinker it means that my management is asking me to explain all details of my work as I’m working on it.  “Hey boss, I’ll get you the final product before the deadline that will meet or exceed expectations.  I’m on it!”

To another person it may be getting managed by someone who is asking about every little detail multiple times per day.  I think the key word in the previous sentence is “managed” because that’s really what your job is all about.  I remember when I began managing people I fell into the trap I’ve mentioned a couple of times over the past weeks’ articles; I thought everyone was like me. I wouldn’t want my manager babysitting the details of my work, why would my people want that?  As usual, I was wrong and I was wrong about it for a long time too.

I was very hands off and didn’t manage the details of the day-to-day of my people early on.  It took my second director explaining it a bit differently than I was thinking about it.  He said, “Ryan, it isn’t micro-managing your people, it’s managing them.  That’s your job, and they’ll appreciate it.” He was right!
Managing Your People
This may seem like it should have been really simple, but all it took was him putting it like that for it to hit me.  Sure, some people don’t need as much “management” as others, but they all need to be managed, even your most independent of workers.  Is there a difference between micro-management and “management?”  That’s the Million Dollar question.

So let’s discuss and define the 2 terms:

Management
Webster’s and Dictionary.com define Management as:

man·age·ment  [man-ij-muhnt] Sho–noun

1. The act or manner of managing; handling, direction, or control.

To me the key words in the definition are direction and control. That is our responsibility as a manager.  We help our people decide on their direction, give them our direction, communicate our superiors’ direction, and then we help them execute on that direction.  We  control the entire destiny of our people.  If they fail, it’s our fault.  If they make a mistake, it is our responsibility because we control our section of the business.  Sure, Billy might doctor some documents to get a loan approved, but it’s your responsibility as Billy’s manager/boss when something goes wrong because of that doctoring.  That’s life in the big city and with the title of Manager.

So when you really look at the terms used in the definition you can start to see that it truly is about directing and controlling the destiny of your business.  Your people are tools with which to help you grow the business, and they need and want coaching.  While they may have responsibilities and duties to maintain their position, their success and failure rests with you and how you direct and control based upon their individual needs of your guidance.

Micro-management
The definition of Micro-manage is:

mi·cro·man·age /ˈmaɪkroʊˌmænɪdʒ/ Show Spelled[mahy-kroh-man-ij] Show IPA–verb (used with object),-aged, -ag·ing.

• To manage or control with excessive attention to minor details.

With my change in view, this definition is a bit tough for me to swallow, or maybe the concept of micro-management is now tough for me to swallow.  Some people may need to be managed with excessive attention to minor details to help them be successful.  If a person struggles with details, even minor details, then paying attention to these details is what they need to be successful and for you to be successful as a manager.  This isn’t micro-management, it’s management, it’s coaching and leading to the individuals’ needs, and it’s YOUR JOB!

My hope is to have people see this perspective because many managers forget that their job is to coach and lead their people.  Some of these people may need to have you direct and control with excessive attention to minor details for both of you to achieve the results needed for success.  I think that too many managers are tied up in “meetings” or other excuses that they forget their people need coaching and hands on management for everyone to win.

What are your thoughts on my position?  Am I off?

Thanks to Chet Paul for teaching me a valuable lesson.

Ryan Lucia
recruitment@voyagemtg.com

Please Share with your friends:

I think everyone has either made this reaction in their life, or at the very least they’ve seen it given to them.  It’s that reaction where someone gives you a half-caring and half-feigned excitement about some event you have coming up.  You know the conversation:

You: Hey Bob, I have this party coming up for the Chinese Lantern Festival (February 28th, mark your calendars) and it should be an amazing time.  I’ll be sending out the Evite tomorrow.  I hope you can make it.

Bob: Okay, cool.  I’ll talk to you later.

You’ve seen or given “The Reaction,” right?  Bob knows he isn’t going to your Chinese Lantern Festival party, but he doesn’t want to blow you off straight to your face.  While it would be easier to just say, “Sorry, I’m busy that night,” or just be honest with, “I could really care less about Chinese Lantern Festival, but I hope you have a great party,” many people give that “Yeeeaaaaahhh” reaction.  Why is that?  Obviously, it’s so we don’t have to give a person the blow off to their face about something they are clearly excited about.

I’ve experienced a different reaction of late that is very confusing.  In fact, other than blunt honesty, “The Reaction” would be better because at least you know deep down that Bob isn’t coming.  The reaction I’ve received a few times when explaining the event was of excitement.  Real excitement along the lines of, “Yes, that sounds like a great plan, I totally want to be involved in that event and/or cool activity.”

Then they hop aboard the SS Failboat and flake when it really comes down to it.  Is it just me, and have I become oblivious?  Are people just becoming rude?  Is “The Reaction” dead, and we now feign real excitement only to completely flake when a commitment is made?

I’d prefer honesty, but if we are going to play a game, “The Reaction” is much better than this other rudeness.  Come one people, let’s have a bit of decency.  At least when someone gives you “The Reaction” you know they aren’t coming to your Chinese Lantern Festival party and you aren’t counting on them.

Ryan Lucia
recruitment@voyagemtg.com

Don’t be “The Reaction” guy/gal and please share:

So you’re now a manager.  You obviously did something right to get to where you are today.  Maybe you impressed the higher ups to get a promotion, or you’ve achieved a level of success that has afforded you the ability to strike out on your own and become the boss.  Either way, you’re the one in charge, and now you have to develop a team of people to expand your business.  Here’s the kicker.  No matter how much training you may have had, no one trained you in “how to train and manage people.”  Sure, if you work for a big company you may have had a “management training course,” but did it help you?

If it was anything like my first management training course it was really heavy on HR things that were CYA for the company.  Very little management training other than some breakdowns of how to understand the personalities types of your people.  This is useful information, but is it going to truly help you manage a team of people, and develop them into the staff you need to grow your business?  Here are a few things to think about as you start down the road to developing your team:

Lesson 1: Your people are never going to be exactly like you
Deal with this fact now.  You’ll save yourself quite a few headaches, and a ton of frustration.  You will find people with similar work ethic or similar instincts or styles, but they will never be just like you.  I remember the insane frustration I had early on because I thought successful sales people all have similar traits to me, and they all had my work ethic.  I was living in a little fantasy world.  My people would never be like me.  They’d never have the same drive as I do, or live up to the crazy expectation that I place upon myself because…wait for it…they aren’t me!

If your head didn’t explode and you’re still with me, great!  By dealing with the fact that they aren’t going to be like you, you can take the next steps in their development to make them the best they can be with what they have, and how they work.  Once you’ve accepted this fact, you can start to take stock of their strengths and weaknesses to truly start coaching and developing these individuals.

Lesson 2: Find strengths and weaknesses and develop your people
I’m willing to bet that you would have a hard time identifying all of your strengths and weaknesses as a salesman, loan officer and manager.  I know I struggle with it constantly with regard to my personal strengths and weaknesses.  Ego, ignorance, pride and denial can all get in the way of a real self-assessment.  That’s why you have managers, mentors and friends to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, and your people need the same guidance.  This is a process, and it takes hands-on time with each employee to individually assess.

One of the best suggestions I ever received was to not be afraid to let my people fail.  Sometimes you just need to let them sink because you both will learn much more from that failure than either of you will if you throwing them a lifeline.  As managers, we usually throw them that lifeline before a situation gets too far out of hand.  If you save them too early, you don’t give them the chance to swim to the surface, so by letting them fail you’ve found a true weakness, and a real coaching and development opportunity.

Once you’ve worked with your people, and identified their individual strengths and weakness you can begin to help them improve in their weak areas and further hone their strengths.

Lesson 3: Training
First step: Refer back to Lesson 1.  Remember that one?  Your people aren’t like you, so the way they learn is different than the way you learn.  As a manager and leader you have to learn how to train different people in the way they learn best.  To assume that you can train all of your people as a group and help them improve is a step toward failure.  Some people learn by observing and emulating, others learn by doing, and then there are those people that learn by reading about techniques and applying them.  Your job is to identify how your employees learn best, individually.

I remember my first few days as an outside salesman at Airborne Express:

Day 1 – My boss handed me my product training manual and told me to review it.
Day 2 – I walked into the office and he said, “Let’s drive around your territory,” and he showed me all the big whales.
Day 3 - I walked into the office and he said, “What the hell are you doing in the office?  Get out there and sell something.”

I am the type of person that learns by doing.  Maybe he had been a manager long enough to discover that in a matter of a couple of days.  Perhaps he got lucky, or maybe he just applied this sink or swim methodology to everyone.  In my case it didn’t matter, but in most cases you need to take time and figure this out individually.  I learned a lot from my first manager, he is a great listener, a solid speaker and a hell of a salesman, but he was not the greatest manager ever (mostly because he was doing two jobs at the time, and really didn’t have time to be 100% hands-on with his sales team, but he did always make the time if we needed it…good man!).  One of the best lessons I learned from him was that if I wanted to be an effective manager I had to be hands-on, and ensure I am training my people in a way that will be most effective for them.

I’m never going to help anyone learn how to be an effective trainer in 1200 words.  It just isn’t possible.  Many of the things I write about can be a start, or they can be things to be cognizant of as you are developing yourself.  I’ve always found that I go back and read things that are usually considered “common knowledge” just because the reminder is always helpful.  It’s like when I started playing college football, I realized that I was never taught how to properly tackle someone.  I know it sounds odd, but in high school we did a bunch of stupid, pounding hitting drills that didn’t teach anything other than to get the testosterone pumping.  Those drills didn’t teach us about proper tackling technique.  Lucky for me, the coaches in college didn’t assume that we knew how to tackle, they taught us.

Training people to be their best is always a challenge.  If you can accept that they are never going to be just like you, then find their strengths and weaknesses, and then figure out how they learn, you’ll be started on the path to best helping that employee grow.  Imparting your experiences and successes upon them will be helpful, but we all learn best from failure.  Make an effort to share your screw-ups and mistakes; they’ll still respect you, probably more so.  What are some other training tips you would give a new manager?  What training mistakes have you made in the past?

Ryan Lucia
recruitment@voyagemtg.com

Please Share!

Last week we covered patience, I hope you’re practicing because this week we’re talking about something that can try anyone’s patience.  When you transition from just doing the job to managing people doing the job, a new set of challenges arise.  You’re a manager now and beyond your job, your relationships, your routine and your numbers, you are responsible for ensuring others’ jobs, routines, relationships and numbers are where they need to be in order for them to be successful.  Are you ready for that responsibility?

I remember how I thought I was ready, but was completely not when it really happened.  So many factors affected my day to day.  One of the biggest issues I had (my maturity level, or lack thereof at the time, showed through) was that I failed to recognize the change and I further failed to have the people working for me recognize the change.  I had many issues when I first started as a manager, but learned quite a bit because I had two fantastic directors to guide me down the path.  Unfortunately, not everyone has leadership to coach and develop their skills as a manager.  So here are a few things to consider as you make the change.

Politics
I’m starting here because this was one area that I thought I didn’t have to participate.  I was dead wrong!  Politics works both ways, up and down.  If you’re in a big organization you can pretend that your work and results alone will help you continue to progress up the ranks, but that just isn’t true.  Of course you have to produce results, but it’s also about the people you know and how they can bring you along with them.  I’ve seen plenty of situations where I’m left scratching my head as to how a guy with zero sales experience can become a VP of Sales Support and Solutions.  How did he get there?  He played politics well.

The same goes with playing politics down.  Watching your back is important, and keeping your team on your side is also key to your continued success.  Not only is it wise to keep your people close, but you also need to consider that you may have achieved this position instead of someone else in your chain of command.  Chances are that person is a bit bitter and could poison your people, or shrewdly report your failings and/or faults to your superiors.  You’re in the big league now and politics has become part of your job.  Watch your back and learn to play the game!

Patience
If you lack it, or haven’t learned it yet, please refer to my article from last week and start practicing NOW.  Your patience will be tried and tested, do not be left wanting.

Listening
We’re all salesmen and listening should be 80% of our job (If it isn’t, then we need to take a few steps back.  Shoot me an email and we’ll talk), and management isn’t any different.  Not only do you need to be a good listener to teach the skill to your people, but you also have to be good at it to effectively manage your people.  I found this to be a bigger challenge in sales when dealing with Type-A personalities (versus other non-sales related employees who generally follow orders without too many questions) who are accustomed to questioning and understanding things going on around them.  Salesmen will question you often, so you’ll need to be prepared to listen to what they have to say to effectively counter, motivate or drive them in the necessary direction.  It’s in many ways like a sale.

Remember, listen because it can sometimes help motivate by allowing people to “be heard,” but end discussion and control your office if it starts dragging.  It isn’t their job to questions your decisions or the decisions of your management.  It’s their job to sell and carry out the orders and policy.  Just because you indulge them doesn’t mean they get to take it too far, there are loans to be closed and sales to be made.

Your employees aren’t your friends
This lesson is a tough one for a lot of people, it definitely was for me.  While you may have gone out for drinks after work or partied on weekends with your co-workers in the past, these people now work for you.  They are your employees, not your friends or co-workers.  This isn’t to say that it is not okay to take your team out for drinks and appetizers after a solid week, month or quarter, but there is a bit of distance you need to place between you and your people.  Have a round or two and eat some food, but then thank your team for their hard work, encourage them to stay and have fun, pay the bill and take your leave.  Don’t be the last to leave the party and don’t close down the bar with them.

Control yourself.  You are the boss, the one in charge and the one in control.  Your employees don’t need to see you as the person closing down the bar with them, or as the ultimate party animal.  They need to respect you on Monday morning, don’t sacrifice that respect by acting foolishly while blowing off steam.  This also goes for events with your higher ups, remember you’re playing politics.  I was once told to dress for the job I want, not the job I have.  You also need to act like you’re in the job you want, not the job you’re currently performing.

I learned this lesson the hard way and it set me back.  I think a lot of people learn this one the hard way.  Also, don’t make the poor assumption of, “Well it’s different in my company.” It isn’t, stop kidding yourself.

Don’t stop learning
It is tough to get your people to continue training and their growth if you don’t do it yourself.  Always foster an environment of continued education, and ensure they see you continuing to learn.  Have a passion for it, lead by example.  By always being on the lookout for opportunities to learn and taking advantage of them, your people will follow suit.  If you bring in experts to train, you should be the most attentive student in the class.  If you half-ass it, they will follow your lead.  Your people don’t know everything and neither do you, so don’t act like you do.

Lead by example
I saved this for last because it is the most important.  Whatever you do, your people will follow suit.  If you slack off, they will slack off.  If you don’t do right by your customers, they won’t either.  If you don’t practice patience or listen, your team won’t.  Make sure you set the goals, the pace and example for your team to follow.

I hope these few items help you avoid some of the mistakes I made when I first made the transition at a very young age.  I lacked maturity in many ways, and had to learn some hard lessons as I was learning to be a manager and a leader.  I still am learning, practicing and growing each day.  Make sure you do the same.  Are the things above the only things to consider when transitioning?  Of course not, the list is much longer, and many of these things take time, trial and error to learn.  Find a good mentor and talk with that person.  Learn from their successes and mistakes, and have the maturity to use that experience to avoid making the mistakes yourself.

What are some other things you learned when you first became a manager?  What was the biggest mistake you made early on?

Ryan Lucia
recruitment@voyagemtg.com

Any and all sharing is appreciated!

Thinking back to when I first became a manager, I wish there were things that could have been taught to me.  Unfortunately, like a lot of things in life, I had to learn as I went along the way.  I think one of the most valuable skills I had to learn was patience.  You can’t teach it, you just have to learn it.  I would image that for some people it’s easier, but for me it was quite hard.  It’s something I continue to work on every day.

Patience and sales are usually considered strange bedfellows.  How can you be patient when you’re trying to inspire a sense of urgency from your salesmen to inspire a sense of urgency from their clients and potential clients?  The answer is that patience and sense of urgency aren’t the same thing.  Having a sense of urgency to push things through and to push your people is completely different than having the patience to understand the whole situation.  Are you patient?  Wait, before you try to answer that ask yourself, “Would others think I’m patient?”

If yes, you can probably stop reading here unless you are by nature a patient person and need some ideas to help others with their patience.  If no, keep reading I have some of the techniques that I’ve used in the past, and continue to do today in order to improve my patience.

Technique 1: Force yourself into situations that try your patience
I know, it sounds a bit masochistic, but I’ve found that it has been really helpful for me in developing my patience.  My thought was that by forcing myself into situations that would normally cause me to snap, I’d challenge myself to keep my cool.  What I’m doing is telling myself, “Are you mature enough and strong enough to keep your cool by getting into line behind the lady that is going to use food stamps, WIC (Women, Infants and Children) and cash to buy groceries today?”  That’s right, three transactions to buy groceries, two of which take quite a bit more time because of the paperwork involved.  I’ve found it interesting what I think about as I force myself to be patient, I’d wonder what others would think about in the same situation.

Sure, I could get frustrated that someone so strapped for cash that they can’t afford to buy formula for their infant has the audacity to have a third cash transaction for alcohol or tobacco, but what’s the point?  When I’ve put myself into situations like these it’s given me not only a challenge, but a perspective to think about as I feel myself growing impatient with the situation.  Looking at things through others eyes and putting yourself in their shoes is also a valuable skill, but it also helped me with my patience.  Some other situations to try:

• Be around crazy children that you’d normally want to slap (joking, but you know you have friends with kids that could try the patience of a saint)
• Pick a longer than average line
• Play chess with someone that really plays the game well (Not only is it a fun skill, but a good game takes patience)
• When you call customer service and the wait is 20 minutes, actually wait the 20 minutes if you have the time.  Don’t hang up and call back later.

What you’re looking for is any situation that would normally tax your patience.  Is it frustrating and hard to do this?  At first, absolutely, but after you practice patience you find that it becomes easier.

Technique 2: Find a partner to practice with
Chances are high that you probably have friends or colleagues that also lack patience, or are working on becoming more patient.  Partner up with these people.  Having someone that can help remind you to keep your cool in tough situations is always better than going it alone.  I took this idea from the movie Anger Management when Adam Sandler’s character got paired up with John Turturro’s character.  When they felt themselves getting angry they could call on the other person for support.  Same thing in this situation, when you start to feel like you’re lacking patience, you can call on your partner to help you through it.

Is this a little too touchy-feely for you?  Don’t worry about it, let it go.  The goal here is to improve and grow.  If you both have a similar goal, it shouldn’t matter.  The benefits of becoming more patient outweigh the negatives.

Technique 3: The Jar!
We’ve all heard of “swear jars,” right?  This is the same thing, but you pay into the jar when you lack patience.  If you lose your cool, or become impatient in a situation, add a dollar to the jar.  Pretty simple, but it’s like golf, you have to police yourself and keep honest.  When you have a full jar, do something good with the money, but not for you.  Donate it to a charity or your church, buy a loved one a gift, foot the bill for lunch for your office, take your friends to dinner, or anything that isn’t a reward for you.  You can’t reward yourself for being impatient.

If a dollar per offense isn’t motivational enough, step up the amount.  Five, ten, twenty or more, whatever is going to sting and help you to change, that’s the dollar amount you should use.

The value of patience is much greater than lacking it.  Some people seem to think that lacking patience and pushing things to close more quickly is more beneficial than learning and using patience to your advantage.  For example, the people that keep their cool in a situation that may tax another person’s patience typically end up in a better position.  Losing your cool means you’ve lost the game when someone is trying to manipulate you.  They now know how to push your buttons and control you.  Being patient, keeping your cool, and keeping control of your emotions means you control the situation, or at a minimum don’t lose control of it.  This obviously comes in handy with your employees when their struggling or trying to push your buttons, when clients are trying to push you for better pricing, or your kids are pushing your buttons to get what they want.

Do you have any other techniques for keeping your patience?  What are some negatives, if any, to being patient?  Have a great week!

Ryan Lucia
recruitment@voyagemtg.com

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Over the past two weeks I’ve talked about a few methods of keeping in touch with your contacts and database you’ve cultivated in Part 1 (http://ow.ly/Wfw0) and Part 2 (http://ow.ly/Z2Wb).  In Part 3 I’m going to touch on some ways of dispersing your messages, email, newsletters and offers to your contacts and database.  Some of the methods are very low tech and low cost (free other than your time spent), and other methods are quite expensive, but quite a bit more high tech and supply you with data about your email “blasts”.

Let’s take a look at three general methods of getting the good word out:

Blind Carbon Copy Email
Sending an email and putting your entire database in the “bcc” field is, by far, the easiest and least expensive method of communication.  It’s also the lowest tech and receivers can tell when you’ve sent an email by this method, since they will see that there is not a contact in the “To:” field of the received email.  If you are going to send out “blasts” via your email client (i.e. Outlook or Thunderbird) or via your webmail (Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, etc) make sure you use the “Bcc” field.  If you send out the email by placing everyone in the “To” field, they will see your entire database, which you do not want.

You can still use HTML-based communication and formatting, if you’re so inclined, by creating the email or template in something like Adobe Dreamweaver, which allows you to use HTML formatting.  You can then open the file in your web browser, hit CRTL+A to select all, hit CTRL+C to copy, and then paste it into your open email.  Note that this cut and paste method of HTML will only work effectively in Outlook.

This isn’t a bad way of sending a simple communication or message, but if you need to have a more professional look (read, not just an email) sent, or you need to send out a newsletter or offer then you should move to method 2.

Email Blast Service
This method is also an email service, but more than just an email client or Webmail service.  Prior to Voyage moving on to method 3, we used a service called Streamsend.  A Streamsend competitor is Constant Contact, but there are plenty of other services out there if you search.  These services typically price based on usage (on a “per email sent” basis), and have a few choices, but starting around $20 per month for approximately 2000 emails available to send.  You can decide which program is best for you, depending on the size of your contact database and how frequently you want to touch them.

These services allow for quite a bit of customization and also help you to setup your “Blasts” for both HTML and Text.  They give you the ability to create an HTML email in a “Design View,” meaning you can add your pictures and text boxes and layout your email with images and links without having to truly understand HTML coding. I personally preferred to build them in Dreamweaver and then paste the code into Steamsend, but Streamsend does give you the choice.  Furthermore, you can create lists for your database and segment how you send your “blasts.”

The true benefit of these services is analytics. They track who opens the email, who clicks the links, and which links are clicked.  This lets you see how your database is responding to your email blasts and what they are interested in.  So, for example, if Suzie Smith clicks on a “Contact Me” link in your email, but doesn’t actually contact you, you could reach out to her proactively with a simple check-in call or email.  It also lets you monitor who is reading your newsletters or is click offer links, but not requesting the information or completing the offer.  Again, it allows you to manage your list and be more proactive with your contacts that are just dipping their toe in the water.

This is a great option and I suggest you make the monthly investment as it allows you to email in a more professional fashion, create lists and templates that you can reuse over time, and analyze how your database is reacting to your emails so you can modify your approach if necessary.

Nurture/Drip Marketing Services
These services are the big boys of the marketplace as they are all inclusive.  The problem?  You’re going to pay for the all inclusivity of the products.  These services include, Marketbright, Eloqua, Silverpop and Leadlife, but there are others out there if you search.  These services all price differently.  Some are based on email usage, others are based on the size of your database, but all are not cheap ($1500+ per month).

Beyond the “Blast” capabilities of Steamsend, there are a few other features of note:

• The ability to setup drip and nurture campaign flows that react differently to each contact based on the actions taken (or not) when receiving your email messages.
• Lead scoring based on your contacts’ actions.  You can set score increases based on individual actions and you can set a threshold where the system will alert you when a threshold is surpassed as there is probably a heightened level of interest in your services or products at that point.
• Integration with your CRM.  If you use Salesforce.com, it’s done with all the services noted above, but these companies can also integrate with whatever you’re using (this will generally cost more).  The integration allows for pushing and pulling of your leads and contacts between your CRM and the Nurture system.
• Tons of reports and analytics.  These reports can get crazy.  I remember that Eloqua had over 1500 reports and they had reports for reports.  Overkill?  I think so, but these systems track all actions of your contacts and some can even note how long they spent on certain pages of your site or sites linked.
• Landing Pages can be setup to collect survey information and for lead capture.  These landing pages can also be the start of a campaign and the “Thank you” email for filling in the information can contain the link to download your Information Premium or other offer.

This may be a good solution for a larger shop, but is probably not the best for a small operation or one-man show.  The tools to build HTML emails (Design View) also are richer in their functionality than Streamsend, Constant Contact or other blast tools.

By keeping in contact and “nurturing” your database, you will keep impressions of you in front of your contacts regardless of whether or not they open the email or just delete.  There are plenty of ways to stay in contact and it isn’t has hard to be creative with touches, you just have to keep your eyes open for opportunities and create a few yourself.  To disseminate the message there are a few options from the very inexpensive to the extreme, but pick the one that makes the most sense for your needs.

I’d love to hear some feedback about methods, experiences, campaigns, use of services to send or items you’ve used to generate interest.  Finish the month strong!

Ryan Lucia
recruitment@voyagemtg.com

If you share, you’ll have done a good deed for today!

It’s been a fairly cool week for me. Stressful in general, but a couple of great things happened.

Voyage Team Goodness + 107.9 The End = Love for Kids in Haiti
Yesterday morning Carly Harrington, one of our processors, came to me and said, “Hey, 107.9 is going to be driving around to local schools and businesses to collect ‘change’ for UNICEF to help kids in Haiti.”

I responded, “Great, sign us up and let’s make it happen.”

A couple of our LOs, Kal Patel and Sam Haider, came to me earlier in the week and asked if we could make something happen for people in Haiti.  It was cool to see it in Kal’s eyes, he wanted to get it done.  He was asking our owners if we could do something to raise money and then an opportunity present itself.

Carly called The End and got it all coordinated and this morning we walked the office collecting “change” from the members of Team Goodness.  Within an hour the 33 members of Voyage Team Goodness had over $600 together and then Voyage threw another $200 into the mix.  It was great to see people excited about getting this money together and it was incredible to see some of the larger donations that a few people made.  Check out the pics from when Natalie and Bret from The End showed up.

I Made Sacramento Magazine’s List of Top Singles in Sacramento
As you can imagine, this was pretty cool.  Click Here to check it out!  Flattering to be sure and I was pretty happy with how the picture turned out.  Usually I hate how I look in pictures, but this one is fairly solid.  I’ve received quite a few compliments from people about the picture and the situation.  The nicest thing someone said was, “You don’t actually get to be in the magazine?  That sucks, you’re better than the most of the guys in that other spread that made the magazine.”  I’m not sure exactly what that means, but it was nice for them to say.

Movement with our Event with Angelwish
It’s made some great strides this week.  We have 2 celeb judges lined up now and the school district is just about on-board and ready to rock.  Keep checking back and I’ll be sure to give you more updates.  Here is the press release talking about what we have going on.

Have a great weekend and keep dry if you’re here in Sacramento!

Ryan Lucia
recruitment@voyagemtg.com

Last week I talked about using information premiums and using an offer to use with your contacts to test engagement and interest (http://voyagebranch.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/are-you-keeping-in-contact-part-1/).  This week I want to talk a bit about newsletters and informational updates.  I’m sure that many loan professionals are using newsletters currently.  There are vendors that have canned newsletters for your use (i.e. Loan Toolbox) and that deploy them to your contacts each month.  There are also services out there that can send out your newsletters and any updates you want to send that I’ll talk about in Part 3.

Taking a look at newsletters and informational updates really gives you the opportunity to figure out your key strategy for keeping in contact and keeping your brand in front of your contacts.

Newsletters
In early September I initially wrote about newsletters and I touched on a couple of points:

• Dynamic and showcasing your brand
• Content should be easy to read
• Content should be appealing, relevant, and lacking a bunch of advertising (unless you’re talking about one of your partners)
• Cover loan related information, but also cover other areas of interest to you and your audience
• If you create your content, have a template created by a professional (unless you can create a professional looking piece) and include an easy way to share your newsletter

Now that we have that out of the way, why is it so important to include a newsletter in your arsenal?  Easy, it’s a scheduled and expected way of communicating.  As people begin to see your newsletter each month coming to them on the same day and time they begin to “expect” that communication.  Not only are they now thinking of you each time they see the communication, but they are also usually fine with it being there.  Remember, these people either know you or have done business with you in the past—you want them to think about you first when they need a loan or your services.

The hope is that, long-term, your content is also valuable and they read through your communication.  Even if they don’t, we’re hoping for an impression.  As I mentioned last week, most people take 6+ times seeing an email from you before they open it.  Stay consistent!

I’m also a fan of creating your own content, or sharing other’s content (with permission) that your contacts might find interesting.  Another thing to consider with the content is where you put it.  Don’t put the whole article in the newsletter itself.  Put a blurb (a few sentences or a paragraph) in the newsletter and then have a link to the rest of the content.  It can be on your blog, your website, your Facebook page, or perhaps ActiveRain.  By placing the majority of the article someplace else you can drive traffic to those places.  I’m sure you’d love more traffic on your site or blog and more fans on Facebook, right?

The key for your newsletter is consistency, keeping your brand in mind and developing your content to further that brand, but keeping it interesting and relevant to your contacts and readers. Make sure people understand why they should do business with you versus your competitors and it shouldn’t be because you have the best rates and/or service, and the fastest close times.
Informational Updates
Another reason to touch your clientele is to provide them with information they need, want or may not know.  You may also want to share challenging topics with them and tell explain what it means and how it can impact them.  As with the content of the newsletter, you can include non-loan related information as well.  This could include:

• A cause or charity that you’re passionate about
• News of interest to your contacts
• Updates about a contact’s business or services that may be helpful
• A cause or charity that one of your contacts is participating in
• Local sports action or highlights
• Anything else that gives you a reason to touch your database

Don’t be overbearing, but don’t be afraid to share information once a week.  Again, make sure you have a well crafted message and it should be perceived as valuable by the majority of your contacts.  Just in case it isn’t obvious, avoid polarizing topics like politics and religion.  If you share information about the business that may be challenging to the general consumer, make sure you explain what it is, how it impacts them and why it’s important.  Give them value by taking the time to help them understand, encourage them to contact you with questions, and be accessible.  You’re the expert.  Be the expert!

Next week, I’ll talk about ways to easily share information and get your touches out to your database.  What other types of information do you share?  What is the response typically like?  Do you have any non-business related topics that you enjoy sharing?

Ryan Lucia
recruitment@voyagemtg.com

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