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Focus equates to action. Cutting through the noise is part of the value in a team environment. We don’t need to get overwhelmed. We need to get clear on priorities and hyperfocus to win together.

Originally published by Authority Magazine.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Beginning my career as a RE/MAX Real Estate Agent and working my way to being recognized within the top 1% of Realtors in both the Durham Region and on the Toronto Real Estate Board, many would agree that this level of success is the pinnacle achievement amongst their peers; but for me it was only the beginning.

Identifying the need, I set out to work on further developing the systems and platform of educational programs and coaching methods to which I attributed her own professional and personal success.

With the launch of KBCC in 2015 and building upon my 10+ years of Team and Agent development and guidance, hundreds of teams (80% of which are top 1% producers) have attributed their growth and success to my integrity, honesty and results driven leadership directly or through one of my coaching programs.

I was selling real estate as a busy single mom of two children and I had done a lot of content and systems development with a look to creating better work life balance.

The team I worked with was creating a coaching company and I had a background in psychology, so it just seemed like a natural fit to try to become involved.

That coaching company found itself in some challenging territory in its early days and there were differing opinions within the ownership as to how it should be resolved.

This ultimately resulted in the departure of the director of coaching and I was given the opportunity to step into that role within 18 months of the company going live. I had been a coach for just under one year at that point.

It was really a chain of complicated events that led to a great opportunity for me.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

Our company stands out because we build strong businesses, in an industry that is often still relying on old methods and models, which are increasingly less and less effective.

We stand out because we actually track, and have a strategy that works to expand, where teams are making much more money than traditional brokerages and offering superior value, where team members are able to sell much more and have more time.

I think in an industry where we have all male top thought leaders, we stand out in being a female led team, but also a team that is committed to efficiency, productivity, and profitability, without looking at it as if it’s a bad name.

We bring a systematic, process driven approach which allows us to be more agile and to lean into technology changes, instead of fearing them.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Every single time someone has tried to harm my career or damage my business, it has always led us to better opportunities.

When I thought I was going to lose my first coaching business, it actually led to working with higher caliber people, which further expanded the business.

The interesting thing in my journey has been that at the beginning of my career as a coach, I never had the support of the big Real Estate boards, or conferences and ironically, it drove me to create and hold my own events without relying on other people.

In the end it actually gave me an edge, because I didn’t have to rely on support that other people were getting. Even though it was more difficult to get there, it made me and my company stronger in the end.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

An example that I give often is I used to mentor, coach and train while I was relatively new to selling, so I often had someone shadowing me.

I ended up realizing a couple of years into it when I left a buyer presentation, which I would sign 98 per cent of, with one of my mentees, when she told me that she had seen me present my buyer consultations many times, and that she had learned so much, but the logo on the powerpoint said ‘Your Team Name Here”.

I didn’t even realize that for two years I had been using my coaching companies version of my buyer consultation and it didn’t even have our team logo on it, and yet I was still signing 98 per cent of all consultations I sat down in front of and attended.

When building a business it’s really easy to say you need the perfect brand, but in reality what you need are the clients.

What advice would you give to other CEOs and business leaders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Get Strategic

If you start out strategically, with a strategic model, you will consider future needs for more time, relief, or somebody who can oversee parts of your business as you grow.

A strategic model will give you clarity and strategy. Once you get those two components, you need to be able to take your existing business to create a business structured to grow.

A strong strategic model will allow you to reinvest in the business in the right places to offer the top client experience to the public, while also reinvesting in your business platform.

Create your ‘Perfect Week’

We’re all living in a different reality right now, we’re not leaving the house, we have different people pulling on our time, and some people may have their kids at home with them, along with other distractions.

As a busy Real Estate agent, you have plenty on your plate on a typical day, nevermind a day in the life during COVID-19.

So how do you find the element to work this other aspect of life into your day to day when everything was running smoothly before?

You have to sit down and create your perfect week, not because you want to, but because you absolutely have to. You need to grab control of your life again, to do yourself and your business the ultimate favor, succeeding.

If we make every effort to live each week and begin each day trying to have the perfect day, it just might happen.

If we know what is involved in making a perfect day, we just might live one now and then. Write down the things that you love doing, the things you absolutely hate doing, and what you’d like to find more time for.

What would your day be like? What activities would you do? Who would you spend your time with? Where would you spend your time?

The first thing to do is take the time to jot down what you would want to do and who you want to do it with on your perfect day.

First, do it on a personal level and then on a business level. Then expand the business one to look at the weekly perspective.

Creating the perfect business week is much more accomplishable.

You may feel some resistance from yourself at first, but once you embrace this plan, you will find your time is more free and that you actually have time for yourself and relaxation.

Life isn’t perfect, but the perfect week gives us a game plan to follow and guide us through our days.

Focus on your Non-Negotiables

When planning your days or weeks, make sure you take your non-negotiables into consideration. These are the things that no matter what is in your day’s plan, won’t change.

Now that we’re in a day and age where we’re having issues in regard to the many things that are being thrown at us on the daily, we will go into overwhelm.

Overwhelm can mean we’re snapping at our loved one’s, having skin reactions, feeling anxious, and more. Overwhelm makes us want to surrender, and take shelter, but unfortunately we cannot do that. We have to operate in this new normal.

By ensuring you’ve covered your non-negotiables, you’re ensuring that you can make sure your cup is filled and that you’re okay. When you’re okay, you will not be overwhelmed, you will be at 110% for your clients, loved ones and family.

Practice Makes Perfect

A lot of teams overlook practicing the key steps in their sales process, like scripting and presentations, which puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to competing with teams who are consistently practicing their materials.

It’s crucial to have a daily or weekly allotted time, where you can ensure the conversations you have with your clients are seamless and professional in every aspect.

Mastery is nuanced. To understand nuance, you must live among it, bathe in it, and breathe it. Mastery becomes the essence of us. We practice mastery without thinking.

This is when you successfully turn something that you consciously knew you didn’t know into something you know and, finally, into something you know unconsciously.

This is where you can present a presentation while focusing 100% on your client. The presentation no longer requires any mental bandwidth or conscious focus. Your body knows to have your finger click next on the laptop to move the slides without needing to look at the screen or visually assess which slide is next.

How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?

Leadership isn’t a title or position that is held to one person when you’re a part of a team or a company. In these businesses, you have many moving parts, and each one of those parts are their own leaders.

I’m grateful for our team, I have an amazing group of people who support me and there’s no way I would be able to do what I do without them.

We have a collaborative leadership team who are very entrepreneurial, and who take ownership over what needs to happen. It’s very collaborative without a director style delegation, everyone owns their portion of the business. That is how we thrive.

In my work, I often talk about how to release and relieve stress.

As a busy leader, what do you do to prepare your mind and body before a stressful or high stakes meeting, talk, or decision? Can you share a story or some examples?

Everyone feels nerves and anxiety from time to time, even those with high levels of confidence. But when it comes time to perform under pressure, how can stress impact performance?

When I get tired, stressed or frustrated, I’m a typical entrepreneur. Instead of thinking ‘take a day off’ or ‘take a week off’ i think ‘okay maybe I’m done’ or ‘maybe I’m not meant to do this business’. But the reality of it is, I get a good night sleep and I know that this business for me, is not about money, it isn’t about a business, it’s about a purpose in my life and I believe that I’m destined to be doing what I’m doing.

This mentality has dragged me to the future, even when I feel exhausted and burnt out. To build this business, I had to run and jump off of a cliff. There was no ability to hesitate or play it safe, I think for me I had to believe it was my destiny to do it, or I wouldn’t have been able to take the risks that I did.

Tension creates focus, and if anything, you want to elongate the amount of time that you have that tension. The focus that is created from tension is invaluable to any business owner.

I like to say that if you could bottle that tension, that fear, that little bit of angst that is created in turmoil and sell it to people when the sun is out and the economy is strong, and confidence is high, you would make billions of dollars.

It’s one of the best times to align a team when you lean into that tension and use it. The tension will allow you to be 10x better than you were when you came into this situation.

Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Can you briefly tell our readers about your experience with managing a team and giving feedback?

For most top producers turned Team Leaders, the people management is often the most difficult aspect. When you are growing, you need to manage and leverage to create a performance environment for everyone.

If you want a big team, there may come a time when people management moves into a “Neutral,” “Includes Others,” “Unconscious Incompetence,” or “Stop” task on your GENIUS Model. We use this model to guide a leader’s highest and best use within a company.

This does not mean you will stop motivating and leading the team. It means that you move some of the management portions of leadership to another team member who thrives in that area. Most high drivers are self-starters and struggle with others who do not self-start to their level.

When training, shadowing is generally the path taken when showing someone the ropes, but the mistake here is that every person does it differently every single time. This inconsistency doesn’t work to effectively prepare an agent for success when that agent is on his own.

The team leaders that I coach work on the idea of mastery — everyone follows the same steps, so everyone knows what it takes to be successful. At that point, the agents approach the situations with their own personalities and interpretations, but they have been empowered with a set system to be successful.

When it comes to enforcing the training, anyone who has talked to me about it knows this will be my answer: “Know it so well you can’t forget it,” so learning it all with intensive training and weeks dedicated to the art, ultimately, pays off more than any other implementation of the systems. Working with the KBCC model, you move beyond learning and memorization to become part of who you are.

This might seem intuitive but it will be constructive to spell it out. Can you share with us a few reasons why giving honest and direct feedback is essential to being an effective leader?

It is absolutely essential as a team leader to give honest, accurate feedback. You need to keep your team on track to hit the goals you set, if they’re doing something completely different than what you asked them to do, your business is going to slide down a downward spiral, fast.

By taking the time to contact your team and correct their mistakes, you’re allowing your business to succeed. You’re also trusted by that team member now, because you’ve shown that you care enough to correct their mistakes with kindness and honest feedback.

One of the trickiest parts of managing a team is giving honest feedback, in a way that doesn’t come across as too harsh. Can you please share with us five suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee? Kindly share a story or example for each.

1. Nurture your Team

If you are still working remotely, and can’t see your team members in person, you need to increase your use of modern technology that facilitates remote interactions, such as virtual presentations and video conference calls.

We all have the modern tools and knowledge at our disposal. It’s important now, more than ever, to use them, especially when communicating with your team. You need to nurture your relationships and ensure you can get as personal as possible without seeing each other face-to-face.

Try your best to give your feedback through zoom, so they’re able to read your facial expressions and body language, even remotely.

2. Checking-In

When we are faced with absolute unpredictability and uncertainty, checking-in is a saving grace, for you and your team.

Checking-in with your team, can look like team meetings, one-on-one meetings, or quick messages! Make sure to document their feedback/thoughts so you can revisit their states on a regular basis!

Focus equates to action. Cutting through the noise is part of the value in a team environment. We don’t need to get overwhelmed. We need to get clear on priorities and hyperfocus to win together.

Take this time to create opportunities for your agents to connect with one another and with you as their team lead. Whether it’s a daily update call, a team text, or group chat like slack, that keeps everyone in the loop and conscience of business issues, celebrates success together, a place for laughs, and tracking progress.

Use these check-ins to not only control workflow but also to discover the well-being of your team, and to give feedback when necessary.

3. Building Confidence

No matter how smart and skilled your team members are, if they lack confidence in the team or their work, they’ll always perform below their potential.

Building confidence requires real conversation, not recognition. It starts by understanding what’s really going on. It requires working a few levels below the obvious insecurity to understand what scares them.

Confidence stems from certainty in our approach and a trust in our abilities.

Start building confidence in your team members by mentoring them, delegate specific tasks to them that you know they need to work on, focus on their strengths, be supportive and let them know it’s okay to make mistakes.

The good news is that building confidence and competence go hand in hand. Confident team members are more likely to try new behaviors and approaches, which inspires creativity and equals more success.

Confident team members can access the elusive “flow state”, also known as being in the zone, is where they are able to perform better while more relaxed. They trust in their mastery of core skills, seek expansion, without undue stress. In flow state we are more productive, more creative, and less stressed, up to 500% more than out of flow state!

4. Celebrating Wins

Your agents want to feel valued and appreciated. Acknowledging hard work and success is vital to boost confidence and determination with your team.

Don’t choose to only communicate with them when you need to give them feedback.

It’s crucial for you to always be on the lookout for wins, and to celebrate them, big or small. Making this a regularly practiced event, ensures your agents feel valued, and it encourages them to continue doing their best work, or improving themselves.

We recommend focusing on celebrating the wins you can control. During COVID-19 we did not celebrate deals during the height of lockdowns, we celebrated the wins that would allow us to thrive and rebound as the restrictions changed and virtual options advanced.

We focused on celebrating our ability to move completely remote, adapting our sales process online, creating a great customer experience online and so much more.

Include wins that are vital to the team within your weekly team meetings and monthly reviews.

5. Changing your Mindset

Do not give feedback immediately after an incident. Collect your thoughts, take a deep breath, evaluate what you want to get across and then begin typing, or speaking.

Right now, more than ever team leaders need to know what their abilities to respond to an event is. The formula E+R = O stands for an Event that occurs, your Response to it, and the Outcome you want to come from it.

We look at events in the world and say that the outcome was completely driven by the event.

But, that is not actually true. Outcome is more driven by the response to the event rather than the event itself.

Your energy and your response dictates how the people around you respond.

As a team leader, you need to be in an optimal mindset. If you’re not in an optimal mindset, you’re not responsive, you’re reactive.

This means that your decisions will be based on fear, stress and negativity rather than the ease and calmness you’ll find when your decisions are based on being responsive.

If you lose your power to impact an outcome in your life, you lose all power you have in the situation.

Can you address how to give constructive feedback over email?

If someone is in front of you much of the nuance can be picked up in facial expressions and body language. But not when someone is remote.

How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

If you are still working remotely, and can’t see your team members in person, you need to increase your use of modern technology that facilitates remote interactions, such as virtual presentations and video conference calls.

We all have the modern tools and knowledge at our disposal. It’s important now, more than ever, to use them, especially when communicating with your team. You need to nurture your relationships and ensure you can get as personal as possible without seeing each other face-to-face.

Have weekly team meetings, use check-ins as a way to nurture certain aspects of your team member’s jobs, ensure your team knows they can come to you for guidance.

If you must communicate criticism over email, try to email them in the middle of the workday, instead of early in the morning or late at night, this will make the recipient less anxious.

Ease into the criticism with an introduction paragraph, celebrate the team members successes instead of tearing them down the minute they begin reading.

Then, deliver your feedback, and thank them for taking what you mentioned into consideration. Don’t forget to let them know they can follow-up with questions.

In your experience, is there a best time to give feedback or critique? Should it be immediately after an incident? Should it be at a different time? Should it be at set intervals? Can you explain what you mean?

Do not give feedback immediately after an incident. Collect your thoughts, take a deep breath, evaluate what you want to get across and then begin typing, or speaking.

As mentioned before, right now, more than ever team leaders need to know what their abilities to respond to an event is. The formula E+R = O stands for an Event that occurs, your Response to it, and the Outcome you want to come from it.

We look at events in the world and say that the outcome was completely driven by the event.

But, that is not actually true. Outcome is more driven by the response to the event rather than the event itself.

Your energy and your response dictates how the people around you respond.

How are you responding and showing leadership to your team?

The power of this equation is that the outcome is what we focus on. If we’re responsive, we’re focusing on the outcome we want to get to.

If you’re not in an optimal mindset, you’re not responsive, you’re reactive. This means that your decisions will be based on fear, stress and negativity rather than the ease and calmness you’ll find when your decisions are based on being responsive.

If you lose your power to impact an outcome in your life, you lose all power you have in the situation.

How would you define what it is to “be a great boss”? Can you share a story?

Systems

A great boss as someone who has a systemic, process driven business, that isn’t optional for a team, it’s necessary to retain and support talented people and get great results.

When we lack processes and systems that make it clear and easy to articulate our expectations, it means we also lack training on how to win with those expectations.

Create a Performance Environment

A performance environment is an environment you design for your team, in order to increase performance and success in your team.

It is vital to create, support, and nurture capability, leading to results for your business. Performance on a team is not optional, you need a team with strong sales skills and you need to be able to track their performance.

A team is like a house, the job and purpose of a strong team is to support and predict success.

Offer Value

The team leader’s purpose is to offer value, not the best split or pay. Value is communicated in terms of systems, support, an abundance of leads, appointments, education and training, and opportunities for growth.

Net value means that your team buys into the bigger picture of more leads, more deals, more support, and more systems, ultimately leading to much more money and time for all.

Hold your Team Accountable

Sometimes we’re only tracking one piece of the pie, remember that sales process from above, you want to be able to track every step to ensure you’re successful. You need to have an integrated accountability system, to make sure you have the strongest approach from A-Z in your business.

You will have an honest mirror of what is working and you will be able to assess changes to improve from your tracking results.

This will give you the foundation of building predictable results, and give you confidence in your business so that you can take educated risks, and confidently invest in order to pivot and/or expand your business, like the top 1% producers are doing in our industry.

Increase Efficiency

“Complexity is exponential to team size”

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is trying to go too big, too fast. You don’t always need to hire more help, sometimes you need to increase your efficiency instead.

If there’s an excess of business that is out of control, instead of hiring, ensure you have created structure for the business first.

To bring on help without any structure, is where you’ll find yourself suffering from the dreaded revolving door syndrome, and you’ll end up more burnt out than before.

Celebrate Success

Make sure to celebrate success. Fear ruins creativity; celebration and encouragement causes it to grow.

Look for opportunities to celebrate strong performances and celebrate team wins. You don’t have to spend a lot of money, your team will appreciate that they are a part of a team that knows how to win even in tough times.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Conscious living. I think people who are conscious about who they are, their values, and what they’re bringing to the world are typically better parents, better team members, better community supporters, better people. I find the ability to ‘do good’ is just more naturally present for people with a conscious mindset. If I can help people raise their consciousness and see their abilities and power, they will ultimately serve the world through their greater purpose with ease. If KBCC can have any influence on people leading themselves versus looking at others, that’s a win!

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favorite life lesson quote is something that I’ve heard in my head since I was very young and that’s “You’re built to win”, and when you believe that, when things get hard, you’re going to lean in and really win or learn, so either way you learn.

Some of my most devastating losses in life and in business catapulted me forward ten times more than I could have ever gotten without them.

‘I was built to win”, allows me to see things in my favour as I’m working in a place of abundance and I’m trying to see myself in the world.

I’ll always try to be better because I want to do good here and I want to have the resources in order to be good.

I need a strong business in order to make the changes and impact I want to make for myself.

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