What Is Your Achilles' Heel?

Thank you for all those attending right now. My name is Blake Solsky. I'm the sales manager here at Clean Intelligence Software. So just to get started, I know with anticipation for the upcoming year, we were kind of wanting to focus this message really around what we could do in preparation for that, especially with new, with businesses, having a strategy to go into the new year is crucial in being able to reach those goals that you're setting. So today, what I wanted to talk about with everyone is what is your Achilles heel? For those that took any form of English class in high school, I'm sure this name is familiar to you. And throughout the discussion today, we'll kind of correlate how the story of Achilles relates to some of the frustrations that we may be experiencing in our business practices day by day. And so going right into things with our goals for today, what I was hoping the three main points that we would be able to discuss and go over today is, first, what is your business goal for the new year? This is something that I strongly encourage you, if you haven't been thinking already, to begin now in your overview, individually as well as with your team and going forward additionally to that, what can you reflect on before then? And I'll bring up a couple points throughout our meeting today of what are some good things to focus on in preparation for those new goals that you're setting for the new year. And then finally, how can Clean Intelligent eliminate those weaknesses? So whether you're a current user of the software or you may be just using this meeting as an exploratory option for you to learn more about us, Collecting Clean Intelligent has worked with many people over the years and overcoming their weaknesses through the software solution. But majorly, I want this meeting to be focusing on you and what you can do personally to help yourself in growing that business that you're working with. Kind of just as an overview of what our main subject line will be today, kind of overviewing the story again of Achilles and what his correlation may be to what our discussion is today. So as a brief overview, I'll just be reading some text of his story just to kind of relate. Here it says the warrior Achilles is one of the greatest heroes of Greek mythology. According to legend, Achilles was extraordinarily strong, courageous and loyal. But he had one vulnerability, his Achilles heel. According to myths and stories, Achilles mother dunked him into a river as a baby whose waters were said to make one immortal. However, she gripped him tightly by the foot as she dipped him in the river. So tightly in fact, that the water never touched his heel. As a result, Achilles was invulnerable everywhere but there. During a war later in his life, he was shot in the heel with an arrow where his mother's hand had kept the river waters from touching his skin. He died immediately. Today, an Achilles heel is a term we use to describe a weakness in spite of overall strength, which can actually or potentially lead to a downfall. So kind of overviewing that story, reference in business, we hope that things will go smoothly. Obviously, there's a lot of stresses that are involved in my position as sales manager. I hear every single day that there's frustrations or just some sort of, I guess, complication or trouble that they're running into in their day to day operations, especially in regards to the janitorial industry, that's preventing them from reaching their overall goals that they may be setting. And so today in our discussion, I wanted to bring up some points of maybe how we can overcome those. So moving right along here, what is your Achilles heel? Now, all of you are different in your business practices. You may be from all over the world, you may be doing different types of operations day by day that don't really relate with anybody that you can speak with. And so keeping a general overview of knowing what your business is and who your target market is and what, what's your services that you offer that's unique to you, that gives you that competitive edge. Knowing all these things is something that you need to keep in mind when planning those goals for the upcoming year. Identifying your most frequent concerns, whether internally or voice from your clients, is a good starting ground. One of the biggest things that we see within our software is that we've allowed the ability for customer interaction to take place. So using that ability for your clients to feel that they can voice any concern that comes up, not just specifically with your services that you may provide, but overall how they feel with your business relationship. If they're a new client or they've been one that you've been working with forever, knowing who they are and what they want from you and establishing that relationship is a huge opportunity for you to not only keep consistent clients, but grow your revenue in the future by having them as reference points. So to quote one of my favorite leaders throughout my lifetime, Albert Einstein once said, weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character. So when approaching communications with your clients, my biggest thing that I do within my responsibility is making sure that our customer relationship is a good one. We have to set the grounds for how their interaction will be with our company for the remainder of their usage of us. Understanding what feedback they're giving is a huge and critical point. If you haven't really explored as a user of our software, the client potential there, I urge you to speak to your support hub state. They hear oftentimes what the customer's concerns are from their other clients that they're working with. So you can get that feedback and that experience without having really to do anything on your part. But moving along here when identifying your Achilles seal, one of my greatest opportunities that I've experienced is being able to meet with my own employees. You know, we, especially in a leadership position, you feel the brunt of making those executive decisions that will lead to success. But oftentimes we find ourselves approaching those situations on our own, not taking into consideration that we have people that we work along with, they're involved with, a lot of times the same clients that we are, and they may bring a fresh and new experience that you may not have never considered. Just a quote off hands. One of my longer salesmen here has opened up my eyes to sales opportunities and the ways of being able to really get to know them. A lot of times when we have our meetings with people, we just want to dive right into, well, what are you looking into and what are your hopes for, you know, the software to provide for your company? But we've changed our strategy now where we really want to know everything about you first. You know what, what you found is, has been your greatest strength. What you try to teach, your help your clients understand as they're moving forward. And as we've done that, it's increased our sales exponentially. And again, I encourage you to, your employees are looking for opportunities to shine, and not only can you help them to feel more confident in their roles, but also you can gain that insight that you may not have thought of as well. So reaching again to another quote of a famous sports star that being a Bulls fan, I can really relate here. But Michael Jordan once says, my attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength. And so being able to understand that a business is, is an operation that relies on a team, it's not on an individual. That's where I found my greatest successes and where you can avoid these pitfalls that you may individually not be able to overcome on your own. But with that understanding in mind of, hey, we know where our weaknesses are, what can we do to be able to overcome those weaknesses? The biggest thing you have to keep in mind as well. Is that true? Some of your greatest successes can be found from your failures. So failure isn't something that's unavoidable. You know you're going to run into those mistakes. But understanding that everything is an opportunity for you to improve is a great mindset to have. And with the upcoming new year, it is important to reminisce over those big decisions you've made and if the outcome is what you had hoped for. The reason I say that is that a lot of times, and I'll talk about this a little bit more in a minute here, but all a lot of times what I hear from clients that we're currently working with is that their biggest pitfalls are that they're doing the same process over and over again and it's yielding no success. And so, rather than sticking with something that is just getting you by taking that leap of faith, trying something that you've never done before can honestly lead one, to a failure that you can learn from and grow from, or two, lead to the greatest success you may have ever experienced before. So, to read another quote, the New Year stands before us like a chapter in a book waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals. So goal setting, again, is something that we've all done at one point or another. Some of us may hate it, you know, some of us, especially with the New Year, we set those New Year's resolutions that are honestly one of the biggest, I guess, failures that we as a nation experience. And so when setting a goal in mind, having a specific experience that can give that goal a drive, give the energy that you need, will help that momentum to carry. And that's something that we've realized time and time again as our internal team and management here at Clean Intelligence Software. But the biggest thing to consider is that again, coming back to that point of doing the same process over and over again, with it being futile and being able to reach that goal that you're setting, sometimes it's necessary for you to make a big change. And out with the old, in with the new. Although you may have been doing something for a while, it's. It doesn't mean that it's the best thing that you could be doing. And so again, relying on your team to be able to provide those points, taking the feedback that you're getting from your clients and being able to utilize that in a productive manner, knowing that your clients can see that, and through the software, again, being able to bring up those points, have them know that their feedback is considered it's valued. That's some of the biggest things that can help that revenue to continue to come in. And oftentimes again, I hear that those pain points experienced are the ones that you're doing over and over. So in this establishment of your goals and the hope that you have for your company's growth, one of the biggest things is to understand and define a clear process for every outcome, especially in those times where there may be a mistake that was made. So developing a strategy for each outcome is paramount in goal setting. I know taking on a job where you're working with people consistently, you have to know how to respond to different frustrations that they may bring up. I personally struggled a long time for being able to, one, know that I made a mistake, but then two, have someone repeat that mistake over to me and feel that belittlement and not really have a response. And so in order to prevent that, knowing what you can do in that situation before it happens is paramount in being able to overcome those obstacles that we're going to experience. So to quote Napoleon Bonfire, impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools. So in our business stratagems, the biggest thing, I mean, we're located here in Utah, which is one of the business capitals of the nation. Now, everybody's moving here because it's an industry, I guess, pasture for you to be able to find success. But from the companies that I see that have seen the biggest growth and the biggest change in their business is that they were willing to do things that were scary, that businesses just didn't want to take the risk for. So understanding that you can do something that's different is what sets you apart. And that's one thing that we as cleantelligent work with. We want you to be a standalone in moving forward. Even if your competitors are using the software, everybody can use the software in a different way and bring that competitive edge. There one again, and this is something that I am a huge advocate of, you're not solely responsible for the growth of your business. And to quote a trend that I actually researched for a while, employees are now like customers. Companies have to consider them volunteers, not just workers. I oftentimes think that especially in a sales job, it's not something that people readily want to take, it's just something that's always there. But just because it may not be the most appealing job doesn't mean that they don't want to approach it with their full energy, their full interest and dependability. As I've turned to my fellow employees and taken into their consideration different ideas. We've seen monumental growth in our sales pattern and you can too. And that's my strongest encouragement as I've met with different people from the industry. We meet anywhere from CEOs of multimillion dollar companies to businesses that have just started off. And whenever I've talked to those multimillion dollar companies, it's because they had a system in place that allowed their employees to voice anything that they were looking to maybe include. And they had a board that they would look through and say, hey, this is a great idea. What can we do with this idea and work as a team? And it's led to great success as one of our customers has said. And again, I've experienced this time and time again. Problems are taken care of almost immediately. And this is Stuart from Mr. Clean Maintenance Systems, one of our current users. Problems are taken care of almost immediately. Our clients are able to immediately send us information. It gets to the right place and by that night it's usually taken care of rather than four or five days later. So you can rely on a software solution and our software solution is meant to be able to take care of those internal processes for you so that in your communication you can focus your time on being innovative, on growing something that you may not have explored before and rely on the software to take care of your day to day practice solutions in that avenue. Again, I would encourage each and every one of you that are current users of the software to rely on your co trip coaching support representatives to give you different ideas and stratagems to make those day to day practices taken care of. But again, in the overview of everything that we've talked about today, understanding that there's a weakness in the business that you can always find, it's usually one that you're aware of, blatantly that it's always there and you're not sure of how to take care of it. My strongest encouragement through this meeting is to rely on the strength of others that in your own weakness you can find the strength of others to be able to support you in overcoming those challenges there. So in this meeting today, if you have any questions about the client interaction portal, to be able to rely on getting the feedback that you need or anything else of that nature, you can email me. Personally, I have here just my list of references, but also my contact information. My sole job really is to just be able to give the feedback and encouragement that you would need to understand the industry a little better to make those leaps that can help your business to grow. But additionally, if you're looking to learn more about the client, the customer support line is always available. But our new focus now is to really have you know your coach well, have them involved in helping you to progress and to build upon the software to help it to be as smoothly as possible. And so encourage you to reach out and bring up the topic that I brought up today of involving your clients and getting that feedback that you need. Otherwise, thank you for joining us today. I look forward to seeing you in our next webinar. And if you have any questions, again, thank you for reaching out and I encourage you to reach out to me personally. So have a good one.