MBA1438 Guest Teacher: Dr. Cindy McGovern – How a Simple “THANK YOU” Can Make You a Better Leader

Let me tell you about Intuit QuickBooks. When I was starting out my business, I remember sitting at my desk late at night, not working on my business but cleaning up numbers, tracking and reconciling payments and wondering how this became my life. But once I automated the admin side of things, of my finances, those nights had disappeared and I felt a whole lot better. Outdo it with Intuit QuickBooks. QuickBooks is the trusted end to end solution that businesses rely on for getting paid, managing finances, paying employees, finding new customers and more. QuickBooks provides a team of AI agents and trusted experts. So doing it yourself no longer means doing it alone. Their payment agent gets you paid faster, their customer agent finds leads, follows up and secures more sales, and the accounting agent automates and categorizes transactions. Get your critical business jobs done with QuickBooks on the Intuit platform. Ready to save on new tech? It's time for Dell Tech Day's annual sales event celebrating our customers with fantastic deals and benefits. Product perks include Dell Rewards, free shipping, premium Support and more. PCs like the Dell 14 with Intel Core Ultra processors will help you do more faster and with a premium suite of monitors and accessories, you can upgrade your whole setup with amazing savings. Visit Dell.com deals. Hey oh. Welcome to the Hundred Dollar Ba show. The best business lessons to build a better business every day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a company business training and community online and today's episode is a guest teacher episode. On our guest teacher episodes I bring on an expert to teach their area of expertise. Today's guest teacher is Dr. Cynthia McGovern and she'll be teaching you how a simple thank you can can make you a better leader in your business. Showing appreciation and gratitude for your team members can go a really long way. If you have talented team members, they can work anywhere. Why work for you? Well this could be the reason. If you do this right, it's simple for us to just kind of say thank you as a add on. As a passerby comment. How do we really show our gratitude and say thank you and really mean it. That's what our lesson is all about today. But also how showing that gratitude helps can make your team a better team. A team that loves working for your company. We got all that and more in today's lesson. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Today's guest teacher Dr. Cindy McGovern is known as the first lady of sales. She's a highly sought out speaker and consults around the globe. She's an expert in sales, interpersonal communication and leadership. You can learn more about her over@drcindy.com that's Dr. Cindy.com. she's here today to show you how to say thank you, how to show gratitude to your team to be the best leader possible to cultivate that kind of culture in your workplace. I'm going to pass it on to Dr. Cindy now, but I'll be back with my own takeaways and to wrap up the lesson. But for now, take it away, Cindy.

Hey everybody, I'm Dr. Cindy. Thank you so much for joining me today. Today I'll be teaching you how a simple thank you can make you a better leader. So let's get down to business. Today I'm going to talk to you a little bit about why the thank you is kind of a lost art form and why every job, including a management or leadership job is a sales job. Then I'm going to take you through a five step formula on how to use this magic thank you to get ahead, get what you need, get folks to do what you need them to do and then why it actually is super important to continue to do this no matter your role, no matter your team. So let's get right to it. The first thing is with regard to the thank you, you. It's funny, we're taught this lesson when we're children, right? It's something that we're taught in kindergarten. Say please and thank you. But as we become adults, this becomes a bit of a lost art form. We say it, but it's sort of a throwaway. We say, oh, you know, thanks so much. Or at the end of the email we say thank you so much, appreciate your help. But then it goes away. But we don't really think of the thank you or the art of gratitude as a leadership skill set. So everybody in your organization comes in contact with customers and doesn't matter what they are, what their role is, it's the fact that it's an internal customer or an external customer. Well, whether it's internal or external, those people like to be appreciated. They like to be thanked too. So therefore every conversation or interaction is actually a sales conversation. Everybody's selling every day. You just don't call it that. Any interaction you've got with a colleague or a direct report, that's a sales conversation. You're selling them on your personal brand, on who you are and what you bring to the table. And leadership does the selling at the highest level. You're doing this often to entities that are critical to the organization's success. You're selling the idea of who this company is. You're selling the idea of who your team is and what they bring to the table too. So when you think about your role, you've got to be kind of selling all day. But the internal communication is where gratitude can actually give you the most bang for your buck. Because grateful people actually want to do more. People who are happy in their jobs, people who feel empowered, are the ones that actually want to continue to do that because they're getting positive reinforcement from it. So that's what I mean when I say every job is a sales job, including leadership, because this is one of those opportunities that you are faced with every single day to be able to empower your team even more. So I promised you a five step formula. So I want to talk about the plan first. Now, planning is the most important part of leadership, right? But so often leaders struggle with this because you actually have to sit down and think about it. So let's just use the thank you part for a moment. If we're talking about showing gratitude to our teams, how are you showing gratitude today? What's something that you can share with your team to show them that you appreciate what they've brought to the table so that you can explain to them how much what they did on that project or that particular client folder, whatever it was that they brought to you, you really appreciate, and you really appreciate the fact that they put that extra effort into it. But you got to have a plan to do this. Otherwise this is the piece that falls by the wayside. I can't tell you how many managers I've worked with year after year who really struggle with showing the appreciation. And when we've done assessments with teams, when we've talked to the employees themselves, that's the thing that falls by the wayside. They feel underappreciated. And it's two teeny, tiny, simple words that we got to throw out. But without a plan, not gonna happen. So the second thing is, once you've got that plan, you can look for those opportunities. Leaders have a multitude of opportunities to kind of sell the thank you every day. But again, without that plan, you're not really looking for it. Your spidey senses aren't up, and you're not looking for opportunities to kind of say, hey, I really appreciate what you brought to the table. But you do have to keep your eyes peeled. This means getting off of your phone while you're walking in the hallway. This means actually reading into the emails and the messages that people are sending you. Pause, breathe, and think about what that person did that has really helped the organization to move forward. And then show them that gratitude. And then you've got to establish trust. You've really got to show the folks around you that you hear them and you see them. And this is one of the most heartbreaking parts in business, right, is when people feel like they're not being seen or they're not being heard. And it's simply because we move at the speed of business. It doesn't slow down. And in fact, if anything, it's speeding up now with technology. So we've got to show them that they can trust us, that we have their back, that we do appreciate them, and that we want them to be part of this organization going forward. Without the trust of their team leaders, you can't be effective. But they need to know that you hear them in order for you to be able to have that trust. That goes both ways. And then finally, you gotta ask them for what you want. I mean, asking is a big piece of this too. Leaders have to verbalize what they want, and they have to be able to empower their teams to do so. And then in that ask is also where you're also showing them how grateful you are that they are able to do the task.

Task.

You're asking that they're up to the task, that you're grateful that they're a part of this team. Empower them with gratitude. It's such a simple thing, but it is so often left behind with that gratitude. That's really the final step. And this is where most really senior leaders fall down, because we think we're showing our gratitude with a paycheck. We think we're showing our gratitude because we put a thank you in an email because we did an office party. Not enough, guys. You've got to show them, whether it's victory or defeat, you've got to be constant in your gratitude. Whether the company did great, whether the company did not do great. Everybody should show the gratitude of getting us to wherever we were today and learning from that. And then showing gratitude is reinforcing that. That trust is showing them that regardless, you appreciate the fact that they put forth the effort and recognizing those problem areas as well as the achievements. The problem areas are the ones that we're learning from. So make sure your team knows how much you appreciate them even making that extra effort. And then it also shows that the activities that you're reinforcing with these guys and you're showing them how much you appreciate it, it actually empowers them to want to do it more. It's sort of like if you've ever seen a little kid and you giggle at something that they do, they do it 10,000 times more. Well, the reason is because we're hardwired that way as human beings. We want those applause, we want those accolades. And as a leader, the accolade is the thank you. So another thing that I mentioned in the very beginning, which was the thank you, goodbye kind of thing, and I think thank you should never mean goodbye. It's not a see you later kind of a greeting or salutation. It's not the end. It should be the first step in continuing that relationship and deepening that relationship. And when nothing comes after thank you, nobody feels fulfilled. Nobody wants to continue to do this. It's sort of that throwaway piece. It's like throwing the, you know, love you, bye before you hang up the phone. It's just. Just not enough. And it's not really heartfelt either. The thank you should be that ongoing piece of letting them know that I see you, I appreciate you, I love what you're doing, and I really want to show you how grateful I am that you're a part of this. And it's really that shift of your own mindset that happens to be able to throw this out there. And guys, I can't tell you enough how important this particular lesson is for any leader in any organization, whether you're leading a sales organization, whether you're an engineer, or whether you're in the back office, whether you're client facing or not. This gratitude piece is part of the brand that you build. Because if you're building this piece of gratitude, it will permeate through the company, it will permeate through your team, and then it will eventually get to the customer. And people who feel appreciated want to come back. They want to show you their loyalty because they feel that they can trust you and you're being loyal to them. So easy ways that you can say thank you is during the day, during the week, during the month. Just communicate it. It's so simple. Email, text, voicemail, handwritten notes. Handwritten notes, guys, are one of the lost art forms. And I think it's really interesting because in today's day and age, we are such a texting society, right? Like we text everything or we tend to sort of throw these, these, you know, social media shout outs to people. But is it really that heartfelt? When's the last time you got a handwritten note? As something that I do for my company is I send handwritten notes to my own team every year on their birthdays, on their anniversary, and around the holidays. And I always get a phone call. And it's kind of amazing because it's one of those little teeny tiny things that doesn't take very long to do, but it is that lost art. Choose the medium that is appropriate for who you're talking to. Though if you're talking to a millennial handwritten note, they're probably not even checking your mailbox, right? So you might want to text them or better yet, send a video message, something that is appropriate for that population. Small gifts, tokens of appreciation are great, but they need to be appropriate to the organizational culture. It may not be appropriate for you to be sending gifts to everybody. And I also don't think that's really the best thank you. Me personally, because I think it's not about the gift. It's about the sentiment behind the gift. It's the heartfelt note that goes with the gift. It's the meaning behind the expression. And then public praise is great, too, but as long as it's comfortable for that person, some people would rather die than be, you know, really put out there publicly and praised. So know the audience that you're going after, too, and make sure that's appropriate for them. So a simple thank you can make you a better leader because it shows your team how much you appreciate them. It empowers them to want to do more like that little kid that got the giggle. They want to continue to do more to get those applause and get that accolade from you. And more importantly, it actually helps you as a leader to feel more empowered because it feels really good to give gratitude to pay that out there, put it out there to your team. It feels amazing. And once we start counting how much things we have to be grateful for in our lives and how much we have to be thankful for from our team, it actually changes your perception of the business. Whether it's a good time or a bad time, whether it's an up or a down, it gives you that chance to stop and say, wow, things actually are pretty darn good. So, all right, guys, this was how a simple thank you can make you a better leader. If you want to continue learning about this, you can learn more about drcndy.com I actually have a free download for you. All you need to put is 100 MBA in the promo code and we will gladly send you an extra bonus chapter on personal branding with your purchase. So give us a shout. Let us know. And thanks again for joining me today. Back to Omar. Life's busy. Don't let banking slow you down. Whether you're paying bills, setting savings goals or just splitting the check, Atlantic Union bank makes managing your money easier. 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What a fantastic lesson by Dr. Cindy McGovern. Thank you so much for that great lesson. Showing appreciation of each of your team members is really important. I recommend that you try to seek out ways to show that gratitude to show that you appreciate and others appreciate their work. Some examples are whenever I come across a great comment from a customer, a great testimonial, a great review, whether it's on a webinar, whether it's on a review site like Capterra or even just a personal email that I get from customers. I love sharing that with our team. Whether they mention the person by name or not. It could be how they were served at customer service. It could be somebody that wrote a great blog post on our team that really influenced them into making the buying decision of buying our software or our product, sharing this with your team members shows hey, this is what I'm talking about. Great job guys. Now this takes effort. This takes time to kind of save these pieces of information and to share them, but it's well worth it. One of the things we like to do is share and praise during our all hands meeting. So once a month we do a meeting with everybody in the company. It's a video call and we spend a few minutes praising each department and each person that has contributed in a significant way that month. A little bit of show and praise that goes a long way. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe right now on whatever you use to listen to podcasts. Whether you're using Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Overcast, Spotify, we're on them all. By hitting subscribe, you make sure that when the next episode is available, it's available right on your device. Also, leave us an iTunes rating and review. If you have a moment, let us know what your favorite episode is. We'd love to hear what you think of the show. Before I go, I want to leave you with this Sometimes the biggest thank you are the ones that are unexpected. Sometimes I just like to observe our team members from afar, see their progress, see their improvement, and just quickly send even a message in a project management tool like Basecamp or Slack and say, hey, I've noticed you're doing better. I've noticed you're doing a great job. You did a great job with that last project we worked on. Thanks so much for making that effort, for really giving it your all. That really makes a difference because it shows that you notice and that you made the effort to say, hey, I noticed. Good work. Well done. Thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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