Business Foundations: 2-Month Terms
Business Foundations
2-Month Certification Program
Upcoming Class Dates:
April 11th – May 31st
Every Tuesday & Wednesday
from 6pm – 9pm
$1,000 Donation
Self-development
Self-development is the primary foundation block of growth and development for an individual. It is important for each of us to find our purpose in life. What’s our Direction! Regardless of how many purposeful stops we make along the way, it is all intertwined and married into a much grander journey called life. When on a road trip, it is quite common to make pit stops for gas, restroom breaks, and food prior to arriving at the final destination. This example is not so different when compared to the proverbial life journey.
Part of growth is testing our boundaries – mentally, spiritually and physically. It’s a joint mission to not only experience but to learn from wiser, more knowledgeable, and practiced individuals. This wisdom can be attained through experience, reading, listening, conversation, and visuals. We were all created to be vessels of a much greater interconnected plan. For some its family, others country, team members, career etc., but no matter what, we are all part of the interwoven fabric called humanity. We are beings striving to enhance ourselves as individuals and subsequently society as whole. The only way that is achieved is to become the best we can be. The burden is born upon us to develop the discipline and sharpen our minds to become an asset to society. Our mission at Outliers is to help each of our mentees to look a little deeper and search for the opportunities to rehabilitate our flawed thoughts, increase self-awareness, reduce our projected judgments upon others, and to find that critical inner peace. Inner peace is key to building a better self. As the old adage states, “the greatest battle a man or woman will ever fight in our lives is ourselves.”
Leadership
Leadership is commonly given to people who are incapable of wielding their ego, power and responsibility appropriately and effectively. Good Leadership requires humble service to others. To be a humble wise leader, we need to perfect fellowship. It’s in understanding how to be motivated that we in turn develop the motivational skills to guide others. Leadership is quite deductive – it’s helping bring out the best in others, in subduing the fears of individuals whom are terrified to launch. Leadership is about strategic vision and guidance, the ability to look at a situation holistically which helps each of us transition, transfer, and evolve. Regardless of how many detours we experience in life, our GPS will always recalculate and allow each of us to arrive at the appropriate destination. Personal perseverance is the jet fuel that allows each of us to individually achieve our purpose. Leadership is being a chess master. For every action taken there are dozens of reactions which must be calculated in anticipation of one’s next move. The ability to assess and decipher every action and reaction takes great concentration and skill; a skill not many are willing to make the sacrifice for. Leadership and sacrifice go hand-in-hand. Good leaders live by putting others first, it’s a goal to guide, protect, and educate leaving our people better off than when they came to us – teaching a man how to fish versus just feeding them one.
Hospitality in Business
In virtually every job, hospitality should be a primary and integral part of the culture. More common than not, we find that hospitality is dismissed and disregarded – which is a tragedy. Hospitality is a critical ingredient that all leaders and managers should teach by example engraining it into corporate culture. All great businesses are built on the integrity of its people. Our teams are the greatest asset which all companies should prize and protect. Happy customers are a result of happy teams. They are the yin to the yang. Hospitality is achieved when we find purpose in the service of others. Proper tutelage is key to developing competent team members and a robust customer base. It is imperative that we focus on investing back into our team members, customers and vendors.
Management
The purpose of management is to get consistent, quality output from the team. Teams are always in need of systems, standards and structures. Great managers teach their team members the discipline to execute within these systems, standards and structures to ensure on time deliverables in full. When taught appropriately and followed up on, we create an environment that is less stressful and toxic, with greater accountability. Great managers remove as much grey from the day to day. Minimizing team issues leads to dramatic increases in quality of customer service, productivity, and a healthier company culture.
Sales
Strange how we can attend universities for degrees in advertising and marketing but rarely with the ability of finding and obtaining a degree in sales. Good luck sitting on that two-legged stool! Sales like hospitality is commonly omitted in training. Most companies just expect their team to be good at these important skill sets. Sales training is so critical. If left up to the team to formulate and execute one would be quite disturbed and even appalled if on the receiving end. Sales is more complex than most of us may understand. It starts with a deductive strategy. Once we develop that process map, then we must take into consideration all the deviations that may ensue. Crystalizing a great sales plan should culminate in a great customer experience. What is the value proposition? Great sales are built on entry level bread and butter categories. Focus on getting your foot in the door first. Develop the trust, service and relationship needed to upsell into other categories. Not everyone is a customer and not every customer will appreciate what you provide. Regardless, one must maintain the course through great hospitality, and realize that someone who may not need our products or services, may have other contacts that do. Always treat solicited and unsolicited customers with dignity, respect, hospitality and courtesy. The goal is to leave anyone we have come in contact with an impression of professionalism and kindness. Smart sales people are also humble enough to never judge a book by its cover. We never want to judge someone by how they look, speak, or dress. Treat everyone with the same dignity and respect. In doing this one will be surprised at how this elevates outcomes and likability. Sales is not just a binary relationship with us and the customer, very commonly there are multiple chains of command that are layered behind each transaction. It may be the finance department, delivery team, a high-level executive, or perhaps the secretary that can make or break a deal. Learn to treat everyone with the same respect you would treat the CEO. The same relationships we develop with customers are the same we should already have in the supply chain behind each transaction. Sales is taking the time to know our customer and their personality — Listening to understand their needs vs just listening to respond.
Innovation
The use of practical thoughts and ideas to help keep businesses running more efficiently, effectively and with better customer service. Innovation should be in constant motion in every company. The best companies are run with a lean mentality while keeping maximum engagement from our teams ensuring critical open dialogue. The greatest companies use their own team’s feedback and constructive criticism to innovate and become better. In other cases, changes are driven by the consumer ratings and feedback. Innovation is best developed outside of a silo. It’s not only great to have expert opinions in the room to discuss a topic, but also quite valuable to have intellectual conversations with other team members or stakeholders. It is quite common for an outside perspective to shine a different light on a topic that carries great value. Never take for granted the intelligence of your team’s opinions, as a wise man once said “even a broken clock is right twice a day”. Most people think that innovation is tech based, which is not the case. Technology has definitely moved business forward but at the end of the day, all of the critical designs and relations happen with human interaction, which is the true engine of innovation. Proper innovation takes into consideration the anticipated needs of customers and team members. It’s putting together a vision and the component parts to execute the vision in order to help companies stay current and increase their product and service offerings.
The Globe, which is located at:
377 Alhambra Cir. • Coral Gables, FL 33134
The Outliers Institute is a non profit thru the Coral Gables Community Foundation
