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By: Kathy Kent Toney, President of Kent Business Solutions  When I started my career as a budget analyst years ago, little did I know that I would be involved in digital transformation implementations. That term was not even in existence at the time! Here’s a brief overview of my beginnings: I landed my first well-paying job at Northrop Grumman in El Segundo, CA. The department I first started working in was starting to use computers. I'm going to be dating myself here, but I fell into the role of creating and producing fourth-generation flat-file reports for cost reporting purposes. From that moment on, I was hooked on digital technologies! About eight years later, I ran my first process improvement team, which also hooked me. My next big project involved the implementation of a digital scheduling system on the F/A-18 C/D program. In both instances, it was invigorating to take a process that wasn’t working well and streamline it to the extent that it made employees’ jobs easier and saved the company money. What fun it was to make a difference! After I moved to Missouri, I landed a job at Honeywell. It was there that I cut my teeth on combining process improvement team leadership with digital transformation initiatives, such as a Tailorable Quality Plan and a CRM implementation. Finally, I helped spearhead the implementation of Primavera P6 for their Program Management department. All this experience led to even better things. After leaving Honeywell, I started my own business. My first job out of the chute involved developing a comprehensive yet easy-to-understand customer feedback strategy process (Voice of the Customer). At the time, I researched process automation technologies to implement, but they were too cost-prohibitive. I left that engagement feeling like my job wasn't complete. There had to be something cost-effective and easy to implement to make following a process a no-brainer! That’s when everything changed in 2019. I met Michael Cantu’, the founder and CEO of Accelerate, a no-code workflow automation platform. FINALLY! I found was I was looking for! I was now able to combine my Six Sigma Black Belt certification with a workflow automation tool. My journey has now come full circle—from creating flat-file reports to helping companies streamline their operations and then automating them. And automation is a smart move. Companies can gain even more significant benefits. Accelerate is quick to implement, is cost-effective, and has a track record of increasing productivity up to 300%! It makes my job easier and my clients so much happier! If you'd like to learn more about how digital transformation can help you, contact me! Michael and I would love to talk through your challenges and help you brainstorm solutions. Just click the button below to get something on our calendars!
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By: Kathy Kent Toney, President of Kent Business Solutions  With each passing day, the importance of digital transformation grows, and the savviest CIOs and business leaders recognize this. A recent Gallup survey discovered that 60% of executives have line items in their budgets for purchasing virtual tools.
And yet, many companies have been slow to embrace digital technologies, even though their use is trending upward. Just take a look at Blockbuster—their refusal to do so obviously didn’t end well! Their demise proves that embracing digital transformation is essential for businesses—not only to survive but thrive and grow. You certainly don’t want to miss the digital transformation boat! So, what sparks companies to start their digital technology journeys? Let’s see if you fall into one of these two categories: 1. A Company Wants to Solve a Problem The way they’re doing things may be archaic, costing them money or customers. Employees may be complaining about the course of doing business as well. Unfortunately, some are often overwhelmed by these problems so that innovation becomes just a pipe dream. Many of these companies have lots of innovative ideas, but being mired in these problems has often outweighed the ability to implement their ideas. When issues are taken care of first, employees are more often able to start implementing these ideas. 2. A Company Doesn't Necessarily Have a Problem—They Want to Get Better They may be unsure how to proceed or search for outside help within a price point they can afford. It may be a complicated conversation for many of them to start with consultants—it may not come easy admitting they don’t have the answers to their challenges. In the end, there are great opportunities for both the business and the consultant to achieve great results together. Here are some additional insights: Business Stakeholders In our quickly changing world, it’s impossible to know everything; however, when business stakeholders can accept this fact, this is key in helping organizations ensure significant growth. By seeking help or insight through consultants who are experts in their field, organizations can gain exponential understanding and value. Also, many companies may stop innovating due to uncertainty because it's human nature to relish solid parameters. However, it’s essential to keep an open mind amid unknowns to keep innovating. Consultants For the consultant, it’s an opportunity to have honest conversations with prospective and current clients while outlining what’s possible. Organizations benefit from having another set of eyes from outside the business to look at their operations. The consultant’s diverse experience allows them to diagnose, suggest, and open opportunities for firms quickly. Doing so can cause a positive trickle-down effect with their customers and, ultimately, the bottom line. What organization wouldn’t want that? **** If you fall into one of these two categories and want to explore how digital transformation can help your company, Michael Cantu’ of Accelerate and I would love to chat with you! To make it easy and cost-effective, we're currently running a FREE special—a one-hour digital transformation consultation. If you’d like to take advantage of this, reach out to schedule a time by clicking the button below. We look forward to our conversation! By: Kathy Kent Toney, President of Kent Business Solutions  One thing I love doing in my spare time is volunteering with a prison ministry. It’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.
My involvement started in 2009, my first visit to the Maximum Security prison at Lansing Correctional Facility. Gina Hanna, the Executive Director of Beauty for Ashes Reentry, invited me to attend. I was a little intimidated at first, but the initial anxiety melted away quickly. The guys we met in this Christian-based program seemed to be ordinary guys and were actually pretty nice! The majority are putting forth the effort to learn and grow. As I’ve come to know some of them, I’ve discovered they’re like a lot of us. Most of them have made some poor decisions, and unlike us (who may have done some crazy, illegal things in our younger years!!), they happened to get caught. These men have made enormous mistakes, but many have chosen to learn from them and are striving to better themselves. They’ve learned that bad decisions don’t have to define their forever. They can turn away from the path of familiarity to make more positive choices. Likewise, bad decisions we’ve made for our businesses are there for us to learn from. Like the guys I’ve met in prison, we have a choice to change direction if things aren't working, to take the path of doing things a better way. So, here are some lessons learned on how to recover from mistakes we’ve made. 1. Be Persistent in Learning from Your Mistakes “Johnny” was a hardcore, mean drug addict. But he made a huge turnaround while in prison, choosing to learn from his mistakes and to become a better person. It's not been an easy road for him since his release—he kept relapsing, making the same mistakes over and over again. But he’s continued to learn from them, remaining committed to becoming the man he wants to be. Now he’s helping guide others who are like his former self, helping steer them away from making similar bad decisions. Lessons learned: Don’t let multiple bad decisions deter you from achieving your goals. Persistently continue on your path towards success. This will also help inspire those around you. 2. Believe That Things Will Get Better As a worship leader at my own church, one of my roles is to lead the inmate band whenever I go into the prison. It's one of my favorite things to do! “DeAndre” is an amazing drummer I’ve worked with over the years. When he landed in prison, he didn’t allow it to dampen his spirits. He’s always had the mindset that things will get better and he works to improve himself and the lives of those he interacts with on a daily basis. Lessons learned: Have the mindset that things will get better. This positivity can be so powerful and even contagious -- your colleagues and teams can benefit from it as well. 3. Make the Most of Your Situation “Sam” was imprisoned long-term for an over-prosecuted minor offense. He had every reason to be angry, but he chose the high-road -- improving himself through whatever means he could, which ultimately prepared him for his release. Today, he is thriving since he left prison. He’s reunited with his family, serves as a volunteer in various capacities, and is working full-time at a great job. Lessons learned: Always look for ways to improve your situation and put those insights into play. This can only help pay dividends in the future. Speaking of recovering from bad mistakes, how would you like a leg-up on preventing them from ever happening? One great area to start is customer care. Sound interesting? Then download my FREE Customer Satisfaction Checklist. It can point out areas where you could potentially use improvement.  Embrace a Paradox Mindset for Successful B2B Selling One thing I love to do is highlight the good things my alliance and referral partners are doing for businesses. This week, my guest blogger is sales expert Henning Schwinum, co-founder of Vendux. Without further ado, let’s get on with his topic: To Win More Sales, Stop Selling! ***** A paradox is a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition, like:
Every one of those, when investigated or explained, proves to be well-founded and true. The purpose of using a paradox is to grab attention, provoke thinking, and in the end, develop a new approach. Doing this in sales—whether as a team, leader or with clients—creates success. Just think of the yin and yang principle: everything in this world consists of two opposite elements that are partially conflicting and partially complementary. In sales, you can actually use paradoxes to your advantage—call it a Paradox Mindset and embracing it can lead to great results. Consider these tips: 1. Fire Customers to Become More Profitable Rank your clients by profitability, and you will find that those with the lowest price and a high-maintenance” attitude are unprofitable. Get rid of them. 2. To Win More Sales, Stop Selling When people feel like they're being sold, they react negatively and put-up barriers. Focus on helping your prospects achieve their business, professional and personal objectives—not making a sale. 3. To Speed Up your Sales Cycle, Slow Down The more quickly you push to a close, the higher resistance you encounter. Go one step at a time. When your prospects know you want to help them make the right decision, not a rash one, the process moves faster. 4. To Make Decisions Easier, Offer Fewer Options When you increase the complexity of the decision, you decrease the likelihood of winning the sale. To help your prospects move forward, give them less to choose from. A good rule of thumb is to have at least three choices, essentially giving clients a small/medium/large range. That's enough for potential customers to feel like they can select their best option. Keep it simple. 5. To Be More Natural, Prepare Like Crazy If you're not ready with the right message, questions, or presentation, you'll stumble or be stilted in your meeting. Being caught off guard leads to erratic decisions. Even with a lot of experience, nothing beats preparation. 6. To Get Bigger Contracts, Start Smaller When you pursue "the big one," decisions are more complex and costly, making it much tougher to get approval. Reduce the risk by starting small and proving your capabilities. Then, it's easy to grow. Consider the Paradox Mindset a useful skill and encourage discussions about paradoxes within the team. And when tempted to make an ‘either/or’ choice, reframe the question in terms of “both/and”: how can we achieve “both X and Y?” **** Speaking of paradoxes, so many business leaders know they need to start improving their businesses, but don’t know where to start. That’s why I created the FIRM Fitness Assessment. It’s a 100% virtual tool that gauges the fitness of an organization and at the same time, pinpoints where to start at making improvements. Interested in learning more? Then take my FREE business assessment that will give you a taste of what it’s like. Click the button below to get started! **** The author, Henning Schwinum, co-founder of Vendux, helps companies with a capacity or capability void in sales and sales leadership by facilitating the perfect match with an experienced and immediately available sales leader. By: Kathy Kent Toney, President of Kent Business Solutions  I was talking last week with my strategic partner, Michael Cantu’, about a subject we’re covering in our soon-to-be published e-book on digital transformation: the power of celebrating our quirks and shortcomings. It’s a key element to building the right culture and teams that are supportive of digital transformation. It inspired me so much, I just had to share it with you! Ever since Michael was a little kid, he’s experienced shaky hands. It’s not because he’s nervous…it just happens naturally. So, when he was a kid coming into a new classroom, he would let other kids know about his quirk, something like this: "Just to let you know, I have shaky hands. I’m not nervous, they just shake." What a great way to help his fellow classmates deal with what could be an uncomfortable situation! Now he uses it as a superpower in business…when he’s giving presentations, he jokes about his shaky hands with everyone, telling them that they’ll never be able to tell if he’s nervous, because he’s shaking all the time. That’s how he hides any potential nervousness, because they’ll never know if he is or not. And he’s applied this philosophy to creating great cultures in organizations and building rock star teams…all through making it a norm to accept people’s differences. So, here are some lessons learned along these lines, inspired by his story: 1. Embrace Our Quirks As a kid, Michael didn’t see his shaky hands as a big issue. He accepted the fact and decided to deal with it in positive ways. Lessons Learned: so many of us really don’t like our weakness. We think it’s something we have to hide or minimize, perhaps because it points out the possibility that there’s something wrong with us. But some of the greatest leaders I know humbly acknowledge their weaknesses. 2. Be Yourself, With No Excuses Because Michael was accepting of his situation, there was no reason for him to make any excuses. Instead, he chose to highlight, in a unique way, what made him different from everyone else so that he could put others at ease. Lessons Learned: There’s such strength in being ourselves. If we can learn to celebrate our weaknesses on a regular basis, that lessens our striving to be something we’re not. Just being who we are makes it that much easier for others to interact with us, and as a leader, that much easier to follow. 3. Use Our Quirks as a Superpower Michael’s ability to accept his own quirks has been key to building two successful companies and putting together high-performing teams for his clients. Lessons Learned: when we can embrace our weaknesses, that gives us the ability to accept and celebrate other’s weaknesses. This in turn creates an environment where team members and employees feel free to be themselves. When that happens, the sky is the limit for what teams and companies can accomplish! I hope Michael’s story inspires you as much as it did me! I also hope that you can put into practice some of these tips to help you in your leadership journey. **** About the e-book I mentioned earlier…Michael and I hope to have it published by soon! We’re excited, to say the least! In the meantime, if you’d like to learn a little bit more about digital transformation, click on the button below to check out one of my blogs on the topic. You'll get an overview of what it is and what it can do for your organization! |
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