Is Your Leadership Team Searching for Great Revenue & Profit Ideas?

My name is Tom Wurtz and I believe America has a leadership crisis. Bold leadership or Eagle Leadership as I call it is dying.

I’m a Leadership and Profit Consultant and founder of the Eagle Leadership Academy. My expertise is evaluating businesses, recommending ideas and training leaders how to increase their revenues and profits during the next twelve months.

I teach leaders the 4E Mastery System:

Energy          Develop the self-energy to lead oneself.

Energize      Develop the ability to energize others.

Edge              Develop the discipline to make difficult/timely decisions.

Execution   Develop the consistency to transfer great ideas into great profits.

Would learning these skills be of value to your leaders, employees and bottom-line? I hope you will consider a brief meeting to find out.

Do Eagle leadership principles work? For thirty years, I was the President and Chief Operating Officer of a Cincinnati-based firm with revenues of $70 million. We created profits in the 25-50% range.

If you would like to meet and discuss how Tom Wurtz Consulting’s workshops and consulting services will Build Eagle Leaders & Eagle Profits at your company, please contact me at 513.236.5001 or tom@tomwurtz.com.

Best Regards,                                                                                               

Tom Wurtz, President

Tom Wurtz Consulting offers:

FREE Weekly Eagle e-Lesson (Leadership & profit lessons are released every Thursday night. Click on the FREE Eagle e-Lesson category above to sign-up.)

Leadership & Profit Consulting (One-on-One & Telephonic)

On-Site Customized Leadership & Profit Workshops

30 Day Business Physicals & Profit Creation Ideas (Interviews, Evaluation & Analysis)

8 Week On-Site Eagle Leadership Academy

Leadership Books

Who Is Tom Wurtz?

39 Years of leadership and profit experience

Former President & Chief Operating Officer

Built 15 divisions from $500,000 to $70 million in revenue

Managed Over 20,000 clients from Fortune 500 companies to small local companies

Generated profits in the 25%-50% range

National Keynote Speaker

Author

The Eagle Within – Success Principles from a Simple American

The Score’s Wrong – The Lunatic Rantings of a Volleyball Dad

Corporate COMMON SENSE – Revolutionary Business Lessons Inspired by Thomas Paine.

Ran for U.S. Congress in Kentucky’s 4^th District in 2012

Read 640 business, leadership & political books

Absorbed 48,769 minutes of business & leadership CDs

If you would like to meet for a free consultation and learn how Tom Wurtz Consulting can help you improve your leadership training, revenue and profits, please contact me at 513.236.5001 or tom@tomwurtz.com.

Are you a great talker or a great communicator? Do people remember what you say? Do you connect with people? Do they trust your words? Is the number one problem at your company communications?

Here are 7 ideas to help your improve your communications.

1. Read Your Audience

Before you open your mouth, do an audience or individual evaluation. What’s their body language, mood, knowledge level of topic and passion? People who are “required” to listen to you have a different attention span than those who choose to listen to you.

2. Trust

If I don’t trust you, I won’t absorb a word you say. Your past is a crystal-ball into your future. If your spouse can’t trust you, why should I. I’m sure many great messages were delivered by the wrong communicators. Without trust, don’t bother speaking.

3. Involve Listener with Questions

Questions force readers to participate in your communications. I’m sure you noticed that my Eagle e-Lessons usually start with a series of questions. Why? Questions pull the reader into the topic. It’s impossible to ask a question without your brain trying to answer it. Questions require listeners to participate in your topic.

Thought-provoking questions that touch an emotional core are critical. For example, “How many of you have left work and thought about quitting your job?” Did you stop for a moment and remember a situation just like that? Was it yesterday?  

4. Have a Conversation with Listeners

Great leaders have an ability to crawl into other people’s minds and have a one-on-one conversation. If 100 people listen to you speak, each one should leave saying, “I felt like the speaker was talking directly to me.” That’s an effective speaker. They mentally meet you where you are at instead of requiring you to travel to their mindset.

I try to accomplish this goal by assuming you answered one my questions. For example, “Can you think of a time when a leader inspired you walk into the unknown?” I can’t either! I assumed you answered my question a certain way and I responded to your assumed answer. If you and I can have a conversation, you will enjoy my communications a lot more.

5. Be Specific. Be Blunt.

Short, simple and clear is better than long, complicated and confusing. It’s best to write and speak at an 8^th-grade level and leave the business speak behind. Communicating is not about impressing people, it’s about communicating knowledge that leads to action.

One leader may say, “Proper security is critical to the well-being of our fellow co-workers and serves as a gatekeeper to maintaining the safety of our personal treasures, not to mention protecting the business assets all of us have labored so hard to create.”

Another leader might say, “Lock the door when you leave.” General fluffy platitudes force people to say, “What are they talking about?” Be specific. Be blunt. Your employees will appreciate it. You’re right! I know a lot of leaders who are fluffy too.

6. Empathy

Connectivity is number 4 of my list of 12 human needs. If you cannot connect emotionally with people, your message will not connect. Feeling the listeners’ pain builds respect and trust. I believe we have all been in everyone else’s shoes in a general sense. You might say, “But Tom, you have no idea what’s it’s like to be a woman, minority, skinny, etc.” I disagree.

I know what it’s like to be ignored, mocked, stupid, gullible, passed over for promotions, underpaid, personally attacked, fearful, embarrassed, in pain, alone, a failure, broke and insecure. No human being is spared the pains of life. Some just hide it better than others. This reality or empathy for people must serve as a foundation for your communications.

7. Be a Storyteller

If you want to connect with people emotionally you must learn to tell stories. People remember stories, especially emotional ones. I could urge you to honor your commitments or I could illustrate the power of commitments in a story. Let me end this lesson with one of my favorite commitment stories in honor of Memorial Day.

On October 9, 1759, Daniel Bakeman was born. On August 29, 1772, at the age of 13, he married his grade-school sweetheart. Daniel Bakeman died in 1869. He was 109-years-old.

He fought in America’s Revolutionary War and was the last surviving veteran of that war.In fact, he lived through the Franco-American War, First Barbary War, War of 1812, Second Barbary War, Mexican-American War and the Civil War. Bakeman voted in every election from Washington to Grant. He died in a town called Freedom. Of course he did.

While that’s an amazing accomplishment, it pales in comparison to his other record-setting commitment.

On September 10, 1863, his wife, Susan, passed away at the age of 105. The Bakeman’s were married for 91 years and 12 days. Their marriage is the only marriage to exceed 90 years. Now that’s the definition of commitment.

Some people talk about commitment and some people define commitment by their actions. Which are you? Do your commitments matter? Do your words matter? Are you trusted? Are you committed to being a great communicator? Being a great leader? I thought so!

This Memorial Day let’s remember America’s fallen soldiers. Their actions communicated the ultimate love of country. What will our actions on Memorial Day communicate about us? 

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Tom Wurtz – tom@tomwurtz.com

Jolie was a carrier of the BRCA1 gene that increases the risk of breast and ovarian cancers. In fact, her doctors predicted she had an 87% chance of developing breast cancer and a 50% probability of developing ovarian cancer. The surgery reduced her risk to 5%.

Jolie believed in her medical prophets so much that she took dramatic, preventative action. The medical community has developed their prophet gene to such an advanced degree that people will take painful actions based on their doctor’s vision of the future.

Can you and I do that?

Of course we can, but we must unleash our prophet gene. God placed a gene in our body that allows each of us to see the future. There are two types of people in this world. Successful people develop their prophet gene to change companies and lives. Unsuccessful people fail to even realize God gave them the ability to be a prophet of their career and life.

I estimate that 80% of leaders and employees are clueless about this prophet gene. These individuals remind me of a story by legendary Notre Dame Coach Lou Holtz.

Holtz recalls a conversation he had with his high school guidance counselor. Holtz was insulted when his counselor told him he wasn’t college material. Holtz confronted her, “You don’t think I’m very smart do you?” His counselor replied, “Lou, there are a lot of people in this world who don’t know what’s going on, but you don’t even suspect anything is going on.” Does that sound like any leaders or co-workers you know?

So how do you develop your prophet gene? Great prophets repeatedly follow a simple formula to help them see and succeed in the future.

Observe – Document – Decide – Act (ODDA)  

All of us have amateur prophet skills, but the majority of us are too lazy to document what we observe. Without organized data, we cannot build a trending history. Solid statistics will improve our confidence to decide and act.

If you studied a sales representative like a doctor studies a patient’s chart, you should be able to conclude that Enoch has an 87% of closing that sale while Navin has only a 24% chance of succeeding. Would your revenue and profits grow if you possessed that vision?

Would it be beneficial to know that I.T. Specialist Homer is able to resolve technology issues on 87% of his calls with 93% being completed in less than one hour? Would that information help you decide who to send on critical jobs? You bet it would!

Let’s test your prophet skills right now.

Think of the last meeting or gathering you attended. Do you remember who arrived first and who arrived last? Which person ran to sit next to the highest ranking person in the room because they believed being close to power gives them power? Which person was prepared for the meeting and which ones were not? Which person participated and which ones did not? Who made the most profound comments?

Didn’t you know the answers to all those questions prior to the meeting? See, you already can see the future. Now we just need to organize your observations into a spreadsheet and build historical data on a daily basis. Then you too can predict the future with an impressive degree of certainty.

Even if your boss professionally thinks you’re a movie-star like Angelina Jolie, wait until you predict next year’s revenue and profits down to the exact penny. They may start calling you doctor at work.

If you are going to go to work anyway, why not pay attention and have fun trying to be a prophet. It’s easy if you observe, document, decide and act. If you do, I predict your profits will be 87% healthier.

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Tom Wurtz – tom@tomwurtz.com

How would you define character? How would you define profits? I believe both are good, but they are profound when they work together.

My favorite definition of character comes from J.C. Watt’s, former U.S. Representative from Oklahoma. He defines it this way, “Character is doing what’s right when no one is watching.” Let’s face it. It easy to do what’s right when someone is watching, but doing what’s right when no one is watching takes true character.

Here are two character/profit scenarios. Place yourself in these stories and decide what you would do and what your company would do.

Back in 1982, a Chicago man died after taking Extra-Strength Tylenol laced with cyanide. Within days, six more people in Chicago died from the same poison. Chairman of Johnson & Johnson that owns Tylenol, James Burke, had a crisis on his hands and a quick decision was required. Tylenol controlled 37% of the analgesic market and it accounted for 17% of its net income.

What should he do? Should he disregard common decency of caring for the public’s health and protect his self-interest? Should he wait and see if the deaths continued? Should he pull Tylenol in the Chicago area and hope it was an isolated problem? Should he pull every bottle in America and risk financially destroying his company?

Burke decided to immediately announce a national product recall. His decision cost Tylenol $100 million. Their market share plummeted from 37% to 7%. Burke’s ethical handling of the crisis made him a hero to consumers and they returned the favor a year later by returning Tylenol’s market share to 37%.

What would you or your company do? You may say that’s an easy call because so many people are watching, but I still believe unethical leaders will pursue unethical actions because that’s who they are.

How about this one? A gentleman pulls his $387,000 Lamborghini in front of a crowded bar and jumps out. He sees you walking into the bar. He asks, “Will you keep an eye on my car for thirty minutes? I’m late for an appointment. Here are the keys.” You agree. He runs inside.

He never even asked your name? No one witnessed your exchange with the Lamborghini-man. Would you give the keys to another stranger and meet your friends? Would you take it for a ride? Would you steal it, sell it and move out of the country? Would you take care of the car like you agreed to? What would you do?

I guess the answer to that question depends on your definition of character.

If you think about the above story, isn’t that what happens every day in business. An owner tosses his/her keys to their employees and says, “Please take care of my business for me.” I’ve always been intrigued as to why some employees protect a business as if it’s their own and some choose to lie, cheat and steal for their personal gain.

Let’s be honest. Sometimes owners and top executives are the dishonest ones. Good luck trying to sell character principles to liars, cheaters and thieves.  

Many leaders believe that character and profits cannot co-exist. I’m not one of those leaders. I’ve found that nurturing a culture of character is very profitable.

Let’s say your company has 500 employees and your leader/employee ratio is 12% (60 leaders). If the average leader salary and benefits is $75,000, you are investing $4.5 million in your leadership team.

What if you hired and retained employees of character? How many leaders would you need?

Think about it this way. Most school teachers would prefer a small teacher/student ratio. Back in my day, a typical teacher/student ratio was around 5% or one teacher for every 20 students. If a fourth-grade teacher can lead 20 nine-year-olds, can’t a professional adult do better? Let’s say a leader/employee ratio of 3% would make sense with employees of character.

So if an employer with 500 employees maintained a leader/employee ratio of 3% instead of 15%, they would only require 15 leaders, not 60. This reduction of 45 leaders would generate profits of $3,375,000 per year.

Does character impact profits? Absolutely! Leaders and employees with character will not only improve customer service, but they will also permit owners, leaders and employees to make more money. So why doesn’t every leader make the pursuit of character their number one goal, I wish I knew.

I’ve found the following to be true:

Sleazy leaders attract and surround themselves with sleazy people while leaders of character attract and surround themselves with people of character. If you wish to increase your profits, you must toss the keys of your Lamborghini to strangers who will do what’s right when no one is watching.

Is it time to build a culture of character at your company? If profits and respectability are important to you, the answer is yes.

Tom Wurtz – tom@tomwurtz.com