#60: Level Up Your Leadership with Alison Begor, Leadership Coach
When you have too much on your plate, the best thing to do is delegate.
Hire employees that can help you make your company the most efficient it can be.
But how do you do that?
This week, I was joined by Leadership Coach, Alison Begor, who had the answer to that question.
Alison shared exactly:
Why hiring a clone of yourself is inefficient.
How to be flexible as a leader.
Key questions to ask potential employees in an interview to ensure best-fit.
She is an expert in all things HR and leadership, so be sure to tune into this episode if you are looking for a little extra inspiration in that area.
Learn more about Alison here: http://alisonbegor.com or check her out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alisonbegorcoaching.
Check out my new free new training on www.yournextmillion.me, where several of my seven figure clients and colleagues share what they're doing in the next year to scale their businesses to the multi-million dollar mark and beyond.
Listen to the Show:
Laura (00:03):
So here's the challenge: so many entrepreneurs dream of leading a life of impact by creating a multi-million dollar brand, but only a tiny percentage of businesses actually scale to that point. On this podcast, we speak openly and authentically about what it takes to scale your business, following the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts, and leaders, looking at the behind the scenes of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned. My name is Laura Meyer and I'm your host. I'm a serial entrepreneur, wife and mom to three. I love talking all things business, especially digging into the mindset and strategies of scaling joyfully to the multi-million dollar mark and beyond. Let's go!
(00:41):
Hey everybody. And welcome back to the Scale with Joy show. I'm here with Alison Begor and she is a leadership coach and really an expert in helping people who are growing and scaling their business, multiply themselves within their organization so it doesn't all fall on them. Doesn't that sound lovely? So, Alison, thank you so much for being here.
Alison (01:08):
Oh, thank you, Laura, for having me today. I'm so happy to be here.
Laura (01:11):
Yeah. So I had actually just mentioned that many entrepreneurs want to clone themselves. Many entrepreneurs just want to help alleviate some of the things that are on their plate by handing off to other people. But you actually say that's very inefficient. Why is that?
Alison (01:28):
I'm so glad you mentioned that. I hear that all the time. If my clients, if I just had a clone of myself, everything would be perfect. The desire to clone ourselves comes from somebody being able to be within our heads and then not having to train them, right? Like they can just take it and run with it. And the reason I think that's not efficient and I'll use myself as example, tech is not my area of expertise. That is an area I love to delegate and hire out. If I hired a clone of myself, they wouldn't be able to do the tech either. Terrible idea to only hire people with the same skills that I have. And so I really want to spend the time and help my clients, finding someone who has the skills that they need, which very well may be someone completely different, you know, than me or than you. And it also brings so many more good ideas and having a diversity of ideas just really helps your business grow. I think being open to hiring someone and training someone, who's not a clone of, you will actually be able to scale your business that much faster.
Laura (02:35):
Oh my gosh. I love that you're saying this because when you put it into terms of visionary integrator, which a lot of my clients are, they look at that concept from a variety of different angles. Like some look at it from an angle of EOS, some look at it like Scaling Up. But no matter what the angle is, I think it is based on a principle that you are sharing that I love, which is that if we're this big picture, visionary entrepreneur types, which many of are, sometimes you could almost, first of all, be attracted to other people who are just like you, that are big picture thinkers. It's kind of like, you only need one of those organization or else you can get kind of crazy. So I feel like that's a really important point that you're making here. And then the second is that I know as a visionary, I always need the integrator. I always need the operations, the system minded person, having grown six and seven different companies over the last 20 years, I've always had that person and times I haven't has been extremely painful.
Alison (03:34):
Yeah. It makes a difference. When I have someone who can help with all of those details. And in some ways keeping me on track. I mean, it just pays for itself 10 times over.
Laura (03:46):
Yeah. I love that. That's so good. And so what do you think are some of the key ways in which particularly entrepreneurs can become high-performing leaders? Cause hey, many of us did not come from corporate. Many of us have grown up in entrepreneur land. So like, what do you think are some of the things that we really need to learn about leadership?
Alison (04:05):
I think what's helpful to learn about leadership. Probably the first thing is that not everybody wants to be an entrepreneur. And so it's okay to hire people for your team who that's, what they want. They want to work for the big visionaries and small businesses that they believe in and can get behind. And just having that kind of knowledge that everybody doesn't want to be an entrepreneur. And that's okay. I think it's helpful for entrepreneurs in leadership to really, once you decide, okay, they don't want to be an entrepreneur, what do you want to do? How can I help you grow and realizing that many employees and team members want to grow in their own way. And probably the last thing I would say is having really good, transparent communication. And I think especially for a lot of entrepreneurs, I mean, most people, if not everyone is a solopreneur first. And so you're so used to doing everything by yourself, that as you start to grow your team, it can be hard sometimes to know what to communicate and what not to communicate or feel like I'm giving them too much information. I really think the more you can communicate and get to know your team members, the better it's going to feel it for everyone and the better leader that you can be
Laura (05:16):
So good. I think sometimes as visionaries and entrepreneurs, we sit around and we had the same thoughts in our head over and over and over again. Right. We get excited about the thing and then we're talking about the thing, and then we get excited about the thing. And then we forget that we talked about the thing, right. And I think sometimes if we don't come up with a way to clearly communicate it in a streamlined way, we forget that the all that lives in our head.
Alison (05:39):
Right? Yeah. People aren't mind readers. You have to tell them, right.
Laura (05:46):
Because we think that all the time, we forget that they're not in there in that brain, uh, with all of those neurons firing. And so I love that you're saying over communicate and I have found repetition personally is really, really good to remind somebody over and over again, what it is that we're, we're working towards, why we're doing it, what the mission and the vision is behind it. So I think what you're saying about repetition and communication is awesome. Is there any other component to being a high-performance leader that you have found particularly useful when it comes to coaching entrepreneurs?
Alison (06:18):
Well, I wanted to mention one thing that you said about mission and vision that came up for me for leadership is that it's good when you're over-communicating and the repetition to tie your employee goals to your mission and vision. Everything is integrated together. So I think that's a good component for leaders. And the other thing I find with a lot of my clients, two things, one is that they know more than they think they do about hiring HR, leading teams. I think sometimes it feels a lot scarier. We think things are a lot harder than they in that you probably have more of the skills than you think. And just to be flexible. I think flexibility is just a key for all leaders and the kind of more you can move and flow over obstacles, the better your business is positioned for success and the better your team feels because things are going to come up and flexibility has been key.
Laura (07:13):
Yeah. So can you share with me just a few more details on what you had just said about the flexibility? I think that's so important. Like even maybe a situation that might come up as an entrepreneur when you're trying to lead and what, what is not flexible, what is flexible? Cause I think sometimes we think we're very flexible and maybe not quite as flexible as we think we are. Yes. Like I'm super flexible. It's my way or the highway.
Alison (07:43):
Yeah. Well, and then that flexibility, I think you do have to do our bidding, no planning in advance. I have a client and she is wonderful. So smart, great entrepreneur, great product, vision and ideas. She struggles a bit with managing people because she wants them to be able to read in her head and frequently doesn't give tasks until too close to when they're due, when you're not giving enough time for people to kind of think and plan and do their plan and schedule their time, according to their energies, that's not being flexible. So I think that's one way where you think, well, I'm flexible, but you know, I'm going to call you and I want something in 24 hours and I'm not really considering whether your kids have a snow day and our schooling virtually from home and your water pipes are frozen or, you know, like they're getting a lot of things going on for people. So building in kind of that leeway time something that she and I have worked on so that it's not immediately out of her head wanting to be implemented within 24 hours.
Laura (08:46):
It's so good that you're bringing that up because being a quick start as an entrepreneur actually is part of what has made us successful. Right? It's part of what has brought the bacon up until a certain point when you outgrow it. And then also looked at, you're talking about energies because being a quick start or waiting until we need to make the decision and making the decisions sometimes as entrepreneurs is how we work and how our energy operates best. But we forget that other people have a different way of managing their own energy, not just their time, but I like what you're saying about how they work best.
Alison (09:20):
Yes. And that's something I love to ask new team members is how do you work fast? As some people need more processing time to come up with the ideas or to organize a project and then they can go really fast and some people communicate differently. So they'd rather have a conversation like this, about what you want to get done. And some would rather read it and then email. So I think it's useful to have those conversations with employees. I also recommend meeting with employees either weekly or biweekly, because I think that helps just keep that timeline in there so that as you're having your quick-start ideas, you can pass them on, in a timely fashion without it always feeling last minute.
Laura (09:59):
Yeah. Any other tips around meetings? Like any really good meeting hacks? so many entrepreneurs, myself included this, I have been known to say this. It's just like, Oh, the team meeting.
Alison (10:17):
I mean, my first hack is don't have a meeting if you don't need one. I think two people scheduled too many meetings and they're just not all necessary. So if it can be an email, don't schedule the meeting, I think people will be happy to have it off the calendar. The other things I like to do in meetings is to have a clear agenda. So people know what to expect and what you're talking about. And if it's a weekly meeting where you're always just debriefing on what the projects are for the week, maybe you don't need to have a written agenda, but as long as people know the expectations and what's going to be accomplished in a meeting, keeping on task. And then I like allowing, you know, five, 10, 15 minutes for fun, especially as we're working remotely. And we want to be able to connect with people and connect with your team. I think it's good to have a little bit of time in there for fun. You know, ask a fun question, just find out what's going on with people. Just the kind of chitchat is important in a meeting too.
Laura (11:11):
That's so helpful. I really appreciate you being here. I know that many people just, as we wrap up, have the question of what do I ask people in an interview? And you had mentioned that it's easier than many people might realize. And you would also mention the question of how do you work best. Are there any other questions that you think are really important to ask when you are interviewing a candidate that you want to see? You want to make sure that they're the best fit.
Alison (11:40):
Yes. Yeah. My top tip for questions. When you're interviewing are to ask, what's called behavior-based interview questions, and that's asking for candidates to give you specific examples from their past experiences. And in those examples is where you can hear if the skills are what you're needing and looking for too often. When we just ask most of your questions, people can just give you a hypothetical and you don't really know if that's how they operate or not. But what am I favorite interview questions to ask is what did you like best about your last job or your current job and what did you like the least asking people? What they liked the least I feel like is kind of a connection point, but people are very open about what they don't like about their jobs. And you can hear whether that's something that like key in your position or not. And so I like that question.
Laura (12:32):
That's so funny. So they'll start kind of getting passionate about something and then you get to the real deal. Is that kind of what you're saying?
Alison (12:39):
Yeah. I mean, I've interviewed people for jobs and had a lot of travel, you know, for example, and they're like, Oh yes, I can travel. And I like, you know, do this. And then you ask about their job, past job. You know, what you liked the most, which likely it's like, Oh my gosh, I just hate living out of a suitcase. And you're like, that's not the best position for you.
Laura (12:59):
Gosh, that's so funny. Any other like good interview stories that you have any funny things that have happened?
Alison (13:06):
Gosh, I feel like these things happen all the time. I mean, I've done, we also have asked with one of my clients about policies, like what policies don't you really like ask that of people who are, you know, administrative positions or people who've had to enforce policies and small businesses and the types of things they tell you that they don't like too is really funny. We've had people, I can't remember now the specifics, but there was definitely once where somebody brought up a policy that was kind of a big deal to this business. And it was one that they don't like, and they don't like enforcing. And it was like, eh, maybe you shouldn't have said that, but...
Laura (13:42):
Yeah. That's so funny that you say that I love that when you asked them their opinion, the real deal comes out. Like I'm just thinking about, I just hired a community manager for one of my companies and I had never asked that question, but if they were like, I just don't like people.
Alison (14:02):
Yeah. Like people complaining all day, just wear me out. I can't do this.
Laura (14:06):
I put the I in introvert. You probably won't be the best fit. So Alison, these are great tips and really fun to talk to you. Obviously you completely understand entrepreneurs and how they think and what they need. So that's, I know many people are going to want to connect with you. Where's the best place for them to reach out?
Alison (14:24):
Yeah. The best place is through my website, which is alisonbegor.com and then I also hang out a lot on Instagram and then I've got a Facebook group too.
Laura (14:34):
All right. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing your expertise and I appreciate you just sharing your wisdom. And if you want to check out Alison, you can go to Alison Begor B E G O R. And that is where you can find her on all of the places. Thanks so much, Alison.
Alison (14:49):
Thank you, Laura
Laura (14:54):
Hey there: before you head out, I want to let you know about a free new training I have right on a brand new website called yournextmillion.me. It's yournextmillion.me, where several of my seven figure clients and colleagues share what they're doing in the next year to scale their businesses, to the multi-million dollar mark and beyond. And I have to tell you, it is not what you think. So check it out at yournextmillion.me. And if you loved this show, will you subscribe to it and share it with a friend or just say something nice about it to someone, you know? I’d really appreciate it so much. Thanks so much for being here and I'll see you next time.
The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.