#220: Reset Part Two: Get the Most Out of Your People

Welcome back to another episode of the Course Creation Incubator podcast. I’m your host, Gina Onativia here to get you excited about your course creation. Whatever you are building right now, you’re putting your expertise out there in a new way and I want to support you and cheer you on. And my hope is that this podcast helps to unlock some inspiration and some pieces that will help you take action.

Today we’re going to do part two of our series about Reset, How to Change What’s Not Working. The Great book by Dan Heath that I talked about last week. Last week we were talking about how to get more leverage in terms of your course creation. This week we’re going to talk about how to maximize your course resources and shortcut your way to market.

Also, we’re going to talk about how to get more out of your team. And I don’t care if your team, it could be a virtual assistant for 10 hours a week or maybe you have a small and mighty team like I do, like a couple of people, and then just a huge team of contractors, whatever it looks like.

I bet that there’s somebody supporting you and I want you to get the most out of them. Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about today. And just like last week, we’re going to talk about a diagram Dan Heath has in Reset. And if you’re watching me on YouTube, you could see like I’ve got Post-its and everything all over this book.

I don’t know about you guys, but when I read a great book, I’m adding Post-its, I’m underlining, I’m I’m really getting the most out of it so I can go back to it and learn for the future. And and I just want you guys to get the most out of this book because I feel like it’s inspired me in so many ways as a business owner.

And if you haven’t listened to part one yet, go back and listen. We talk about the goal of the goal and really getting to the heart of your outcome for your Coursera online workshop or whatever you’re building. We talked about how to study the bright spots, how to target the constraints or what might be holding you back, and then also how to map the system so you can really become more efficient and streamlined in terms of what you’re building.

So hopefully go back and listen to that. Diving into part two today, and as always, this episode is brought to you by our Done for You services. If you want to map the system with us and get to the heart of your course creation in your marketing, we’d love to work with you as one of the few business owners and few entrepreneurs or experts that we work with.

Each and every quarter as part of our done for you process. Go to course Creation Bootcamp slash course to learn more and to see where you can book a call with me. I’d love to chat you up about what you’re looking to build. Today we’re going to walk through four elements again, this time how to maximize your course resources and shortcut to market.

And again, it’s reset. I will link to it in the show notes. And these are four elements that again stood out to me. Many more on Dan Heath’s chart. But let’s dive in to what I thought would really help you guys in terms of your course creation, your marketing. And first and foremost, it’s to start with a communications burst.

I love doing this. It’s what Dan Heath says is intense and focused work, and it’s where you really hunker down and focus with a team member. Doesn’t have to be with a team member, but in this case, with a team member to collaborate and get a focused amount of work done. So for you guys listening right now that could be scripting, that could be you sitting down and really getting to the crux of what you want to talk about.

Maybe you’ve got your Post-it exercise, your outline in front of you, and you’re doing a book or a burst to figure out, okay, I’m going to do module two scripting today. I’m going to get through five scripts. It could be your marketing, so it could be your creative brief emails. Maybe were doing campaign sales page. It could be your webinar and your different pieces that you want for that.

And the idea of the burst when you’re working with someone else is that you’re collaborating with someone in real time. So if I was working on, for example, a sales page and I do this with Meghan O’Leary, so O’Leary has been on the podcast, talk about her all the time. We did copywriting conversion copywriting Playbook together and I will book a call with O’Leary and we will do a zoom together where we work through copy.

We’re doing this next week for a website and I call this a burst where we’re going to get dig deep for an hour and get this copy done together. And there’s something that’s really magical and valuable to that and saying like, This is my dedicated time to working on this and I know I’ve got a dedicated sounding board, so think about how you can use bursts with your course creation, with your marketing to just have that focus time with another really useful collaborator.

Okay, so that’s number one. Start with a burst when it comes to your course creation or your marketing. The second element to help you do more with your resources is do less and do more. I know it’s a contradiction. That’s why we like it. Do less and do more. So why want you blending cuts and investments? So right now a lot of our clients and honestly people that we’ve been hearing about are making cuts.

It’s just the environment. Where can we save money? Where can we get more efficient and and are looking to just save all around? That is just the environment today. Of course, creation and being an entrepreneur and being a marketer. And I think the prevalent feeling is cut, cut, cut, right. Where can we just save money? But what Dan Heath is advocating and I’m a huge fan of is you can’t just cut, okay?

You’ve got to also invest. So in the book, he talks about the Chicago nonprofit, how they were cutting back on programs, but they invested in a better office. And maybe you guys are thinking like Gina, really? Is that the time to really be investing in a nicer office? Well, their current situation was really run down. The elevators kept breaking down, sewage was over pouring in the bathroom.

And this guy who took over this nonprofit said, hey, you are where you are. Right? And right now we stink. But these guys deserve better than that. So he was adamant again, even though they were cutting, he was adamant that they invest in a better office space. And he went to the board and he asked for this. And it and it really transform their outlook and how they felt about themselves.

So, again, do less, but then do more. And a second example is I’ve got a real life example of a client who’s tightening the belt in some ways, but then doubling down on AI in terms of workflows because he sees the value, right? We can’t just stop spending money we want to save, but we also want to invest.

There’s a great passage in the book that I wanted to read to you guys about this approach, and they did a study in Harvard Business reviews of how companies fared after recessions and the authors. I’m going to say these names, but analyze ized over 40 704,700 public companies reacted to three global recessions. What strategy best equipped the companies to thrive after a recession?

The worst strategy was a cut only approach in these companies. Quote, Pessimism permeates the organization. The authors wrote. Centralization, strict controls and the constant threat of more cuts build a feeling of disempowerment. The focus becomes survival, both personal and organizational. Wow. Right. The best strategy blending cuts and investments less and more. The balancing act is essential if the central question of change is how can you do something different and better?

There are really only two answers. By adding resources or by using your resources differently. Okay, so just love this approach. How can you do this in terms of your course or your business and you are doing less and then doing more and really what this is about is like doing offense and defense, right? Every great team. I think about the Eagles, my Philadelphia Eagles winning the Super Bowl.

They had incredible defense and incredible offense. Right. And they also had an overwhelming, great feeling in the locker room. So the greatest tennis player in the world, the greatest tennis player, Djokovic, Novak Djokovic, is known for his defense and he also can turn on the offense. So love this idea. Do less and do more. We want offense and we want defense.

All right. Our third piece or our third element is to tap motivation. Now we know tap motivation with our people. That’s that’s nothing new. But this idea to motivate people, this is from the book. Pay attention to their desires, their interests and their hopes because motivation is untapped energy. So sometimes we’re looking like, where can we get more resources?

Where can we get more energy? Well, it’s within the people. Are you underestimating your people? And if you’re listening right now, I don’t just mean full time employees. I mean your contractors as well. I mean, your team could be working for you just 10 hours a month. How can you untapped some motivate and some energy around them by thinking about their desires, interests and hopes.

So here’s an example of tapping into motivation. Our trainer, Alex Time, my husband Alex and I, she was doing this hike in memoriam of someone who had passed away. Her husband is a federal employee and they do this hike every year to honor this guy. And it’s a difficult hike. Like it’s it’s basically not a trail. And a lot of people wanted to give up, especially the wives.

And my trainers husband said to her, you will be the only wife to get to the finish line to actually get there. And remember this guy. And he knew how to motivate her because in terms of her desires she wants to finish and her interests and her hopes. And this idea of her being the only wife really is motivational for her.

 

So just tapping into what really moves the needle for our people and using that to inspire them and to drive them. So. So think about what can inspire your team to get moving and something that you might not even thought about before. Maybe even more autonomy. Right. And helping them figure out what the next step is and letting them be resourceful might be a way to tap into their motivation.

All right. And the fourth piece is very similar to motivation, or it goes kind of hand in hand. It’s let people drive. So I see this as let people drive your customers, your students, but also your team as well. And in the book, Dan Heath gives us great example of patients on dialysis and people in dialysis. As is explains in the book, you have to sit for a four hour session and you have to just sit quietly and go to, you know, a center and go to a clinic to do that.

And so somebody brought up, well, what if we give them the opportunity to do it on their own? And the nurses at first were like pushing back and saying, oh, no, they’re not going to know how to do it and everything. And it ended up being really successful when folks were able to take control of their own treatment.

And one of the nurses says the embrace of self-care dialysis had changed her. It opened up my eyes, my heart, to the fact that people are amazing and capable of a lot, even in the most scary and overwhelming circumstances. And if you believe in them and give them permission, then they will rise. Oh, so good. Right? So I’m thinking about that for myself.

Like, what if I had a death grip on that? I could just let my team take over. I know there’s got to be, like at least five areas where I could just let them drive and just let go of control because that’s really what it’s about, right? That clinic, those nurses and and the fear that goes along with it.

Right. So this is a life and death situation. But for most of us, it’s just about letting go a little bit more control of our businesses. So I know I could let my team drive a little bit more and I could probably let my clients drive a little bit more for the benefit of everyone involved. So I’m definitely going to be thinking about that and how I can make those changes happen in my business.

And I invite you to do the same and think about how you can make changes happen in your business. Well, hopefully this two part series has opened your eyes or opened your mind to what’s possible and maybe, just maybe, help you get on stock and change whatever is not working. So if you think about it, if a team member’s not working or working out, maybe you tap their motivation or you let them drive or, you know, if the system’s not working, we go back to part one and we talk about mapping the system.

So hopefully this helps you get unstuck. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please, please, please subscribe so you don’t miss a workshop episode or the next time I find a book I love and I want to talk about. And if you’re interested in done for you and us handholding you through the process. High touch, go to a course creation bootcamp slash course.

Until next week, go create be you and be brilliant and get it done.