Business Insights

It was a wonderful night and believe it or not, we had near perfect weather for a February in Michigan! Nearly 150 women strolled through our doors and we were able to raise a good chunk of money for Forgotten Harvest.

The night featured wine tasting from Black Stallion Winery of Napa Valley, a pairing menu developed by Big Rock Chop House Executive Chef Gabby Milton (amazing food!) and a keynote speech by Jennifer Kluge which you will find the video below.

More event photos will be added on Monday so make sure to check back. Please LIKE and SHARE this post, we want to raise awareness for our October Women & Wine event and plan to have 300 Women attend along with 3 guest speakers covering Women in STEM, Education and Business.

Special thanks to: Jennifer Kluge Forgotten Harvest Gabby Milton Randy Stedwell Photography And all the fabulous women of JMJ Phillip and Employment BOOST that made this event happen.

Business Insights

From entrepreneurs and startups, to parents’ kids and new grads, I spend a good part of my week answering questions on how to succeed in business and careers. I find myself combating all the bad advice you find on the internet, ranging from poor content marketing articles to people posting videos of themselves on YouTube.

There are actually some great people giving out some great advice, but it is drowned out by the endless assault of bad content. Garyvee is one of the people I enjoy listening to. Now, I don’t agree with everything GaryVaynerchuk (Garyvee) says all the time, and I don’t think anyone does, not even his best disciple. But, he is one of the first people I listen to because he was, and is, in the trenches every day doing ‘it’.

The dude writes checks, and I recommend paying attention to the people that do. Every armchair General will tell you what you should do, even though they never have or even know what it is like to actually sit in the hot seat.

When decisions affect the coins in your pocket, you make different decisions. When you have employees that count on you for their home payments and their kids’ food, you make different decisions. When cash flow is low from a slow quarter and you’re trying to keep the doors open, you make different decisions.

Gary has a track record of success and is managing a 500–700+ employee business going through rapid growth. He has grown his wine business by crazy multiples, wrote books, TEDx and he has the war wounds and the stories to go with it. I listen to people like him because I trust people with scars, over those that are unblemished.

Here is the trick: good marketers know that they need to write the things you want to hear, even if that means giving out bad advice. It’s human nature to go search and search until you find someone to agree with you, so you can justify how you feel. What good does that do you? None! Looking for people to agree with you would be the same as if I went searching the net until I find an article that says if I follow their diet program I can eat bacon cheeseburgers and pizza and have the best results ever! Sure, that is what I want to hear, but it’s not what I need to hear.

Gary is going to talk about shit you don’t want to hear. He will tell you to do many things you don’t want to do. But in the end, if you want to grow and succeed, you have to do the hard things. Look at the track record of the person giving the advice before you take it, it may end up saving you a lot of trouble.

Business Insights

The 2017 Super Bowl is the best example I can give anyone at the moment of what it is like to be an entrepreneur. On LinkedIn you see an endless series of graphics showing the ups and downs of success, usually a comic, but for those at the helm it is never funny (I included a similar graphic for the hell of it.)

What you watched last night was a team and quarterback with a knot in their stomachs for most of the game. In fact, it wasn’t even a game for a long time, it was a blowout. Tom Brady had to be thinking to himself: “Is this really how it is going down right now?” After getting stomped on for most of the game, the tides changed and well, you know the ending. Nearly every entrepreneur knows this feeling.

Everyone that has been in the startup game has felt this once, if not 10 times. You’re on the edge of failing, your company is about to go out of business, you’re down to a couple of weeks of working capital, you’re hoping that a new funding round closes in time, and that a customer actually pays somewhere close to the NET 120 terms they had to have to become your customer, just so you can make payroll.

From FedEx during their startup days to the bakery down the street, most entrepreneurs know this feeling. The game last night should tell you exactly how you need to think about today. That even when you’re getting your ass beat, you should keep grinding and find a way to win. Many small businesses fail because they get sucked into their own self-pity. They keep asking themselves “Why did this happen to me” instead of fighting to see another day.

Feeling sorry for yourself may land you a couple of “keep your head up” tweets, but self-pity will never lead you to victory. Perseverance is king in 2017. Bad things will happen even during good times, and even worse things will happen during bad times. Keep grinding, keep hustling, never give up, and don’t become someone’s “told you so.”

Business Insights

I have that Jay-Z song with Kanye in my head (Hate) where you keep hearing “haters, haaaaters, haters…” in the background.

Something you realize over time as you become more successful is that people want to see you fail. Believe it or not, even your friends and family may get pleasure in seeing you fail if you were once doing well.

*Not everyone is a hater, and there are many people that want to see you make it including great team members in your office. This article just covers those that want to see you fall.

The higher you are, the more they want to see you fail. They want to see you fall so damn hard that they get to see you bounce off the pavement.

So, if some of your friends and family want to see you fail, how do you think those co-workers feel about you? Those competing for raises and title bumps especially.

Then you have the haters that are the negative dark clouds of doom who are never happy and drag everyone down. You’re not even competing with them but ooooh hell they want to see you fail too.

Behind your back they are saying “I wish he/she wouldn’t work so hard, it makes us look back!”

Here are some simple ways to deal with schadenfreude in the office

1. While they may be all up in your shit, focus on minding your own business. Put your head down, put the work in and leave everyone else behind. Those caught up trying to drag others down won’t be that hard to leave behind because they are focusing their energy on non-productive shit.
2. If you must play politics, do so in a well calculated and strategic way. As Robert Greene note, know when to be bad. (catch the Robert Greene video below to learn more)
3. Stay out of gossip, and anything heard second hand pay no attention to. Yeah part of it is true, so deal with it. But you never know which part is true and who said what, so keep moving.
4. If you find other workers are undermining your progress/projects, document things well and use email to cover your ass. Everyone dislikes playing this game, but you can’t bitch about the rules of the game, only play them perfectly.
5. Use the critics as a source to improve your work. The criticism comes from somewhere, and maybe you deserve the critiques. While they were doing it just to put you down every chance they get, you can use it as a crowdsourcing tool to make your work even better.

It’s pretty simple. Those that want to drag you down or just want to see you fail, it’s more about them than you so don’t take it personally.

That’s why I say put your head down and mind your own business when you can. When you are focused you are unstoppable, don’t let those external forces affect you.

Business Insights

When 2 parties with only self-interest in mind collide, you can end up with something similar to a head-on car crash. Recruiters and candidates need to stop bitching about each other, you both share an equal amount of blame for the failures in the job search process. This site has turned into a cesspool of bitching and complaining and you’re both at fault. It’s turning into some of the news sites where the comment section was just brutal, to the point where they removed the comment section because there was no value. I am not saying any or all of these complaints are valid or not valid, they are just common complaints.

Candidates complain that recruiters:

• Won’t give them feedback
• Will pressure them to relocate when they don’t want to
• Ask them to make a long commute
• Won’t return their phone calls or emails
• Won’t tell them the company name or location
• Will ask them to take a pay cut
• Call them for positions their not qualified for or that are way below them
• Won’t or can’t give feedback from the company after an interview

Recruiters complain that candidates:

• No show for interviews making them look bad or cost them clients
• Lie about their education or job history
• Misrepresent or withhold salary info
• Tell the recruiter one thing then tell the hiring manager another
• Go on interviews only to get a job offer so they can get a counteroffer from their current employer.
• Take weeks to return a call to do an interview
• Go dark when an offer is presented as the candidate is leveraging someone else

All of the things above won’t change anytime soon. Do you both realize you’re doing grimy things to each other? One side is no better or worse than the other so let’s call it even.

THE GAME IS THE GAME, YOU BOTH KNOW THE RULES SO PLAY WISELY.

Candidates, my best advice: Stop waiting for the phone to ring and stop chasing jobs and companies that don’t want you. If a company wants to hire you, they will, it’s that simple, you cannot follow up and magically force them to hire you. Ever date? How many times have you been ghosted? You keep texting and chasing someone that has no interest in you. They should create a job market version of “He Just Isn’t That Into You” because that is real life.

Keep networking, applying and interviewing until you land the job you want. Even if you get a hint that a job is coming, keep searching!!!! Don’t stop applying and interviewing until you get what you want. Recruiters, my best advice: Stop thinking you have control over someone else’s life, you are a headhunter. You hunt heads and bring them to your clients, it is that simple!

Candidates WILL and SHOULD always do what is best for them and their families, even if you feel they went about it wrong, you cannot fault them for taking care of themselves and their families. KEEP firing away with the best damn candidates you have until you have a finalist, a #2 and #3 in waiting and don’t stop until the deal is done. This is a mistake so many recruiters make, you’re banking on one candidate and when they back out, you get pissed. You should only get pissed at yourself for not having more candidates in the pipeline.

Let’s forget the negativity. Candidates, if a company doesn’t hire you, move on, there are so many other positive things for you to focus on in your life, don’t dwell. Recruiters, likewise, just move the hell on and work hard to make your clients happy. Both of you, don’t burn bridges man, the world is shrinking, everyone knows everyone in one way or another and it is completely unnecessary to boot. Find a way to for both of you to get what you want, our job markets are very fluid, it is possible for both parties to win.