Final Day Of RetailNOW 2016 Features Lightning Round Leadership

By Jim Roddy, PaymentsEdge Advisory Services

Among the new features at RetailNOW this year was a fast-paced education session named “Lightning Round Leadership.” Five industry executives shared personal stories and lessons that impacted both their lives and their organizations.

The group included Stephen Bergeron of APG Cash Drawer, Tom Bronson of ISV Granbury Solutions, Chelsey Paulson of reseller North Country Business Products, Terry Ziegler of Datacap Systems, and myself. Our less-than-eight-minute talks were held during the morning General Session on Aug. 3, the last day of RetailNOW 2016 in Dallas.

In the near future, the RSPA will be sharing with its members audio recordings of the presentations, but you don’t have to wait to learn what I said. The following is a transcript of my talk which was titled Two Words: Two Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Words.

Never have two words been more powerful.

When we were young and innocent, we were told these two words would make all our dreams come true. Instead, these two words have made those around you unhappy and often made you feel even worse. What are these two terrible, horrible, no good, very bad words?

I DO.

I’m not talking about your wedding vows.

I’m talking about you and me as a business leaders always saying “I do.”

I do the sales.

I do the installations.

I do the troubleshooting.

I do the accounting.

I do the research.

I do the purchasing.

I clean up the mess.

I do everything that the rest of my staff can’t do themselves.

A year ago on the RetailNOW stage, we heard Michael Gerber, the world-renowned small business guru, talk about the plight of the small business leader who always says “I do.”

Michael’s terminology was “doin’ it, doin’ it, doin’ it … busy, busy, busy.”

He was so right. We business leaders do everything — except effectively delegate to our team. That’s what I’m going to talk about today: effective delegation and the impact it’s had on my career.

I’ve learned first-hand that delegation doesn’t just get jobs off your plate but, more importantly, it builds the people on your team, makes their career and life more rewarding, and improves your company.

It’s a complicated subject — I could talk about it forever — but I’m going to make it simple for us. We’re going to expand our collective skillset from two words to six easy-to-remember words. Ready?

I DO. WE DO. YOU DO.

Three steps to delegation in just six words. I do. We do. You do. Please say it with me: I do. We do. You do.

Delegation step number one: Do the job well yourself. Delegation step number two: Do the job well with the person you’re developing, the person you’re teaching. Delegation step number three: Watch that person do the job well until they’re proficient.

You know what you get if you don’t follow this? If you don’t follow I do, we do, you do? You end up in doo-doo.

I do. We do. You do … not doo-doo.

We’ve been laughing, but actually delegation is a pretty serious subject for me. I’ve lived both the highs and the lows of delegation while constructing a viable business. It’s a struggle that’s cost me time, money, employees, and — at times — my mental well-being.

For most of my 20s, I was a self-employed sole proprietor. I published a magazine about high school, college, and minor league sports in northwest Pennsylvania. We had lots of enthusiastic readers and advertisers, but for five-and-a-half years it was mostly me doing much of the writing, the editing, the layout, the sales, the billing, the collections, the delivery, the recycling, the garbage — you name it.

My delivery vehicle was a maroon 1992 Geo Prizm, which gives you an indication of the resources I had at my disposal.

The stress of 70-hour workweeks and the inability to afford anything other than SpaghettiOs for dinner caused me to decide to seek a job, and I landed with Business Solutions Magazine.

When I tried to sell my sports magazine, potential buyers asked me what I actually built. Who was a leaving behind? What structure was left to build upon?

The reality was nothing. Nothing.

I poured over half a decade of my life into something, and it was gone. So I did what any reasonable businessperson would do.

I cried.

I can count on one tissue the number of times I’ve cried at work, but I earned this one.

The leadership philosophy I’ve followed since shuttering my business is “do nothing by yourself.” Just to clarify, it’s not “do nothing … by yourself.”

What I mean is, when you do a job or a task, use it as a teaching opportunity, a delegation opportunity, instead of just completing the job alone.

When I was the managing editor at Business Solutions, I invested time with our production manager and eventually she replaced me in that position. When I was editorial director, I invested time with our copy editor and she replaced me in that role. When I was operations director, I invested time with a project manager which allowed him to grow into my role so I could become company president.

Notice how I use the phrase “invested time.” Delegation will not give you lift the next day, the next week, and maybe not even the next month. But — just like any good investment — it will pay you exponential dividends at some point in the future.

I want to get you started on the delegation path. Take 30 seconds and make a note right now that will help you build a viable business. Write down one of your jobs you can hand off, a job you know you should hand off, and you will hand off when you return home from this show.

Write it down — it doesn’t matter to me what it is. Selling a new client, handling customer complaints, hiring a new employee, bolting down a key process or procedure.

Then pick which person you are going to work with on this job. We Do. We Do. Not “I do.”

Invest your time in your greatest resource — your people. Invest time showing them, teaching them, training them, explaining the why. Invest time building systems so they can do the job without you there. In many cases, they’ll end up doing the job better than you!

Don’t stop at the words I Do. Go all the way with I Do. We Do. You Do.

One more time say it with me: I Do. We Do. You Do.

Yes, I Do. We Do. You Do will make your organization stronger than ever. I Do. We Do. You Do.

And I thank you.

Jim Roddy recently joined Vantiv to lead their PaymentsEdge Advisory Services for the channel as a Reseller & ISV Business Advisor. He is the former President of Business Solutions Magazine and Past Chairperson of the RSPA, and he can be reached at Jim.Roddy@vantiv.com.

For more articles on RetailNOW 2016, held July 31 to August 3, 2016, at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center in Grapevine, TX, and the Retail Solutions Providers Association (RSPA), go to www.BSMinfo.com/solution/InsideRSPA.