#144-Refresh Your Perspective
John (Intro): I have been on a quest to learn everything I can about leadership obsessed with what makes the best leaders so good. After running companies small and large for the last 20 years, today I speak on stages all across the world to audiences who are interested in that same question. My name is John Laurito and I’m your host. I invite you to join me on this journey as we explore this topic: What makes the best leaders so good? Welcome to Tomorrow’s Leader.
John: All right, welcome to today’s episode of Tomorrow’s Leader, where we dove deep on all things leader-related, related to leading yourself and leading others. I’m John Laurito, your host. So I wanted to share a quick story from my trip recently to Hawaii, Maui, Hawaii, with my kids, which was absolutely fantastic. I’m sure I’m going to be bringing this into several episodes of the podcast. But one of the interesting things was, you know, we had stayed in this resort, a great resort. And a lot of times and I’ve done this a lot of times with the kids, we do these little timeshare presentations, which many of you have done before. You sit through a presentation and it’s like an hour presentation that usually is horrifically painful. And you get some free stuff, whether it’s an excursion or money to golf and their golf course or at their spa, something like that. So I kind of do it just for fun. But there’s also part of me that would be interested in the right type of timeshare.
John: So we’re out of Maui, one of my favorite places, if not without a doubt, my favorite place. And we’re in an area and I’m thinking, OK, this would be something that I would look at. So I had asked if there was a guy that was in the lobby and I was with my son and Nick and I are walking through the lobby. There’s a guy that’s advertising timeshares. You clearly could sign up to go through a timeshare presentation. So I went up to him and I said, you know, hey, what’s this all about? You know, he had some sign saying that they give away two free rounds of golf or whatever. And he said, yeah, you know, here’s the deal. You have to sit through a presentation and then we give you two rounds of golf. I said, OK, great, I’d love to sign up.
John: We started working on a date and he said, OK, so that would need to be you and your wife. That would need to attend. Is she? She’s obviously here, too. I said, no, I’m actually not married. I’m divorced. I’m here with my two kids. And he said, Oh, literally. That’s what he said. Oh, OK. Well, then that’s OK. So you don’t have a significant other or anything like that. I said no, I’m divorced. It’s just me, I’m single. And he said, OK, well you can still come. That’s fine. But the reward would only be like one round of golf. Not so it would be one person, not two or it would be $50 at the spa, not a $150 this and that.
John: And I’m thinking, I said what that doesn’t make any sense is that I know, I know it doesn’t make any sense. I said no. Do you really understand why that doesn’t make any sense? I said I am the same buyer. In fact, it’s probably easier for you to deal with one person because I’m one person making a decision versus two trying to agree on a decision and I’m purchasing the same thing. It’s not like I would purchase less of a value. Probably I would purchase a timeshare that probably would be the same value, especially the fact that
I’ve got two kids. That would be for a married couple. I mean, why would my why would you then perceive me as being less valuable? Because you’re clearly reducing the amount of incentive for me to sit through this. I mean, the sale size is the same. The closing ratio is probably higher. It’s easier and probably more of an ideal client for your prospect than a married couple.
John: So why would my reward or incentive be less? Why would you communicate with me? You’re sending a message to me that I’m less valuable to you than if I was married. He said I know I get it. It’s kind of silly. I said, Have you told your management that? I mean, have you actually said that now? I just know, that’s just our policy. So needless to say, I didn’t sit through it. I didn’t do it. I just aggravated I mean, I was aggravated with the fact that that was their rule, which was a dumb rule. You’ve heard me talk about dumb rules before. This was a dumb rule that made no sense. Again, I was an easier sale, probably a higher, if not at least the same sale size.
John: But I definitely have an easier closing rate because, you know, it’s just me and I probably was in the market for a timeshare and this is my favorite spot. So there was a significant likelihood or reasonable likelihood that I would have actually made a purchase. So here they did. They lost a potential sale. I literally didn’t go through the presentation. They lost a sale because of a dumb rule, a dumb policy that admittedly made it made no sense to the guy that was, you know, running this thing.
John: So my message and the leadership lesson from this is sometimes we just get used to stuff. Now, my guess is this was just the. A policy that they had in place for like 20 years, I don’t know, and nobody took the time to just kind of get a refreshed perspective. So that’s a title. The Pakistanis refresh your perspectives. Nobody. Sometimes you just get used to things in your environment. You get used to things that you don’t step back and look and say, OK, does this make sense? Maybe it made sense at one point, but does it really make sense now?
John: And based on where the company is and what we’re trying to do in the direction we’re going in societal changes and all this kind of stuff, does this really apply now? Does it make sense? Does it help our business? Does it help our clients or is it slowing us down? Is it an obstacle? In this case? Nobody took the time. I don’t think anybody took the time to get a refreshed perspective on this and say, OK, you know, what? Does that make sense? It doesn’t make sense. Here was a guy that was part of the organization. My guess is I was the first person that made that comment to him. It just doesn’t make sense.
John: You know, and I’ll give you an example. I mean, in my house, I’ve got for those of, you know, my closing, you’ve been in my house. I got stuff that’s not everything that belongs is where it belongs. I’ve got stuff all over the place. It’s not, you know, I mean, I’ve got a big, big place. And what I mean is I’m in my kitchen and I’m looking at my sink above my sink. I’ve got a window that looks out and I’m looking at it on the ledge is a screwdriver. And I’m thinking to myself, why is that there? That doesn’t belong there. And I don’t know why I’ve just left it. I’m sure I’ve seen it and looked at it forever. But there’s a screwdriver on the windowsill. And you know what? I just think I’ve just gotten blind to it. It probably has been there since I moved in in July. And I’ve probably seen it unconsciously, you know, a hundred
times. And I’ve never thought that the screwdriver doesn’t belong in the windows. There’s a place for it. This is not the place for it on the windowsill.
John: So, you know, sometimes we just get used to stuff. We get blind to it because it just blends in and we step back and we and we look in and we can actually see it. If we really look hard, sometimes we can see the stupidity or the dumbness of some of the things that
we’ve done in the past or rules or whatever the case may be. And that’s also the great reason to just work with somebody outside your business, work with a coach, work with an advisor, a consultant who can actually take a perspective that’s fresh and brand new, because oftentimes, really quickly, they can see the things that you just have not seen.
John: And it’s nothing else that they have just not been in your surroundings. They’ve not lived in your world for so long. Trust me, I work with clients and it’s like sometimes I can easily find problems that they’ve had their solutions to problems they’ve been dealing with for a long time. And it’s only, you know, partly or majorly because I come in with a totally fresh perspective and that’s the beauty of working with somebody outside. That’s not it’s not involved. That wasn’t part of the creation of these, you know, of the business that you’re in right now. So in essence, two takeaways from this. One is to refresh your perspective and sometimes it makes sense to pull somebody from the outside who has a totally different perspective because you’ll oftentimes learn a lot.
John: So anyway, a little lesson from my trip to Hawaii. It was a phenomenal trip. More to come, more other lessons I’ll share for another episode. But hope this was helpful for you today. As always, share like, comment, all that kind of good stuff. Subscribe, go down below. Give a five-star review and we will see you next time. Thanks, everybody. Take care.
John (Closing): Thanks for joining us on today’s episode of Tomorrow’s Leader. For suggestions, or inquiries, about having me at your next event, or personal coaching, reach me at john@lauritogroup.com Once again, that’s john@lauritogroup.com. Thanks! Lead on!
