Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor hear another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Kim Faircloth and Don Libby. They are the authors of the book and owners of the organization. Conflict sparks change. Welcome.

Kim and Dawn: Thank you and glad to be here. Great to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn what you’re all up to. Tell us about conflict sparks change. How are you serving folks?

Kim Faircloth: Well, we are mediators, conflict resolution coaches, trainers, and mostly focused on workplace conflicts between us. We have a lot of experience. Um, my doctorates in leadership. And, Dawn, why don’t you tell them about your background?

Dawn Bedlivy: Yeah. So I’m an attorney and spent my whole career working personnel issues as an attorney and then building a conflict management system within my former organization. So Kim and I have been together, working together for many years, and decided it was time to put all the wisdom we had gathered over those years into a book, a handbook of sorts, for others to be able to use and benefit from the book. The models we’ve built in other ways, we’ve helped others in the past.

Lee Kantor: So what was kind of the Genesis like first, how did you two get together and meet, and then how did you all decide, hey, this is an area we have to lean into.

Kim Faircloth: Well, we work together through all. We’re not naive. We have been in the trenches. We moved from theory and or law into practitioners. And then now sort of the legacy part, you know, the give part back part. We really had a calling many years ago that we should write some of this down, because a lot of the leaders were saying, you know, you should write a book about this. You know, when we were in training or whatever. And, and so we just decided that we were going to lean into that and write the book and then step into whatever that holds for us in the future. Right now, we’re writing a course and it’s we coach and we just help wherever we can.

Dawn Bedlivy: I think one way we came into it to be, in addition to all that Kim said, is a lot of times in Kim’s position as a human resources director or me as a personnel attorney, we would often be called in at the very last minute when these conflicts had, you know, I call it, become a Chernobyl. But, you know, there was already a meltdown. So we would often say to ourselves or discuss amongst ourselves, you know, there was a point in time where this conflict could have ended up much differently, where we could have nipped in the bud and we really set about a mission to develop a conflict management system or within our organization and techniques to really back up these conflicts and help leaders address them way, way earlier. So we didn’t end up with a pile of ruin in the organization. And I think that’s really what brought us together and committed us to all that we’ve been learning and growing in.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you talk a little bit about just the word conflict in the kind of what conflict means? Because in some cases, conflict I guess is. Humans were a lot of humans are looking to avoid conflict as much as possible. But and I think in in what you’re talking about, you encourage using conflict maybe as a catalyst for innovation or change. So can you talk a little bit about maybe the definition or like defining some terms here of conflict and, and how people are perceiving it and what it could, you know, maybe the positive side of it that people aren’t kind of aware of.

Kim Faircloth: Yeah. Um, so let’s start with. We didn’t even name our book. After reading our book, it was interesting that our publisher was like, you know what you’re talking about here all throughout everything we do is that when harnessed, not managing conflict, but harnessing conflict for change is a really important thing. If you really think about it, it’s when this idea and this idea or this, um, uh, value or this value or whatever it is, this diverse perspective, this, you know, on a team can’t exist well together yet. And from that, something new is trying to emerge in every conflict, something new is trying to emerge. If you would just give it the space and time and open up communication channels around it. I’ve seen amazing results. Um, from just taking the time out of what happens, we get busy. Um, we are conflict avoiders, or we yield and it just gets further apart and further apart if we take the time to kind of reestablish the space and then, uh, work on behaviors like as a team to, to actually debate constructively ideas and come out with outcomes, you know, that we can move forward next steps. Um, so conflict to us is the beginning of the change process. And the opposite is true conflict that is not harnessed well can be a real derail. Or maybe, Don, you want to talk about the cost of conflict?

Dawn Bedlivy: Yeah. What we would find is, um, oftentimes when we were brought in, it’s when there was already a huge cost to the organization. Either people were suing the organization, or they wanted to leave the organization and take their knowledge with them. And in all cases, we found that work was interrupted. You know, there there may be outcomes, but we would often walk in and it might be one person who was suing the organization, but it disrupted the entire team, so nobody was being very productive at that point or producing. Um, and what we realized when we often got in and would speak to people even, who had gotten to the point where they felt like, well, I have no choice but to file a complaint, was that there was some change that needed to happen here. Either they didn’t feel like their voice was being heard sometimes, like Kim just described, their their interests weren’t being met. And what we found out I found a lot of times is people just shut down and view conflict as abnormal. And our goal was really to say, look, it’s not abnormal. It’s it’s we’re going to have different ideas than others.

Dawn Bedlivy: And in fact, that’s why you’re bringing these this team together, right? You want diverse ideas on your team. You want people thinking differently. You want people challenging ideas. It’s oftentimes we’re not taught how to do that in a productive way. And it devolves into me against you as opposed to us against the idea. So that’s really where we came upon our techniques was to say, look, change is constant. And some, you know, we have to look at this conflict as a sign of something different needs to happen here on the team. Either they need a different way of communicating with one another. Um, maybe there’s this person isn’t a good fit, and they need to bring their gifts elsewhere. So that that was really the genesis where we said, you know, the at the seed of every innovation is a big change that’s waiting to happen. And how do we help them, right? How do we prep the people to be accepting of that and view it, um, as an opportunity as opposed to, um, oh my God, you know, here we are again.

Kim Faircloth: We used to back in my day, which is a long time ago, we used to actually give them horrible names, these people that we would bring in to be sort of, um, the, the ones that might, uh, challenge any group. Think we used to call them the devil’s advocates. Sometimes we would even we would even bring them in and tell them to be the devil’s advocate. I mean, that’s how I think, um, different it is. Uh, now, I do think that that now in innovation, we recognize the fact that, you know, if we shut down, um, uh, communication with one another, if there’s a real cost, if we, um, constantly do that. It used to be that I would just, you know, maybe go home and tell my friend or my husband or wife or my kids, you know, I had a bad day. Now it’s all over social media, right? These the the people coming out of college, you know, your your emerging workforce, they’ll say, don’t go work there. So there’s your reputation. It’s bigger than it used to be, the cost of conflict. And I think the big one is the cost of compromise. Mhm. When we yield and we compromise too quick right. So compromise should just be a baby step. When we compromise too quick we go down the path, right? We go down the path. And later on. The cost of that compromise can be massive. When one person will then say, I told you we should have done it my way, right? Because we haven’t learned to harness the power in the beginning of the change process of conflict and deal with unproductive conflict as quickly as we can, teaching leaders to dig in there. And that’s what we do all day long. We really just talk about the fact. Now wait a minute. Isn’t this kind of what we want is a little diverse thought process and but it doesn’t have to. Our thought about the word conflict is always like fisticuffs. You know, this big, heavy thing. And it doesn’t have to be that way.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you. It sounds like a lot of what you’re working on when you’re working with organizations is really the culture of the organization. So in order to impact the culture, don’t you have to do some kind of pre-work so that everybody understands the rules of engagement and how to communicate. Because just because I have a contrarian opinion about something, it doesn’t mean that I get to have my way right. Like we have to. I hope I get to at least voice my concern and kind of in a in a non-judgmental manner. But it doesn’t guarantee that my point of view is the thing that gets executed, like somebody has to make a call at some point, and we all kind of have to get on board with whatever that call is if we want the organization to thrive. So how do you kind of handle some of the rules of engagement?

Kim Faircloth: Well, first, it’s to establish rules of engagement, to have a, a process for that to have a culture of it. You’re absolutely right. You know, it’s it’s going in and really working with teams training and development and or coaching teams, teams to work through conflicts using structured processes. We really do believe in them? Oui oui, oui. There are many like you can do. Force field analysis. You can. You know, to debate ideas, to actually go back to having a process where voices are heard and people feel heard acknowledging it. What I like about that idea is this. And here’s my addition to that idea, really taking the time to acknowledge the other person, to listen to what ideas are, bring them forward, um. Celebrate them. Okay, so now we have a lot of ideas. I think this is what you’re saying, Li. Now, we we really do need to work with teams to have structured, data driven reviews of those. And of course, there’s going to be some ideas that float up that aren’t going to be able to, um, be implemented yet and always say the word yet, because when we have outcomes, right, the change model that we actually have in the book is very dynamic. It’s very fast. When you have outcomes, you’re already measuring. You know how they’re working and you need to be as agile as you can be. But you do have to have outcomes.

Kim Faircloth: We’re at work, right? I mean, we need to move through them, but we move too fast because we don’t like that middle part where we’re debating. We we just, um, lots of teams, um, need to have individuals working on their own conflict skills and behaviors. Um, and we get called in to help with that, really that we got the ideas and there will be outcomes, right? I mean, there will be outcomes or your business is going to go out of business, right? It’s that middle part. Are those outcomes richly? Um, uh, debated in the middle. Right. Not it doesn’t have to be overly time consuming. It’s just acknowledging these ideas, putting them forward for a team to look at and debating them. What if what if we do that? What if we don’t do that? What? You know, all of the tools that are available are agile. And our Lean Six Sigma people. You know their. That’s where they have learned that we can have some models and structures in the middle of that. But first has to start with being. Being working on our own behaviors. If I’m avoidant right I need to work on that as a team member. The company should should really invest in that. They really should individual behaviors during conflict. Because then those those behaviors come on the team and then the team manifests that way. Don what are you thinking about that.

Dawn Bedlivy: Yeah I, I, I love what you were describing because it’s really our. We’ve done a lot of work on culture within organizations I think both. Big picture thinking about how do you influence the culture. And part of what we really discovered was it has to be, first of all, it has to be intentional. And we would see a lot of times the leaders at the top would be saying something, right? Kind of what you were describing, Kim. Like, this is how we want people to behave. And then no one has. No one’s rewarding that behavior. And no one’s skilling the people to be actually able to perform that way. So just like Kim was saying, we we we said, well, you can’t just tell people up here and expect everybody to to do it. Right. It it has to be in a very intentional effort by the whole organization to look at, well, are we are we actually address teaching people how to address conflict where it actually happens, which is at the individual and team level. Right. You’ll have it. And it also I shouldn’t say that it also happens at the organizational level. So how do you make how do you normalize it through the organizations skill people to utilize it and harness it for as a catalyst? Right. I think that’s what we’re talking about.

Dawn Bedlivy: And then what are you what behaviors. Because culture is how everyone’s behaving every day in the office. That’s what creates the culture. Like I if if I’m up here in the organization as a CEO and I’m behaving one way, but no one’s behaving like I want them to behave, I have to ask myself what’s going on, right? So it’s what what is being rewarded throughout the organization, what behaviors are being rewarded. And that’s really important. So we’ve done a lot of work where we talk about an integrated conflict management system, but it’s really down to how do you diffuse this throughout your whole organization. And ultimately, if no one has the skills to do it, they’re just not going to be able to do it. It goes to also how we select people. Yeah, I know Kim, we’ve done you’ve done a lot of work on selection processes. You know, are we asking questions in our selection processes about how people handle conflict? Um, so culture is really important. And it’s also really important that the leaders who are there understand that if they do address conflict productively if they do encourage communication. These more positive aspects, if they’re normalizing conflict within the organization, that their behaviors are going to be rewarded as well.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Now can you talk a little bit about, um, maybe the trust issue in all of this? Because, I mean, I’ve interviewed so many people in this subject matter, and when it comes to a lot of leaders are like, yes, we want to be more innovative. We want to lean into change and embrace change. But when reality comes in and then they somebody comes up with ideas or they take chances, obviously they’re not going to bat a thousand. They’re going to have, you know, missed misses. There’s going to be times where they took a shot on something. It didn’t work out. And if those people are demoted or punished or seen as less than, no one’s going to lean into this change or, or even try because they feel like I only they only want winners. And if I’m. How can you kind of play with the edges or test the edges if you’re only going for winners every time? So how do you kind of deal with the trust that’s necessary as foundational in order to, um, you know, have the communication and the and the culture of trust so that they can take risks and not be punished for them.

Kim Faircloth: Yeah. So, well, we have a trust model. There’s so many models in this book. It’s so practical. It really is. It’s not like, um, have emotional intelligence. It’s like, this is what we’re talking about. This is what we mean. And we find that, um, a lot of times our leaders need models. So let’s talk about a trust model. What makes us trust really just about anybody in a professional setting. Right. Um, and maybe in anything. So let me we have the four C’s of trust that that I think are easy to remember. And they really, really, um, go to answering your question. The first is competence, right? If I go to the dentist and they are not competent to do their job right, I’m not going to let them work on my root canal. Another way of saying it is I trust my husband 100%. I do, I’ve been married almost 50 years. I don’t trust him to give me a root canal. He’s not competent to do it. So first thing is, first, your confidence, your ability to, um, ask curious questions and to be a part of your team in that manner really does make me trust you. That’s one. The second, see, is your confidence. If I go to that dentist and get my root canal and they project no confidence at all, I’m going to start to be, um, suspect of whether I’m going to sit in that chair and let you give me a root canal.

Kim Faircloth: Confidence. Really projecting some confidence in what you’re doing, and that comes from knowing what your vision is and holding to it and explaining it and being with your teams. It’s it’s bigger than than we say it all the time, but it really is bigger than that. It’s like you need to do it right so that they can start to see that you’re confident in your leading. So work on that. Really work on that. The third is consistency. And I think this is a big one. This is when Tuchman had it right. Tuchman Tuchman maybe you’ve heard this. It’s like I’m going to say roughly 1969 because there’s some debate about that. But anyway, he said, form storm, norm perform and then atrophy of a team. Right. We that that we teach that all the time. Consistency. So if you say, for example that on this team we’re going to I want us to work as a team. We’re going to value that right. Teamwork. And you say that in your forming stage with the team, you come in as a leader. You say that, you say that, but you don’t hold yourself consistent to that, because the next thing that happens in storm, by the way, storm is what Tuchman said.

Kim Faircloth: Not a little walk in the mud puddle, but storm, which is conflict. Storm. A person comes in and says, hey, boss, let me just tell you about what I’m working on. I’m working on X, y, Z. If that leader doesn’t say, that’s great. Who else is working on that with you? Because I value the teamwork. Why don’t the three of you come in and see me? You see the consistency. Because how will perform is based on our consistency when we form our team up. And that leader really does own a lot of it. And that’s not just supervisory leader project leaders, um, all of those, they really some consistency makes a difference. When I go to get the root canal and I go get the next root canal, and it’s 180 degree different than the first one, I’m going to start not trusting you. So that’s really, really important. And then the final one is so simple. You just care. Like really care. You care about the vision. You care about the company. You care about the people. Those are the four C’s competence, confidence, consistency and caring. If you do, those four people will feel like that. You care about their ideas, you care and they will bring them forward. And you just stay consistent with with what your goals are for debating ideas.

Lee Kantor: Now, what is some symptoms that an organization might have? Um, that maybe they’re not behaving optimally when it comes to conflict. What are some of the things that are happening in the organization that are like, hey, maybe we should contact Kim and Don. What? So what, you know, what is the the clues or the symptoms of, um, maybe conflict dysfunction in an organization?

Dawn Bedlivy: Well, maybe your biggest one. And nobody really wants this, but is, um, are you having lawsuits and complaints against you? That that’s that’s one big clue that perhaps conflict is escalating or information isn’t getting to the right places, I think. Um, another might be you’re not you’re not seeing output or outcomes that you would have expected to see. I think that’s another indicator. And then there are more subtle ones, I think, Kim, that we often see is, you know, are people checked out? You know, can a leader tell that people are just, you know, they’re doing the minimum and then they run out the door? You know, and I don’t mean people who have to get their children to childcare, but, you know, are you really hearing everybody participate? Is everybody engaged?

Kim Faircloth: Um, do you have quiet quitters?

Dawn Bedlivy: Exactly. That’s the question that people quit and forgot to tell you. I think that that’s what you used to advise leaders all the time. Kim. Right. Or do you have people who have already quit and they’re sitting there still. They just haven’t moved on. So I think a lot of what our models teach and what we work with leaders on is how do you notice these signs before they become extreme? Let’s just say. Yeah, right. You know, how do you pay attention to what’s happening on the team? And then back to your point, I think, Lee, how do you create an atmosphere where someone’s willing to come to you and say, hey, look, we’re just not working well together or we’re having a problem with X over here. Because the leaders should be available to help with those types of issues and problems. So if no one’s bringing you an issue, I think that’s another clue.

Kim Faircloth: Yeah. And it shouldn’t be this language of, um, you know, come see me. Not just with the problem, but with the solution. Like, what does that mean? Like, so that’s a first of all, there’s a lot of pressure. I think the other thing is, you know, are people trying to, you know, sort of get your attention and say, hey, boss, before you hear about it on the team, I want you to let you.

Dawn Bedlivy: Know.

Kim Faircloth: That this is going on or, um, you know, are our employees, um, you know, calling in sick. Of course. Some of that. Right. Are you noticing that, like, additional sick leave? Just really the churn ratio? You know, I’m really surprised sometimes in, in companies or organizations that I visit and they’ve had like they’ve watched the churn on the team, the, the, you know, they bring talent up. That’s expensive. They bring talent up. Right. They get it going on the team. And then pretty soon I divorce you because I try to have an idea. Nothing happens. Maybe the first time, that’s okay. Then I try to have another idea. I don’t see anything happening. A third idea. You didn’t even thank me for my idea. You’d never even noticed my idea. Pretty soon I’m going to start divorcing you. And the minute I start looking for a job I have, I have decided that I need to leave the team. Right? So I know that there are people that level up and they have a career progression and I have that. I understand that, but as an HR professional, I know that when I know the out briefs and I think, why don’t we do stay briefings, right, instead of out briefings, right. Why don’t we say what would make you stay here? What? You know, what kind of atmosphere are you looking for? What’s missing here? How can I lead? You better stay interviews. Instead, we do exit interviews. And so in the exit interviews that I’ve been a part of, it really very often gets mentioned that either my ideas don’t get, um, you noticed or, um, conflict on the team is such that I just it’s it’s just a challenge for me to come and sit in that.

Kim Faircloth: And the leader just observes it. They just don’t do anything about it. And I’ll ask, do they know about it? Oh, yeah, they know. Leaders know and they just don’t address it. They think it’ll just go away on its own. Perhaps we have to really just start with with the leaders. It really does. They do need to be engaging. And I think if you’re in at work, often in the in the teams walking about all the old fashioned things that we used to talk about, you know, to talk about. I also think we back to this. Thank you. I’m going to give one more because on every interview we do and in every consultation we do with leadership, we talk about saying thank you. And what we mean by that. Going back to Tuchman, when you notice something coming across your desk and it aligns with what you’re creating, or maybe it’s a spectacular work product, whatever it is, very often as a leader we will go, yeah, that’s great. We need to pick the phone up and we need to make a phone call. Better yet, go there if we can. But in this virtual world, right, do a zoom, whatever you’re going to do. But but try to at least phone call and say, hey, I just want to let you know, I noticed this coming across my desk. This is exactly what I was talking about. Thank you. And don’t say another word. Not. How’s mom? Nothing else. Thank you. And hang up the phone. It’s the only thing they hear is. Thank you. That’s how to make. Thank you stick.

Lee Kantor: Now, what is usually your kind of point of entry in an organization? Are they contacting you to triage something bad that’s happened, or are they ever proactive and want to get ahead of things?

Kim Faircloth: Um, well, it’s, uh, both. It really is. Um, the best way is that’s what we mean by integrated, like, so, you know, integrated, um, means that we do we you’ll find us in the training department, right? In fact, I’ve got a massive training coming up into training. Right. You’ll find us in the Ombudsman Lane, which is the conflict coaching lane. You’ll find us. When? Now we have really separated to the point where a third party external person who has, um, some neutrality to what’s going on can come in and help facilitate dialog. It’s called mediation. Right. We believe in the invitational process where we are inviting voice in the room and we not just a few. After many of these, it’s remarkable how communication did break down. Right. And we can help reestablish it. But it’s all of those. It’s all of those. It’s it’s it’s you have to have this integrated process. I have to be able to touch it. And there’s something called perceived organizational support theory. And what it means is even for organizations, if you’re wondering whether you should invest in this kind of work and having these specialists in your organization who will help you reestablish communication channels, coach all of that through conflict, through that word conflict. Let me just say you perceived organizational support theory would say this, even if I never use it as an employee, just knowing it exists makes me align better with this organization cares about that. And that goes back to Lee. Your question to about trust. Don, do you have anything you want to add to that?

Dawn Bedlivy: No, just from our experience, a lot of times I think from what you were saying, Kim, you’ll start with one type of intervention and it may lead to another.

Kim Faircloth: It sure does.

Dawn Bedlivy: Because I think a lot of times when leaders are presented with a situation, they realize, you know what, I can fix this here, but what I really need to do is skill the team as well. So we’re not in this same place again, you know, so that that’s what I think really inspired Kim in my work many years ago was, look, we could do this all day. You know, keep putting out fires. But but how do you stop the fire in the first place? Right. How do we, um. And then beyond stopping the fire, it’s really our whole mantra, which is what? What? Way back when was trying to happen or emerge, or what exciting new possibilities or ideas could have occurred if everybody wasn’t going down the rabbit hole was something that really, at the end of the day, you know, just distracts us from our work. So I think a lot of times one engagement will lead to not necessarily another engagement, but helping leaders figure out, okay, how do you set a new story or a new way for the team to cooperate and work together so that they see conflict as a positive, and now they’re skilled to handle it on their own? That that’s the ultimate goal.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any advice or tips you can share for leaders right now? Something actionable that they can do today? Um, in order to, you know, help with conflict that might be happening in their organization. Is there something you could share in that regard?

Kim Faircloth: Yeah. Um, what? We have a model here. I’m going to have Don walk through the here model with you. But let me begin by introducing Y. So one is say thank you more, right? A lot more. And make it stick by doing it very purposefully. Two is, um, you know, to be more present, more accessible and more present. Um, we call this the here model. We’ll have Don do it. But the reason that I sometimes cling to my positions, I think really even in mediation, the reason that I cling to my positions or I don’t move off of my position on things, to even share perspective or hear other perspectives is I feel like I’m not heard. And when we use the here model, the first thing for leaders to know is this you don’t have to respond right then. Sometimes the most respectful thing you can do is to hear, and we’ll give you a model for doing that and say these words You have given me so much to think about that I want to pay you the respect to do that. Let’s get back on the calendar tomorrow and then and give yourself space. If it’s an emergency, of course you have to. Or if it’s derailing something big. Of course you have to. But it’s not often that case, right? This thing has been lingering and lingering and lingering. Right? And so you can take a night and you can actually make people feel heard by doing that, by saying, I want to make sure I’m really thinking through what you’ve brought to my attention. And I and I, and I want to respect you with that. So, you know, sometimes be honest with you, I don’t even think what I’m thinking at the moment. I, you know, I have to explore it. And I’m like, you know what? Where am I coming from here? So giving yourself space and time to exercise the here model, Don want to talk about it?

Dawn Bedlivy: Yeah. I think what Kim said is really helpful here, because I think it’s really the first hurdle for anybody is just really noticing that there might be a problem in the first place. So as part of our here model, we have our H, which is we call it honoring the relationship. But what it means is for a leader to really just if they are noticing something, just to maybe call the person aside, set up a meeting and just describe here’s what I’m noticing and here’s why I’m having this meeting about it, because I want to address it. I really want to hear your your thought process. Maybe you’ve received an email from an employee that said, hey, this is going on. And you’re like, you know, you sent me this email. I’m really want to explore with you what’s going on here. So we call that honoring the relationship. And it’s what Kim talked about, just establishing right up front that you, as the leader, heard the individual or noticed something that seems to be happening. And you, you want to get to the bottom of whatever it is. Um, then we do re which is really explore and a lot of what we’re urging leaders to do. There is not do all the talking. So I think oftentimes as leaders, we think that we have to fill the space. And what we teach here is don’t fill the space. If you truly are bringing somebody in and are curious, you have to be curious. You have to suspend your own judgment and you have to let the story unfold. And we have another model sorted, which is also helpful with, you know, how does the leader kind of keep track of what the story is, what what are facts? What are thoughts? What are feelings? But in this stage of explore, what you’re really doing is letting that employee tell you what’s going on.

Dawn Bedlivy: And you’re asking open ended questions. And we always warn people if you really don’t want to hear, the person will know. So, um, and you want to give some time to this individual to really tell what it is they have to tell. So that’s our explore phase. And then we have our, our, our phase where we’re really, um, looking again at and recalling what did this person say? What is it that that, um, you know, where are we now after this story? And oftentimes what you’ll find is that you’ve taken a lot of twists and turns. So our R is really about reflecting on with the person what you heard. And it’s not hey, I think you’re all washed up, you know? Whatever. Um, it’s really about here. I heard you say this, you know? Tell me more about that. It’s reflecting on some of the pieces that you heard, or you might want to understand a little better. And then, um, the last part of ours is really being able to enable and empower. So that’s piece is really about now that this story came out, or now that the person came to you and said whatever it was, um, what are you both going to do? And I think that’s where. Kim, your advice there is really so important for leaders to have heard, because sometimes you’re not going to know what to do.

Dawn Bedlivy: And another thing we often feel as leaders is we have to give an immediate answer. Well, sometimes there isn’t an immediate answer, but what we can say is just what Kim recommended. You know, you’ve given me a lot to think about. I need to talk to X, Y, and Z in the setup of this conversation. It’s really important that the employee understands that whatever they say to you is not necessarily confidential because you work for the organization. And if there’s a problem or there’s again, these are about business issues. And it’s our job as leaders to address business problems. Um, and so what we’re really trying to identify what’s, what’s the problem that’s impacting us here. And then in our last phase always remember to talk about, okay, here’s here’s the steps I’m going to take moving forward, even if it’s just consulting with someone else. I heard you. I’m going to get back to you in a couple of days, but I think it’s also talking to the employee. About what? What do they want to do? You know, what’s what? What what actions are they willing to take? Because it’s really about how do we create the path forward together. So that’s our here model. And I think using that model, we really believe also it helps you illustrate those four CS that Kim mentioned before. Certainly the caring um the competence. Um, it really helps you carry out all of that as a leader. Did you have anything to add there, Kim?

Kim Faircloth: No, we I mean, we probably we don’t have time to explore the sordid model, but having a framework for how you’re sorting this out, because it’s a mess when it comes at you, it’s going to be this and this and this and this. And if you’re being present with them, you don’t want to stop the flow and dig into this quite yet until you get into reflection. So you do want to capture it. I want to really highlight and expand upon something Don said about this confidentiality. I wish even as an ombudsman, but certainly as a leader, I had a nickel for the number of employees who would come to me and say, Kim, can I just tell you something in confidence? And, you know, um, that if I’m honoring the relationship, our first, you know, part of h e e h if I’m really honoring the relationship, do I want to set it up with a lie? No, I like I don’t even know what you’re going to say yet, so I can’t promise you confidentiality, and I don’t even I. So. But we don’t give leaders the words to say, you know, so they have a time to think about it. And I’m often coaching saying, look, it’s it’s like this when you get that and you will. Can I just tell you something in private? You’ll say to them, well, first of all, thank you for trusting me enough to come and bring this to my attention.

Kim Faircloth: I don’t even know what we’re going to talk about. And you’re here for us to work on this. So? So it may be at the end. We have to involve some other people I don’t know yet, so I’m not going to promise you confidentiality. What I will promise you is we’ll only tell the people that need to be told in order for us to move forward with this, and we’ll co-create that at the end. Will, you will know what my next steps are when I’m ready to reach out and do something with this. I’m not going to. I’m going to be transparent with you about that. We’re going to work on this. And I think that’s why you’re here. And I want you to know you’re no longer stuck. You’re here. You actually made the first move. So I’m going to I’m going to partner with you to to work through whatever it is you’re getting ready to tell me. You can do that in your shortened version. But my point is that to give your that honor in the relationship means that you’re setting it up transparently in the beginning. Um, and they and I think it’s an important step.

Lee Kantor: If somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team or get Ahold of your book. What is the website? What is the best way to connect?

Kim Faircloth: Yeah, it’s it’s WWE exchange.

Dawn Bedlivy: Yeah, we’ve got some great materials out there. Right. Free reading. Free reading.

Kim Faircloth: Free on there. Yeah.

Dawn Bedlivy: Sorted on there. We have some, um, free articles that people can look at and get some instant tips I think, that you were referencing. So we encourage folks to please go to our website.

Kim Faircloth: And you can find us on LinkedIn as well. Of course, conflict sparks change will get you there though, in one place or the other, right?

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you Kim and Don for sharing your story today. You’re both doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Kim Faircloth: We appreciate you.

Dawn Bedlivy: Thank you.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor. Here are another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Nicky Billou. He is an author and the founder of the eCircle Academy. Welcome, Nicky.

Speaker3: Lee, thanks for having me on the show. It’s an honor to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Why don’t we start with the circle? Tell us a little bit about eCircle Academy. How are you serving, folks?

Speaker3: So, Lea, we serve entrepreneurs, in particular those that are executive coaches, consultants and thought leaders. These tend to be heart driven men and women that are really, really good at what they do. But they may not necessarily be spectacular Our salespeople are spectacular marketers and brands, and in fact, a lot of these folks might be a little bit stuck inside of growing their business. And what we do, how we serve them is a we help them get mentally unstuck. So they believe in themselves and they believe they can go forward. So we really encourage them to believe in themselves and be we show them how to be effective at selling from the heart. Are you selling in such a way where you don’t feel like you need to take a shower afterwards and see how to go from being invisible to visible in your market space?

Lee Kantor: So let’s. Do you mind if we dive in a little bit here and kind of give some advice and thoughts to our listeners when it comes to this? Because I agree with you 100%. I mean, I can’t tell you how many people tell me. I’m just tired of being this best kept secret. How do you kind of reframe your marketing or what you’re doing in order to have people want to do business with you, instead of you having to kind of constantly be evangelizing and educating and selling people to what you do.

Speaker3: Well, that’s a great question. You know, um, it’s been said you can’t read the label from the inside of the bottle. Have you ever heard that phrase before?

Lee Kantor: Li yes.

Speaker3: So a lot of folks. Right? Really need someone to act as a pair of eyes to help them see what they don’t see. Okay. So a lot of folks that come into business, they’re they’re loathe to specialize and to niche down, you know what I’m saying? They want to, like, cast a wide net. They go, I don’t want to miss out on anything. But the problem is, if you try to be all things to all people, you’re going to be nothing to nobody. Let me tell you a quick story. I had this client. His name was Dan. He’s a fitness trainer and coach. Dan was a good guy. The kind of guy you’d want your sister to date. Okay. Just a super spectacular human being. And he was a good trainer. But what he wasn’t was a good business person because he only had seven clients and he wasn’t charging him very much like 25 bucks an hour at the time. He was making on a good month, $1,200 a month in the city of Toronto. Now, Toronto was the New York City of Canada. I’m sure you can appreciate the $1,200 a month doesn’t go very far in Toronto, just like it wouldn’t in New York, right?

Lee Kantor: Sure.

Speaker3: So Dan comes to see me because he’d heard that I’d helped some people. And the first thing that we did when we got together is I said, Dan, so tell me, who do you help? And he said to me, Nicky, I can help anybody with any health problem. I don’t want to miss out and I’m really good at it. I can help them lose weight. I can help them add muscle. I can help them get ready for events like weddings. And I’m like, hold on, stop. Dan, you’re trying to be all things to all people. He said, yeah, I guess you’re right. So I said, you need to specialize. You need to niche. Then he made the second mistake. He said, okay, I think I’m going to go after doctors. And I’m like, why doctors? He said, well, my dad’s a doctor and I love my dad. I said, okay, that part’s nice, but why else? He said, well, doctors make a lot of money and I’m going after the money. I need to make money. And here’s another thing a lot of folks do. They think they need to just go after markets that have a lot of money. Not necessarily markets they’re passionate about serving. And I told them, damn, this isn’t going to work. That vibe is going to turn people off.

Speaker3: He said, no, man, I gotta try this. So he did. A couple of months he got like two clients and I came over to him and I said to him, Danny, it’s not working. We need to do something else. He said, you’re right, you’re right, you’re right. Niche, niche, niche. Okay, I got a cardiologist, I go, cardiologist. Where’d that come from? He says, well, they make more money than doctors. I’m like, Dan, you’re doubling down on stupid. Don’t do that. He didn’t listen. He did it. He got no clients, no cardiologist. But what he did do serendipitously through the intervention of the good Lord, is he met a man who was a Paralympic athlete who lost a leg in a childhood accident. Now he was really, really able to help this guy. And the two of them connected. Just like peas and carrots from the great movie Forrest Gump. And he helped this guy win some medals at major international competitions. He comes back to me and he says to me, Niki, he’s kind of sheepish. I’m so sorry. You know, I should have listened to you. I owe you an apology. You owe me an apology, man. He said, no, no, no, I do. You know, you told me not to go after the money and that that wasn’t going to work.

Speaker3: And you were right. And, um, I can see that now. What I want to do now is I want to help people with missing limbs, because I really know how to help them. He was coming from his heart this time, Lee. And instantly I knew this was a good idea. And Lee, this is in the days before, you know, online marketing in a big way, an online coaching for fitness coaches and trainers. He signed up 400 clients in six weeks on word of mouth alone, 400 clients. That was over a run rate of a million, two a year, over a hundred grand a month. And why did this happen? A he stopped trying to cast his net wide and be all things to all people be. He stopped trying to just go after money, thinking that was the only way to be successful in business and see. He came from his heart, started helping people too badly, needed his help, and nobody else at that time was trying to help people with missing limbs work out. He was the first person to do it, and that’s why he signed up 400 clients in six weeks and started making a run rate of over 100 grand a month.

Lee Kantor: So you mentioned one of the the keys of the, um, kind of making that big of a jump was word of mouth. Um, how do you kind of create processes and scale around something that’s as tenuous as word of mouth?

Speaker3: Well, my friend, you know, it’s interesting that you mentioned that, um, I don’t believe that anybody should rely on just one form of marketing and lead generation. And I can assure you that as Dan’s business moved forward, he didn’t just rely on word of mouth. Um, and when I talk to people, I talk about 11 different channel strategies for generating revenue, referrals and word of mouth is one of the 11. The other one is to do cold outreach. The third is to run ads. The other one is to do podcasts and podcasts guesting. The fourth is to have a a book funnel, and the list goes on and on and on. And over time, Dan did add these other channels to his business. The point of that I’m trying to make with the story, though, is that he went from trying to be only focused on, um, who can pay me the most to being focused on who am I called and passionate about serving the most. And when he started to do that, that’s when the market really recognized his genius and moved forward with them. But if someone’s working with me in our business, we tell them that you have to have a minimum of three channels that you go after clients with, and we’re completely agnostic as to which ones they use, but they do need to use more than one because at any given time, for example, if you you’re counting on Facebook ads and then something like iOS 14 happens, your Facebook ads aren’t going to work as well. So you need multiple strategies.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you help your clients with maybe the messaging because, you know, you went through your example of the fitness person and he said doctors and his father’s a doctor. I mean, that sounded to me like it was from the heart that he wants to help people like his father. So that wasn’t like a, you know, out of, you know, an insane kind of path. How do you kind of dig down to what is really kind of the, the big why not just the convenient way?

Speaker3: Well, for for Dan, he said that he wanted to help doctors because his dad was a doctor. But the next words out of his mouth is, I want to also help doctors because they got a lot of money And now those two, um, impulses were in competition with each other. Um, what you have to do is you got to first understand what your own zone of genius is, how you can help people. And within that zone of genius, you got to get to the point of who do you enjoy working with the most and why? That’s a question we ask people, and we really have them go deep into answering it before they land on a particular group that they want to help. So if you do that and you’re clear on who you want to help and why, it’s important for you to help them. And the primary reason you’re going after that group isn’t that I think I can make a lot of money from it. I think that’s what’s going to work the best for you, because the buyers of all of these days, they can smell it on somebody if that person is mostly there because they want to get their hand in their wallet.

Lee Kantor: So, um, where does the, uh, circle come in? Like, how does this play a role in your, uh, in your funnel and your the way you serve folks?

Speaker3: Well, like I said, if people are having a hard time leveraging their zone of genius into attracting the right level of clients, the right level of leads, the right level of business, or if they’re having a hard time enrolling people because their enrollment skills aren’t very good. Uh, or if they’re invisible, that’s where we come in. We we.

Lee Kantor: Right. So what is the service you’re providing? Is it a networking service? Is it coaching? Is it like, uh, watch videos?

Speaker3: Yeah, it’s it’s, uh, we have a three day, um, uh, high level mastermind, uh, workshop that we do, uh, four times a year. And we have an ongoing sales accountability, uh, coaching program that is a hybrid of both group coaching and one on one coaching. Um, and, um, we have a year long program that melds both of those together as well. Those are the main offerings we have.

Lee Kantor: So that’s how the people interact with you. They’re going. They do. They have to go through that first stage of the three day event.

Speaker3: Um, if they want to be part of the year long program. Yes, absolutely. Um, if they just want to do sales account accountability, they can do that on its own.

Lee Kantor: So, uh, so you can do coaching. Like, if you I can triage my situation with one on one coaching. That’s that’s an offering. It’s not. You have to do all of it or none of it.

Speaker3: No, no, it’s not like that. It’s not like that. We we we we have a conversation with each individual and we get clear a are we the best people to help them? And if the answer to that is yes, um, I want to get clear on what their biggest pain point is, what’s their bleeding neck. And based on that, I make a suggestion. And honestly, 50% of the time it really it’s a sales issue. So we bring them into our sales accountability program because we teach them how to sell from the heart, but sell because a lot of folks don’t want to go out there and sell. They try to avoid that. They try to post. They try to, you know, get someone to contact people on LinkedIn for them. They just don’t want to get out there and actually meet people and sell. And that’s what we have to help change their minds on. We’ve got to have their mindset be that sales isn’t some horrible thing. Sales is actually an act of love and an act of service. And by helping people get that straight in their being, that honestly helps a lot of people double, triple, quadruple, even tenfold their business once they’ve got that under control and they understand how to have a sales conversation with someone and how to overcome objections, uh, you know, then the next thing that that usually needs to be tackled is their messaging, because usually their messaging is so, so to week. And that’s where our, our three day, um, uh, thought leader workshop comes into play. The mastermind, because we work very much on helping them get really dialed in really tight with their message, and folks who’ve got a really tight dialed in message and know who they’re helping and what their pain points are. Usually have a much simpler time of growing and scaling their business in our experience.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned that there’s multiple channels to use to grow. It sounds like a lot of your clients are professional service providers of some sort. Um, yes. Do they do they have to include paid, or is there a way to do this without doing any paid advertising?

Speaker3: There is. Absolutely. I’m a big believer in organic. Huge huge believer in organic. Okay. Um, so podcasting is, you know, a low paid way of generating business, as I’m sure you’re aware. Right? Like being both a podcaster and a podcast guest doesn’t involve spending tons of money. Right. I mean, as a podcaster, you could spend 500 a thousand bucks a month on putting out your show, but you could also do it all yourself and not spend that money. The other thing that you can do is to be a podcast guest, and you can use channels like Pod Match, which is how you and I met. And that’s a wonderful way for you to be able to, um, generate leads and sales and clients without spending a lot of money. Right. And cold outreach, let’s face it. You know, good old fashioned calling, emailing, messaging doesn’t cost a lot of money. It just takes a lot of time. Now there’s other channels, right? Like we talk about your warm market network. Your own warm market, a fantastic place for you to reach out for business that’s not going to cost you money. Um, you can go on LinkedIn now.

Speaker3: If you do it yourself, it’s not going to cost you money, but it will cost you time. Uh, if you hire somebody, then that’ll cost you money that’s paid online funnels, obviously, those are paid stages. Now, usually when you go on stages, you have to pay to be on the stage or you do a revenue share. Same with strategic partnerships. Same with affiliates. Right. Um, but there’s channels like books and video channels which are not free, but they’re low, low investment. So you can get a book done without AI today for under $1,000. With AI, you can get a book done for under 100 bucks. So that could be a wonderful way for you to get books in the hands of your ideal clients that talk about the key problems that they have and video channels, you know it’s going to cost a bit of your time. You’re going to have to buy a camera, you’re going to have to buy a good microphone. But that’s pretty much all you have to invest in if you want to get, um, leads, sales and clients from that particular strategy. So I took you through all ten right now.

Lee Kantor: Well, how do how are you seeing the evolution of a lot of this content marketing with the advent of AI and a lot of the Google searches are kind of, uh, diminishing, and then a lot more of the results are AI driven answers.

Speaker3: Well, brother, these days, um, I is evolving so fast, I don’t know that I have a hard and fast answer for you, but I can tell you this. Um. If you are not taking the time to learn about how to use AI in your business, within a year or two, you might be out of business. Completely out of business. Um, we’re using AI to come up with, uh, some ways to generate leads. I am not including it in these channels that I took you through, because we haven’t tested it to the point that we can say, yeah, this works. This is something people can rely on. We’re also using AI to create a lot of the content, um, that we deliver to our clients. And that has been extremely helpful because we’ve gone from spending ten, 15 hours a week on content creation to spending like less than an hour a week on content creation. And there’s been no drop off in the quality of what we’re delivering to people. So that’s where I can be absolutely super stick.

Lee Kantor: So how would you as a, I don’t want to say, a professional podcast guest, but somebody who has a lot of experience as a podcast guest. How do you take one interview like you would maybe with this one we’re doing right now? And then how do you kind of leverage AI to kind of wring out the most value from this content that we’re creating right this second?

Speaker3: Well, we’ve used AI to create reels and put those reels out there from my own podcast. I haven’t used AI for content. For me being on a guest. Primary reason I come on a show, as I said to you before, is I really want to build relationships with audiences and hosts and this is what I think works. This is a little bit of a high tech veneer on a low tech idea back in the day. You know, in the 70s and 80s in the early 90s, a lot of people would generate new relationships by meeting with people having networking lunches and coffees. Podcasting is a new way to do that. In the last three years, I’ve been on over 780 shows, so I’ve developed over 780 new relationships. You may recall before we went on air, one of the questions I asked you is, can we spend a few minutes when we’re done for you and how to get to know each other? And I don’t know how many people have asked you that. And my experience, hardly anybody has ever asked me that when I’ve been the host. But I think that’s missing out on a massive opportunity. You and I have spent ten, 15, 20 minutes getting to know each other a little bit. Be great to end that conversation by having a bit more of a directed conversation about you and what you do and me and what I do, and that’s how relationships get built. That’s what’s been powerful about podcast guesting for me.

Lee Kantor: So any advice for people who want to? Um, I would agree with you 100% that I don’t think that individual professional service providers leverage relationships enough, and they don’t put in the effort to kind of create human to human relationships. They do what you said, I think at the at the top of this was, you know, they want to post and hope and then hope somebody connects with them. And then something magical happens, which I think, as you and I both know, that that’s like a lottery ticket, that the odds of that are are slim to none. For most of the people out there who don’t have a really engaged audience. But building human to human relationships is an old school way that still, I think works in today’s world.

Speaker3: I agree 1,000% 1,000% too few people understand how to do that. Number one piece of advice I give to people is, um, first of all, start being a guest on podcast. You can leverage platforms like Pod match, and if you’re not doing that, you’re missing out, because that’s a great way to meet a lot of great new business people. Secondly, prepare for your appearance. Know what you’re going to say. Answer questions. Have stories. You heard me. I gave you a couple of stories as part of this Fox Talbot story cell. Right? I’m sure you’ve heard this before. Um, and that’s really important for people to understand. And thirdly, for crying out loud, you’re taking 15 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour, an hour to spend time with a host who’s generally a good human being with good intentions, who’s trying to make a difference in the world, who’s a seeker, who’s looking for answers themselves, and who’s almost always a fellow business person. Why would you not take some time to get to know them? You know? So if you do these things, be useful to the audience. Do a good job for the host and spend some time with the host. Hello. This is going to exponentially expand your network work, and too many people today are trying to avoid having human human interaction and hoping that somehow sales magically happen. I got news for you. As of yet, it’s not working that way too well for most people. So why don’t you try it my way? You might be pleasantly surprised with the results.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, get a hold of the book. Finish line thinking how to think and win like a champion. I guess you have several books. The Thought Leader’s Journey, A Fable of Life and the Power of Connecting how to activate Profitable Relations Relationships by serving your network and the Circle Academy. Where should they go? What do they what should they do next to connect with you or somebody on the team?

Speaker3: So to get the books, you just go on Amazon, right? And type in my name, Nikki Blue. I’m the only Nikki Blue in the world that’s pretty easy to find me. Any mistakes there? Um, in terms of connecting with myself or the team. The best way to do that is we offer what’s called a complimentary success call, and you can book that by going to our website Academy. Com slash appointment. So if you’re stuck in your business and you want to get unstuck uh, and in particular, if maybe you’ve lost a little bit of faith, a little bit of hope, a little bit of belief, and you just want someone to get you infused with some of that hope, faith, belief and encouragement. Go to E Circle Academy. Com for appointment and we’ll be happy to do that for you.

Lee Kantor: Well, Nikki, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Speaker3: Lee, thanks for having me on the show. It’s an honor to be here.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.