The Essential Guide to Getting Promoted
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Summary
Have you been languishing in the same role at work, frustrated that you haven t been promoted to a higher position with more pay and different responsibilities? My guest can help you level up in your career, his name is Randy Ornstein, and he s the author of Grow: The Essential Guide to Getting Promoted. Today, on the show, Randy explains why getting promoted is more beneficial to your paycheck than getting a raise, and his case for why you should stick with working for the same company for a long time.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast
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have you been languishing in the same role at work frustrated that you haven't been promoted
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to a higher position with more pay and different responsibilities my guest can help you level up
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in your career his name is randy ornstein and he's the author of grow the essential guide to
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getting promoted today on the show randy explains why getting promoted is more beneficial to your
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paycheck than getting a raise and his case for why you should stick with working for the same
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company for a long time we then talk about the things you need to do so that management thinks
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of you the next time a higher position opens up we discuss how promotable employees participate in
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meetings execute the communication study their work and develop best practices we also talk about when
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to bring up the idea of being promoted to your boss and a couple of the challenges that can come with
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advancing up the ranks after show's over check out our show notes at awim.is get promoted
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all right randy ornstein welcome to the show thank you brett appreciate it thanks for having me
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so you got a new book out it's called grow the essential guide to getting promoted what led you
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to write a book about getting promotions at work yeah it's been a very exciting process writing this
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book but throughout my career mainly in beverages i was promoted nine times over my career and seven of
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those times at anheuser-busch within a 15-year period and for me after a few of those promotions when i was
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younger it became a game to me of like how how could i continue to grow up the corporate ladder
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and be successful at this amazing company and earlier on in my career when i was low 20s
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i would see that the vice presidents had like their own offices and like even gold plates that had their
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names on it and i was like oh my god how could i ever get to that level i didn't think i had it in me
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and i think i kept getting more confidence when i got promotions early on i don't think i was doing
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anything spectacular but i guess i was doing enough to wow my boss and be the best person for the next
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position and so as i've moved up the corporate ladder at anheuser-busch and people started to
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notice i was periodically asked by this guy who led this program where he hired roughly 30 college
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graduates every year to join anheuser-busch they would go through a six-month training program
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and at the end of the program there was a graduation and i was asked to give the keynote speech
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to talk about like how i moved up and got promoted anheuser-busch and some tips to succeed
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and i i did this speech or a few times throughout my career i would usually have just five tips i'd have
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one slide but like here's five tips i learned at anheuser-busch to get promoted and one would be
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data is power and i would talk about how i use data effectively with my time working with walmart
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or kroger target and one would be be persistent and i talk about how i was very persistent with the
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people that i work with and years later those individuals would come up to me at different
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meetings or happy hours and say randy i still remember those five tips that you gave me and
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they really helped me throughout my career and you know it happened over and over again and it just
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stuck and it got me thinking i should formalize this much better and write a book about them and
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share them with the world yeah no i think it's interesting you point out at the beginning of your
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book a lot of career books and business how-to books and articles they focus on how to get raises at
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work which is you know that's that's good but you make the case that there's a benefit to thinking
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about how to get a promotion instead of just thinking about how to get a raise so what are
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the benefits of thinking about and pursuing promotions within your company instead of just
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thinking about how can i get a raise yeah well first of all promotions are more monetarily valued at
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so usually a promotion means that you get in the range of a 10 15 20 raise versus your
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annual raise that you might get is usually between two and four percent so think about it if you were
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to just get a raise in your current job it would take you like four five years to get to the same
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value had you moved up one level in your company plus when you get a promotion and you move up you're
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typically getting a bigger bonus and more equity in that company as well and so a promotion means
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moving up a level getting more responsibility potentially managing people as well and you know
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if money is one of those factors that you're looking to do you're going to make a lot more
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money in a promotion than just a regular annual raise and i imagine too it gives you new opportunities
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for growth you get to do things you didn't get to do at your previous level and there's value in
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that as well for some people exactly i mean you want to understand more aspects of your business
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versus just maybe the the niche that you're in today and so typically as you are promoted more
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responsibility maybe more hours but you're also working with more leadership and when you work with
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more leadership that are also not just in your department but different departments that gives you
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more opportunities to grow as new jobs open up so i've seen articles i'm sure other people have seen
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these articles too about how employees should switch employers more often because it'll increase their
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chances of making more money right so the idea is if you switch employers you'll usually get a pay bump
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but you highlight there are benefits of sticking with a single company and climbing up the corporate
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ladder what are those benefits you think yeah i definitely disagree with those articles that you should
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continue to move to different companies and get more money and while maybe that's true that you could get
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a bigger salary you're building no loyalty with the companies that you work with and when you constantly
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switch companies every two three years you're not even getting enough knowledge in that current company
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to really deep dive and figure out everything you need to do to be successful when i interview people
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for different jobs and i look at their resume and i see that they had a job every two years
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and maybe five jobs over 10 years with five different companies i'm not going to hire that person
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because why should i bring on a person for just two years knowing that after two years they're going to
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get bored and move somewhere else and one aspect is maybe they're moving to different companies because
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they can't get promoted in the current company and their only way to grow is to switch companies which
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is not what i look for in a team member or someone to join my team so i'm looking for loyalty when i'm
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looking to hire someone i'm thinking in five ten years could they eventually take my role you're always
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trying to find better talent and so and you do build in the end long-term money because the longer you stay
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with the existing company the more equity stock options that you would build within that company
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if you left every few years most likely the equity that you potentially would have got
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would not be worth anything because they have not been vested in time or worth anything and so
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definitely value building your career staying with one two companies throughout what would you say
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to the argument i've seen too i've read of people well i'm not going to be loyal to a company
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because that company would just lay me off if they had to so why should i have that what would you say
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to that what would you be your response to that i mean yes layoffs have been frequent but i think it's
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like not everyone gets laid off and there's always like strategies of like i'm not going to be laying
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off like my best talent and so if you are a strong worker you're building good relationships the chances of
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you getting laid off are going to be much slimmer than others and so if you believe in the company
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that you work for which you need to do and you think there's a good career mobility for you then i
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would stick it out but if you're joining a company and you're just not excited then yeah maybe there's
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an opportunity to move somewhere else but to move to companies every two to three years is just not a
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recipe for success yeah i mean i imagine it takes it could take five ten years to really understand
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what the company's doing for you to actually have success it's like you see this with um i get really
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frustrated with sports teams they'll hire a coach and then if the coach doesn't produce results in a
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year they fire them and i'm like man you need two three maybe even more than that to establish a system
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introduce the system through all the levels not just the players but with the rest of the staff
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you know it could take five years before you can turn a team around i hate how it's just like well
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you didn't give us results right away you're done but it takes time to get results exactly and it's
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the same in business i'm building a team right now at gopuff where i work and i brought in some really
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good talent back in the end of 2021 and it takes them six months plus to get used to the systems that
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we have and the changes versus their prior company and so now the bulk of my team has been here
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a year a year and a half we're like just getting our groove and now we're having a really good year
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and so you know in business it takes time too you got to build the team you got to train them
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you know there's always going to be a little bit of turnover where you're constantly training but
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it it takes time but not everyone thinks that way and they're just reacting quicker than than they want
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and and that just is there is not a recipe for success all right so let's talk about what someone
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can do to increase their chances of getting a promotion you cite research that job performance
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is one of the factors most associated with moving up in a job so in the first part of your book you give
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tips on better performance doing the the everyday things of your job excellently so let's talk about
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some of the areas of work you can get better in starting with meetings a lot of people they hate
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meetings but they're sometimes a necessary part of corporate life so what can you do to get more out
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of your meetings so you can get promotions yeah i'm in meetings all day you know it's like straight
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sometimes i don't even have a break to eat lunch it's the way we live the world we live you know
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we're half virtual half in person and so could be sitting on zoom calls throughout the day and
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it's important that number one you speak up you're not just like another person on that zoom call
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or in person that's half listening half working and you're adding no value so it's really important
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that if you're in a meeting you're paying attention you're listening to the speaker you're asking
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questions or giving comments or providing feedback on how to improve so the people know that you're there
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you're adding value you're listening you're learning you're changing processes you know i have many
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team meetings with my team usually a monday and friday team meeting and then sporadic ones throughout the
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week and i know which people speak up every time because they do it and i also notice which people
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haven't said a thing in six weeks eight weeks and you know that's in my head as we do employer reviews
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in the next cycle you know i'm asking why aren't they speaking up are they even listening to what i
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say and so i think it's a pretty easy thing you'll get noticed as you add value in meetings and so you
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got to pay attention you get off stop working think of questions to ask even if you can't get a question
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out if you're on zoom type it into the chat or even send a note to the organizer after the meeting
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and same in person raise your hand and speak up you know don't be afraid and just do it and of course
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you want to speak up but like provide value just don't want to speak up just to take up airspace
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right that can get annoying if you do that yeah it could be i think do it once in a while that's fine
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even if you're agreeing with something but you also don't need to agree every time to everything
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that people say you could push back i value the people that don't agree with what i say
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but they also then provide a solution a better solution to what i said and i appreciate that
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yeah you talk about in the book one of the frustrating things you have when you have a
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meeting where you're looking for feedback you're looking for like devil's advocates yeah saying what's
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wrong with this thing and no one says anything you're like oh geez this is not helpful guys i need
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you to push back against me yeah i think it's okay like i'm not all-knowing nor is anyone all-knowing
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we all have diverse backgrounds we all have unique experiences that we could add i'm usually
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giving my perspective which could completely be wrong and i own that and i'm expecting the team
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to challenge me if i have something that i'm presenting that's incorrect or inaccurate or if
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they have a better way like that's the only way we're going to get better is if the cross-functional
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or the diverse group comes together and builds together versus like one person saying how it is and
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that's it i think a lot of people might be afraid of speaking up or being contradictory because
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well i don't want to cause a scene or it might upset my boss but i think you just got to kind
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of throw caution to the wind and just go for it and you can do this in a collegial way not to be a
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jerk about it like you said point out the issue and then propose a solution right you know i i think
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the the younger people are less apt to speaking up because usually they're in lower roles and they
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might think that only the more senior people need to speak up that's a hundred percent not true
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i have different age groups different genders on my team different experiences and i want to hear
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from all types because even the younger consumer or the younger person on our team has a completely
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different experience than someone that's 20 years older with kids and a family and versus the single
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you know when we deal with my line of business where i manage the alcohol business at go puff our
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core consumers a lot younger than the average and so it's important to hear from anyone no matter their
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level no matter their age and you just got to do it it's just yeah even if you're shy it's important
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if you truly want to get noticed and move up the ladder you can't be a silent person just sitting in
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meetings half paying attention and not adding value okay so meetings you might hate them but
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they're a necessary part of your job so get the most out of them another part of people's job that
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they hate is communications so like email phone calls slack text but you said you got to excel at
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this stuff so what's your advice on managing work communication i think it's like staying on top of
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your your messages and we all get a lot of emails i think we get less phone calls than ever it's now
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text slack and email i know walmart had a rule of thumb called the sundown rule where every buyer was
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requested to respond to their suppliers by the end of the day so there's like a 24-hour rule
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you know i've never operated with the rule nor has any company i worked with i think it's common
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courtesy though that when a supplier or an intolerant person is contacting you for something
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or asking you for something even if it's a no you should respond back in 24 or 48 hours
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versus that person constantly re-emailing them every few days and you're just deleting it or not
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responding it's it to me it's common courtesy i would expect the same if i'm trying to sell to someone
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or sending an email to someone i want to make sure that i get a response back in a timely manner
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certainly there's always issues where someone's on vacation or someone's really working on a busy
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project but you know one way to get around this if you do have a very busy schedule is schedule a
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meeting with yourself for 30 minutes a day or every two days where you're literally focused on responding
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to the communications that you got i think slack is a little bit more instantaneous we use slack
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for internal and so like if you hadn't respond to a slack message from your boss in 24 hours
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you know that would be a no-no you're you're expected to have slack up on your screen
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and responding all the time doesn't mean you need to respond within a minute but you just got to stay
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on top of it and that's how we get business done yeah if you're not communicative and you're not
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following up it's very hard it's just got to be part of the way that you work and you have to manage
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that responsibly and you give some advice on how to manage this stuff so there's like tips on putting
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acronyms in the headline so that people know well this is just for information so you don't have to
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respond that's enough you don't want to do that thing where it's like a one-word response thanks
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you just waste everyone's time with that and just wasting your time responding with thanks
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i'm not a fan of someone responding thanks or one word as a response and then like five other people
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then do it and now you have like six emails that are just wasting your time and so if you are going
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to respond to an email where you're writing thank you for the information explain why you're thanking
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them you go a little bit more in depth or if you do you have like an important email that you're
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sending to a client or your boss make sure that in the header it says you know action i need a
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response and then highlight in the email like exactly which question just so you could cut through a
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little bit of the clutter especially if you need something urgent so definitely the way you write your
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emails don't write a whole novel you know bullet point them better and if you need something urgently
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responded to put a note in the header yeah the bullet points i do that with emails and i keep
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the bullet points if it's like more than three it's probably i need to get on the phone and discuss
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this because it's it's all the problem a lot faster just getting on the phone just hashing it outside of
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having the person respond to like 10 different bullet points and you're a big proponent of the
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telephone too if you need something right away or the problem is too complex for slack or email
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don't be afraid of the telephone and that might be hard for younger workers who aren't you know it's
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not something they do a lot but the phone can be really powerful yeah you sort of just said it a
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minute ago like why would you need to waste time writing you know a long email it'll take you an hour to
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write it versus just picking up the phone and talking for five minutes you just saved yourself a bunch
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of time and in slack and we use it internally but we could quickly zoom or huddle with with internal
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people external people you know a little tougher you got a text or call but yeah definitely i've noticed
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that over the years the people that at least from my suppliers that call me are on the older side
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because that's like what they're used to doing and the younger suppliers they're more for email so
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phone is not lost it's important it's important to build relationships
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and you just got to do it we're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors
00:19:50.840
and now back to the show to be good at communication that will make your boss's job easier staying on top
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of your communication will get you noticed another thing you talk about is studying you have to study a
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lot on the job studying what do you mean by that and how will that help someone get a promotion
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yeah definitely knowing your numbers is like point number one so if you're in a sales role let's
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pretend i'm a supplier selling an iced tea brand i want to make sure that i know all of the numbers
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of my performance so what are my weekly sales which metro is growing the most which of the retailers
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am i in have the best performance if i've been selling for a few years how's my performance
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versus last year what is my distribution what is my price point how is it compared versus competition
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and these are numbers that you should know if if you're in an elevator with your boss and they're
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like how's your performance or how's your business you should be able to recite that in 30 seconds a
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minute without saying oh let me get back to you and if you say that that's like a telltale sign
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that you don't know your business like you should be an expert on what you sell or what you manage
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in my work as i mentioned i manage the alcohol business at go puff i need to understand how does
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beer perform versus wine versus spirits and then every week which of those three is growing faster
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than the others and then if spirits is growing faster is it coming from vodka or tequila and then if
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vodka is growing the most then which brands is growing it is it tito's or speca and then you keep
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going down and then which market and so every company that i've been a part of has had like a weekly
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performance review where you're usually reporting back to your management or boss about your performance
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where are your gaps and how you can improve them and it's an it's really important that you understand
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the business that you work in and so by doing that you need to study you should have depending on the
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systems that you have we have a tool called looker where we have all these automated reports that we
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could pull up and i could see all of my weekly sales i could look at syndicated data like iri or nielsen
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to understand how my business is performing versus competition and i set aside time every week to review
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those reports to make sure that i'm familiar because i'm constantly getting questions from
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management on what happened and i want to be able to answer them and i'm also constantly asking my team
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what happened as they even get more into the weeds you know the beer team is going to even get deeper
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into beer and they're going to provide me insights as well so that i could then be able to provide
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management if those questions are asked so it's a huge you know for me number one it's it's like
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knowing your business but you got to study to know your business and you just got to take the time
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to do it okay so this could apply if you're in sales if you're a project manager know the numbers
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what's the status of your project if a boss asks what's going on you don't want to say well i don't
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know you got to know that stuff so study what's going on inside your company but then also you talk
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about you mentioned study what's going outside what are trends that are happening in your area of
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expertise right and how can you utilize that for your division or what you're in charge of
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a hundred percent it's not even just looking at data but if you know if i use the example of
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selling an iced tea brand i got to go to whole foods or public's or kroger different grocery stores
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or convenience stores when i have time just to see what are they doing what different brands are out
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there i'm going on social media and seeing what people are drinking the syndicated data helps you
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look at actual data to see which brands are growing faster than the average and so it's really
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important not just to know your own business but then what are your competitors doing if you have
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competitors as well because in the end we all want to be the best and so it's important that
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you understand what they're doing so you can beat them at their own game so the second half of your book
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you talk about going above and beyond the everyday stuff to get a promotion and one of those ways you can go
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above and beyond is developing best practices for your company so what do you mean by a best practice
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yeah a best practice is something that saves you time saves you money or brings in more dollars
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and it could be anything it could be as simple as combining two excel reports into one it could be
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more complex as developing working with your it department to develop a new process that your
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suppliers use that makes things move faster you know one example that i could think of on the team
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that i manage is a cost collection process that we have with our wholesalers for alcohol where an
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individual on my team developed like this monthly cost collection process through this jot form
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where suppliers now could go in monthly and update costs and it comes to us in the same manner every
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single time versus just telling our wholesalers to give us cost changes when something increases and
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we have all these different formats and it takes time to put all together and so we condensed the
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process and and it was a free thing like you don't have to add you don't have to create or put a budget
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together it was just like something that we put together and now it reduces the time that it takes to
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accept these costs in half and so a best practice is not always given to you like i expect the team
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to come up with best practices that will help make their job easier sometimes it's given to you like
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there could be a project given where we like hey we need to reduce our budget by a million dollars but
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grow our sales by a million dollars you know how would you do that and then that's like a session but
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i expect that you're constantly thinking of ways
00:26:02.280
so that you can work on new things to drive results and i call that a best practice
00:26:07.260
so find problems within your company and solve them do you need to wait around like should you ask for
00:26:12.000
permission to start or should as long as you just like i see this issue i'm just gonna
00:26:15.320
i'm gonna solve it right now and create a best practice for it
00:26:17.920
yeah i think most of the times you don't need permission assuming that it's like a no budget
00:26:22.860
best practice if the practice that you're putting together requires a budget that definitely would
00:26:28.500
need to get your management involved as that has to go through like a budget review process and there
00:26:33.860
needs to be checks and balances as well and checkpoints to ensure that you're working through
00:26:39.700
it and that the money that you received you're actually putting the good use but most of the times
00:26:45.540
and what i appreciate the most if i'm meeting with someone on my team they've already showed me
00:26:52.400
they're like hey i saw this issue here's what i did and here's the result versus even the reverse
00:26:59.120
they're telling me of an issue but they're not giving me a solution how to fix it and so you know
00:27:04.700
the person that was proactive that actually developed it they already met with the team
00:27:09.140
they put it together and here's the results to me that's a person that is desired to move up the ladder
00:27:16.400
uh you also talk about it's important for employees to get better at asking for things in order to get
00:27:22.120
a promotion why is that yeah i think you you need to constantly be open with your boss i i would
00:27:29.780
recommend that you have a weekly touch point with them where you're typically going over
00:27:35.000
projects that you're working on that's usually what you would do in that meeting but then
00:27:40.800
maybe once a month you're talking more about your own individual performance and if there's an issue
00:27:48.420
like what do you need to fix that issue and quite frankly a lot of times it's something that requires
00:27:54.280
more funding maybe it's more it help maybe it's a headcount if you don't ask for those things it's hard
00:28:02.280
for your management to know what you actually need and by asking and saying here's what i need to be
00:28:09.800
successful and yes it might cost money but here's what i need it makes you think okay this person
00:28:16.300
really is trying to improve this process and you need to ask for it like don't just sit there
00:28:22.960
do your job and say oh i can't do that project or initiative because i don't have the resources you need
00:28:31.520
to speak up and ask for it you might not get it every time there's always things going on in the
00:28:36.900
company that is tougher but if you're vocal about it and you explain why you need it the benefit from
00:28:44.880
it the roi from it i would say more than often you'll get the yes to get those resources and you
00:28:51.700
would expect the same when you're in that same position as well from your people under you talk
00:28:57.060
about the role mentors can play in helping secure promotions what does that look like yeah i think
00:29:02.420
mentors are very important and i think less and less companies today have a true mentorship program
00:29:07.940
so it's really on you to find that mentor to help guide you it's definitely not your boss it's either
00:29:17.220
someone that you've looked up to throughout your career or maybe it's someone that's moved to a
00:29:23.780
different company but maybe was your boss at the time i think they will help you especially if the
00:29:30.680
mentors in your own company they could help open doors for you so you could be probably a lot more
00:29:36.380
open with them than your current line manager of like this is what i you know i really wanted to
00:29:43.760
try and join the supply chain or operations team but i'm on sales and it's hard for me to make the shift
00:29:50.280
and maybe that person could help introduce you to people or or find connections for you or
00:29:58.640
introduce you to people outside of different organizations i i just think that they could
00:30:04.040
open up a lot more doors assuming that they value the mentor mentee relationship they've also most
00:30:10.800
likely built very strong relationships with other people and i've had like three or four mentors
00:30:15.580
throughout my career that nothing was like a formal process where i would meet with them monthly it was
00:30:22.600
just like they were a mentor of mine when i needed anything i could call them or text them
00:30:26.840
like hey do you have 15 minutes to talk about this and they would give me advice and i valued that
00:30:34.300
advice and now i'm able to pay it back and i have different mentees you could call it some in my current
00:30:41.420
company but some throughout prior companies that i've worked for that do the same thing they ask me
00:30:46.840
questions they're like hey you know i'm thinking of leaving my current company and here's the jobs i'm
00:30:52.440
looking at or like i i've been in my role for three years i want to get a promotion what do i need to
00:30:57.820
do to move up the ladder and so i think it helps tone your skills whether you're a mentor or a mentee
00:31:05.580
and then helps you in your career as now i manage people i'm giving employer views i'm able to use some
00:31:10.360
of the skills i have of about how i'm mentoring people in the same way okay so you don't want your boss
00:31:17.220
to be your mentor but how do you know or how do you figure out that someone could be a good mentor
00:31:22.780
i mean are there traits or characteristics you're looking for in a potential mentor well i think it's
00:31:27.300
got to be someone that you have a good relationship with that is not someone that maybe you think would
00:31:33.400
be a good mentor but every time you try and talk to them they have no time for you like they need to
00:31:38.240
make the time they need to value the the mentor mentee partnership like who do you connect with maybe
00:31:44.840
you're at a team function out you know traveling and you just connect some with someone maybe you're
00:31:51.640
both runners and you happen to run together in the mornings before meetings when you're traveling
00:31:56.880
it depends like you got to build a connection and i think they should always be a level or two higher
00:32:03.320
than you because you want to you know certainly you're trying to aspire to move up you want to have
00:32:07.760
someone that's got a little bit more experience that also knows more of the leadership because
00:32:14.300
when you're trying to get a new job or you're applying for a new position within your company
00:32:19.820
that mentor could hopefully help you as well by talking to the hiring manager if they know them
00:32:26.240
and putting in a good word for you even though that person might not have like directly worked with
00:32:31.000
you every day you also talk about the importance of being flexible about where you live to increase
00:32:36.320
your chances of getting promotion how can that help you get a promotion
00:32:39.000
yeah it certainly depends on your company if your company only has one office and everyone lives in
00:32:44.920
that one office then usually relocating is not an option but for a company like anheuser-busch that i
00:32:50.920
worked for in the past where we sell anheuser-busch products basically throughout the world you need to be
00:32:59.540
able to move sometimes to move to get promoted i had to move to bentonville arkansas to work with
00:33:06.780
walmart the largest retailer out there i could not have worked with that retailer if i didn't live
00:33:12.100
in arkansas that was a demand by the retailer that their suppliers need to live there and that was
00:33:17.980
probably the best decision i've ever made in my career moving to a town i've never been to but
00:33:23.460
working with this amazing retailer that while stressful at times is the leader and i gained so much
00:33:29.860
experience from it and so you also gain a lot more experiences moving to different towns whether
00:33:36.400
they're small or large you're building more relationships as well with different people
00:33:42.560
yeah it's tough you know i moved a lot more when i was younger i think i've moved seven times now
00:33:48.380
but now i live outside of philadelphia i have you know two kids that are in elementary school and
00:33:53.600
it would be tougher in my career right now to move for a job unless it really meant a significant
00:33:59.700
increase in role monetary value to make it worth it it's not for everyone but the companies that are
00:34:06.240
national or global that have offices throughout the country if you want to gain new experiences
00:34:12.000
one way to do that is to relocate where the office is okay let's say you've been doing all this stuff
00:34:18.940
right you've been making the everyday excellent going above and beyond by establishing best practices
00:34:23.860
getting the mentor things like that at what point do you bring up the idea of a promotion to your boss
00:34:30.040
well it's definitely not after three months in that role and quite frankly that happens all too often
00:34:36.780
the person thinks oh i've been enrolled three months i'm crushing it i'm ready for the next step
00:34:41.740
but uh you have to be strategic so you know every company i've worked for has had an annual
00:34:48.460
annual performance review so certainly during that annual performance review you should be talking
00:34:53.860
about what you need to do to move to the next level but periodically during your one-on-ones with
00:34:59.600
bosses you should also be bringing that up because you don't need to talk about this just once a year
00:35:04.420
but you also don't need to be talking about it once a week so depending on the style of your boss
00:35:11.020
and how you work every one two months you should be like gauging how am i doing am i doing all the
00:35:20.060
right things and then if you've been in enroll two three years and you see no signs that you're going
00:35:27.800
to be promoted you need to be vocal and like what am i doing that is not causing me to move up or what
00:35:35.200
should i be doing to you know to help especially if you see other people moving up that have been
00:35:40.280
in a role less than you so you don't want to be that person that's every week when am i getting
00:35:45.480
promoted when i'm getting promoted because then it gets annoying and then you get turned off but
00:35:50.420
it needs to be an ongoing discussion but excel on your job first you know after three six months is
00:35:59.120
not the time that's too soon okay and also be having these check-ins periodically throughout
00:36:04.280
the year so your boss is aware of what you're doing is there documentation that you should be
00:36:08.840
keeping track of just like on a daily basis so that when you go that performance review you can say
00:36:13.980
well here are the things that i've done i think everyone does it differently what i would advise
00:36:19.820
is um and i and i just did this like a month ago we had our performance review process and
00:36:25.660
you have to write down all of your accomplishments that you had it's very hard to think of everything
00:36:30.820
you did in 2022 and so yes if you want to have your own document that you're constantly updating
00:36:38.440
with a best practice you implemented or a success that you had or something that you think would be
00:36:45.880
valuable for that employer review it would be helpful if you document it or save an email where you
00:36:52.120
have like a very good response from your boss on so that when you do write your employer review
00:36:57.980
you're basically copying pasting the information versus trying to think and most likely you will
00:37:03.640
forget things and so i've never seen it as a formal process it's up to you depending on if you think
00:37:10.380
you can remember or not but i would definitely do that i know you didn't discuss this in the book
00:37:15.560
but i just thought about this let's say you get the promotion and your experience of getting
00:37:19.060
promotions and then overseeing the promotions of employees that you oversaw what are the biggest
00:37:23.680
challenges you have when you first start off in your new position in your new role in that promotion
00:37:28.420
what have you seen one big challenge is like the transition from old job to new job typically when
00:37:37.640
you're in the new job you're still doing work of the old job until they've hired a replacement
00:37:42.740
and then when they've hired the replacement it's your responsibility to usually train that person
00:37:47.880
and start moving your old work to that person because if you never do that then your workload
00:37:54.320
is just going to continue to grow and so you need to do that you need it like again depending on what
00:38:02.260
type of role you're moving into you got to shift and as you move up you got to start delegating so
00:38:08.780
when i give work out to employees especially my senior employees i might give them a project but i'm not
00:38:16.400
expecting them to do a hundred percent of that project i'm expecting them to then work with
00:38:20.740
their team to do the project together and i i do see some people that have delegation issues where
00:38:27.340
they like to take full ownership and not delegate and the people that delegate are the people that
00:38:32.860
have more time to do other things so it's definitely making sure you transition properly your old job
00:38:38.340
to hopefully the new person that got hired and then properly delegating work that you might get
00:38:44.720
have you had any problems with let's say you were in a role and you had colleagues who were on equal
00:38:52.540
footing right in the hierarchy then you get the promotion and now you're overseeing this person
00:38:57.560
that was once your colleague and maybe you're even friends was there any friction there does that
00:39:01.680
dynamic cannot throw you off yeah it's happened many times throughout my career for sure and um
00:39:08.520
you know i would say it's a little awkward in the beginning but once you get past the awkward phase
00:39:14.500
like let it be known that yes we are friends but now this is a manager employee relationship you just
00:39:22.680
got to make it work and if that person can't make it work then they'll find another job or they'll leave
00:39:27.180
the company it doesn't mean that you can't still be friends with that person outside of work and do
00:39:31.980
things but you have to accept the role that now the two people are in and just live with it and i've had
00:39:39.480
a scenario where i used to be a direct report of my boss and then later on i then was the boss of that
00:39:47.180
person and yeah it's awkward for a week or two but you get past it and you get down to business just
00:39:53.500
like it really never existed right you got to be professional keep it professional you got to be
00:39:59.020
professional exactly well randy this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn
00:40:03.520
more about the book in your work yeah well definitely you know my wife hayley and i wrote the book row the
00:40:10.000
essential guide to getting promoted it's on amazon barnesandnoble.com you look at walmart and target.com
00:40:17.100
we have all three formats so paperback ebook and now audio version so depending on how you like to
00:40:25.240
read we have a version for you you know you could find me randy.ornstein at gmail.com or or just
00:40:33.500
linkedin i don't have a personal website but linkedin is usually where i share information you know it's
00:40:39.900
been a long road to write this book but the feedback has been amazing and you know if any of the listeners
00:40:45.800
out there want to learn more i'm happy to talk i've done lunch and learns with suppliers to share
00:40:51.780
more about the book i'll be talking to different universities in the fall especially in the philly
00:40:56.940
area to students that are going to graduate soon so it's a perfect book for those people that are
00:41:03.420
about to enter the workforce it's a book for people that maybe they're stuck in their current job
00:41:08.680
they haven't been promoted and they need an extra edge or it's managers that are trying to get their
00:41:14.100
team stronger and there's a lot of insights in the book that will make you a better employee
00:41:18.780
which in and then will make your company a stronger company fantastic randy ornstein thanks for your
00:41:25.100
time it's been a pleasure oh it's been great brett thank you so much my guest today was randy
00:41:30.320
ornstein he's the co-author of the book grow the essential guide to getting promoted it's available
00:41:34.260
on amazon.com make sure to check out our show notes at aom.is get promoted where you find links
00:41:38.840
to resources where we delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the aom
00:41:50.340
podcast make sure to check out our website at artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast
00:41:53.680
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00:41:56.900
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00:42:23.460
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