Keep people focused
What are your company’s blue chips — the things that are most important to your business?
“You can have all the chips in the world, but you want to keep the blue ones,” he says.
To stay focused on the blue chips, Kim has a mandatory weekly Wednesday meeting for him and his top 10 people. All 10 staff members prepare a report that addresses the following: What they’re working on this week, things they’ll be working on next week, things that are on the back burner, and things that they wish they were working on but don’t have time for.
“It kind of annoys them because they have to do it every week, but I find it very, very effective in helping them manage their time and helping me understand what they’re working on and helping other people understand what their colleagues are working on,” he says.
This also helps him know if his team is working on the best things to move Red Mango forward.
“There are two levels of decision-making,” he says. “If you break it down to the micro level of an individual — what are the things that I as a CEO want him working on? It’s a delicate balance — are the things that he’s working on consistent with what the company as a whole needs to do, and then do we have the money or the budget to execute that?”
This is helpful in knowing both your time limits and monetary limits.
“A lot of times when you work with a lot of ambitious people, they want to do more than they can,” he says. “That’s the first filter I put it through — does it align with the company, does it have the right resources to do what he needs to be doing and is he doing too much?”
Knowing these answers helps you say no to others who may want you to do more. For example, if Kim says that he’s going to open up X number of stores, with an average unit volume of Y and he’s going to recruit Z number of franchisees, everyone knows those are his top goals. Then when someone asks him to do something else, he can say he’s not able to because the money and people need to be used on the first three goals instead of the fourth, fifth or sixth thing they want done.
“It’s really having a budget in place and a well-thought-out plan that gets you to where you need to get to because if you don’t have that, and you have a lot of outsiders or board members or executive managers who don’t understand how the strategy is executed in regards to having the right resources, then you’re in a situation where you just constantly want to do more and more things without people understanding why you can’t do them,” he says.
You may have everyone else on track and moving forward, but lastly, you have to keep yourself focused, as well.
“Every week you’re doing something,” he says. “Assess what you’re doing against those goals or your brand mission.”
Do this for everything you have on your schedule, and you’ll keep yourself — and ultimately your business — on track.
“Even if I’m traveling to Seattle to meet with a customer or going to New York to meet with a supplier — is that meeting in and of itself consistent with the brand mission and brand values?” Kim says. “Always ask yourself that because if you don’t, you’re just going to get caught up in a very busy schedule doing stuff that you think is important. Again, people’s time and money are limited, so you have to constantly assess.”
How to reach: Red Mango Inc., (214) 302-5910 or www.redmangousa.com