Be curious
If you’re always talking, it’s hard to learn anything new. It’s a lesson that McKee’s grandfather taught him that remains with him to this day.
“You ought to use your ears twice as much as you use your mouth,” McKee says. “It starts there. It starts with listening to your customers first and foremost.”
Get the process rolling by asking questions about how you can serve your customers better and then listen to their response.
“They will tell you if you listen close enough what you are good at and what your strengths and talents are,” McKee says. “If you’re not afraid to ask, they will tell you what you need to work on or how you need to improve as a company because you are always striving to get better. If you take the time to listen and ask questions, you will be amazed at what you can find out.”
When you’re asking for questions to help support your business, you are also showing people that you don’t have all the answers and that you’re open to hearing their feedback on how to do things better.
“If you’re judgmental, you’re not going to get very far,” McKee says. “If you’ve already got the answer, then don’t ask the question. You have to ask genuine questions and be genuinely interested and curious. If you’re not, people know in a heartbeat, and you will not get good feedback. People will become defensive and they won’t truly share.”
McKee recalls a meeting where Paric was looking to obtain a job for a local educational institute.
“I’m generally an intuitive person and I’m constantly learning,” McKee says. “We ended up in the presentation where we were supposed to be talking about Paric, instead, we spent a good part of the day talking about how education should work.”
While it may have seemed like an unrelated tangent, the discussion helped Paric build a valuable relationship with this client.
“If you understand your customers and what they are trying to accomplish, it’s amazing how much you can learn and how much more effective you can be in bringing great service to them,” McKee says. “You can never have too much information.”
You need to live by the same spirit of curiosity with your employees.
“You start with having a real clear vision of where you’re going and what you’re trying to accomplish,” McKee says. “We kind of talk about it as a no-excuses culture. Our view of the world is if there is a challenge, it’s everybody’s challenge to figure it out and we all need to get in the boat and figure out how to solve it.”
By placing the burden to find a solution on the entire group, you avail yourself to more possible answers.
“You have to focus on delivering the best value for that customer,” McKee says. “So it starts with that strong vision about what you’re trying to accomplish. Then you empower the people and give them the freedom.”
Spend time walking around your office and taking an interest in what your employees are doing.
“You might just happen to hear an employee talking about a challenge or a problem,” McKee says. “That just happened the other day. They were working on a challenge on how to build something. I just happened to stick my head in and I gave them a couple good ideas and I watched that team go and they had to figure it out. It was pretty cool to see and that was allowing that interaction to happen.
“I learned a long time ago that where I really got a good education was having my thoughts or beliefs and ideals challenged in the freshman hall or with my friends outside the classroom. That’s where I truly grew as a person. It’s no different with employees and customers. It’s those interactions that add value. What I try to be to my employees and with customers is somebody that brings value to them.”