As important as it is to
communicate the vision
of your company to your employees, Michael Ferzacca
says there’s also information
that some employees don’t
need or want to hear.
“They need to be aware —
as much as practical — they
need to be aware of what’s
going on,” says the CEO of
Ignite Media Solutions LLC.
“Not the ins and outs of every
day, but the headline results,
as we say, they should know.”
Ferzacca keeps his more
than 60 employees in the loop
by communicating about how
the direct response marketing
services firm is doing every
quarter and what the plan is
for next year.
Smart Business spoke with
Ferzacca about how communication plays a role in getting
buy-in for your vision.
Q. What’s the first step in
creating a vision?
It’s an intersection of a few
circles that you come up
with that vision. For me, at
least, it’s as an entrepreneur,
you have what your dream is
and how you envision the
painting looking at the end
of the day.
Then you have to realize all
the resources that you’re going
to need to get that done and
what are practical and what are
impractical, Then, last is, who
are you delivering your company’s product to? Will they buy
your vision as you see it?
I can want to sell something to somebody all day
long, but if they don’t want
to buy it, and it’s my vision,
then it’s not going to go anywhere.
Q. What advice would you
give another leader about how
to create a vision?
A consistent message, passion about what you want to
do. Not emotion, passion.
Everybody says you have to
have fun at your job, but you
have to have fun at your job.
Because, if you are a start-up,
it’s a different answer than if
you are leading a $2 billion
company.
But, as a start-up, everybody
is going to work their tail off a
lot of odd hours, and
everyone has to be in
there together, and you
have to be shoulder to
shoulder with everybody that’s getting
things done. I think that
passion and a consistent message is the key.
You can’t go changing
your model every other
week because something didn’t work.
Q. How do you get
buy-in for your vision?
Nothing happens until
something gets sold,
right? So, the No. 1
sales guy in the company is probably the
CEO.
He’s always selling his idea,
his process, his vision or her
vision to the people that are
around him. And you end up
with a team of people that
believe in you. So, you’ve got
to sell the idea before you’ve
got to sell the product.
People trust you up to that
level, and you go from there.
