Start With a Win. Adam Contos

to familiarize yourself with the content. Too many people try to script too many things. But audiences don't want a scripted talk. They don't want you to read; they prefer a free-flowing conversation, which requires knowledge of the ideas so they can be shared easily, freely, and comfortably.

      It's the same procedure for video presentations. Audiences want to hear and see confidence, a positive attitude, and kindness or caring.

      Study and practice. I learned to improve my speech delivery by reading how great public speakers do it. I also watched videos of other amazing public speakers—not for the content or the delivery methodology, but for the tone, tempo, delivery, and how the speaker reads their audience. It's called public speaking and not public talking for a reason. You're communicating as if you're having a two-way conversation, only the feedback from the crowd is in their response, not their words.

      Seek comment. Feedback from a presentation also allows us to continually learn and improve. Despite all the speeches I've made over the years, I still seek out and appreciate feedback after every speech or presentation. I have had speaking consultants critique my work and rip it apart. It hurts to hear your mistakes, but you listen, learn, and improve. I also review video or audio of my presentations. I don't like to watch myself present—I don't think anyone does—but I do it to see if there are ways I can improve for next time.

      Reviewing the product of your work is important in whatever we do, whether it's a speech, a sale, a document, or a mission in your life. When my wife and I leave the gym in the morning, we even discuss our workouts and how to make them better—or we celebrate our victories.

If we ignore pursuing excellence in one thing, we ignore it in everything. That goes for shooting a two-minute video on social media all the way to standing in front of 10,000 people to deliver a speech.

WINNING IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

      Uncertainty is the certainty in business and in life. We grow the fastest when we win in uncertain times. Our ability to recover from failure and our ability to lead grows too. I've learned firsthand.

      Several years after joining RE/MAX full time, we faced an economic crisis. Dave pulled me aside and told me this would be the hardest thing I had ever done; that I would feel like a failure and have many sleepless nights, but to endure and persevere. Focus on the future, he urged me, and not on the challenge I felt within. He was right.

      You will fail. I have, and you will as well. But we learn from it.

PIVOT AND ACT

      Uncertain times are a challenge for all of us. It's the crack-in-the wall analogy. Faced with a challenge—the crack in the wall—those people and companies that pivot and quickly act to shore up weaknesses survive and thrive; those that don't act will falter and often fail to survive.

      In a crisis, go to Plan B: Be present; be kind; be helpful.

      One of the lessons in the RE/MAX leaders’ playbook that we learned from the 2008–2010 recession is, “Talk early and often about identifying the challenges, be transparent in financial conversations with our franchisees and agents, and communicate with confidence regularly.”

      That's what we did in 2020.

HOLISTIC APPROACH IS ESSENTIAL

      This time around our leaders knew they had to approach the problem holistically with digital empathy top of mind. That meant conversations with clients needed to lead with genuine caring to help lessen the fear and uncertainty of COVID, the lockdown, and the future. Then conversations could turn to solving problems.

      Cash flow was tight or nonexistent. But realistically, you can't ask someone how they're going to pay you and expect a reasonable answer when they're worried about putting food on the table. We had to first care about the emotions of our customers and their clients and solve this problem collectively so we could all solve the cash-flow problem together.

      Unlike many real estate organizations, RE/MAX operates as a membership model. Its franchises pay a fixed fee per agent per month regardless of how much business a franchise does, plus a small percentage of commissions. That compares with other operations that generally receive a percentage of commissions as payment.

      During recent tough times, among the solutions RE/MAX offered its members was deferring or waiving certain fees. The bottom line was caring about the franchisees first.

MODEL THE RIGHT BEHAVIOR

      In 2020, as CEO, I modeled the behavior to help our leaders with their client communications. I did online videos with suggestions on what we all needed to think about to help everyone through this pandemic. I also made 40 different seven-minute videos with the theme Mind, Body, Business to help people recenter their minds moving forward.

      After all, if a leader is miserable and stressed, so are their employees, and they will create miserable customers. We each need to focus on our entire lives—relationships, family, nutrition, health, fitness, and spirituality. Without a balance, your wins will elude you, and your business will suffer.

We laid the right foundation, maintained the right attitude, and reaffirmed our commitment to get the job done. It wasn't a one-time action, either. Throughout the pandemic our leaders and our employees continued their holistic approach to further ensure we all came away with a win.

       Stalled by can't and won't? Drop those Ts now and shoot for can and won!

YOUR TURN TO FIX THINGS

      In tough times, solutions to problems aren't one-dimensional; they're multifaceted. Ultimately, if you choose to embrace “I can” and be a leader, as I mentioned earlier, you do so across all of your life—not only in business, but also in health and wellness, relationships, nutrition, spirituality, and more.

      We can create wins and learn from losses across all aspects of our lives. Each small win creates another small win, then another and another, and the wins snowball. Micro wins create more micro wins and add up to macro wins. This is winning by a thousand wins, one win at a time.

      The wins will permeate your relationships, business and personal, and holistically build happiness and success across all pillars of your life. Sure, you will experience pauses in your wins—those are the losses (learnings). But all are a necessary recalibration on the path to more wins. Expect them, seek to overcome them, and push ahead with leading and winning. Too often we allow a loss to discourage us, and then we stop trying or become overwhelmed.

      Identifying the Problems

      Do you feel or perceive stress? If the answer is “Yes,” rather than shrugging it off, ask yourself, “Why?” What's the cause or causes of the stress—the crack in the wall?

      If you're faced with a business challenge or trying to generate new business, the same scenario applies: What's the stressor or the challenge? What's the solution, and how can you provide it?

Author Ryan Levesque, a hugely successful online business executive, calls the approach SMIQ^®, or What's The Single Most Important Question? He details his methods to generate business in his book Ask: The Counterintuitive Online Method to Discover Exactly What Your Customers Want to Buy … Create a Mass of Raving Fans … and Take Any Business to the Next Level.⁵

      In other words, Levesque is trying to help each of us understand how we talk about our challenges. The question is, “When it comes to X, what is your greatest challenge?”

      Listen to the Language

      Taking