How to Learn to Trust Your Team Again
Somebody done did you dirty. You’ve had instructors, employees, previous clients, or whoever who behaved unscrupulously, and now you’ve got the scars (and the PTSD) to prove it.
Thanks to their deep pockets, corporate businesses have ways of dealing with former employees who cross certain lines. As a small business owner, however, you might let things slide that you really don’t want to, and it can cause you to have trust issues when it comes to hiring.
But you need help in your business! You can’t just go it completely alone and shut everybody out of your circle, so how can you rebuild that trust? In this episode of the Pleasurable Profits podcast, you’ll learn about three things you can do to help you trust people again.
2:09 - Why I refused to work with a potential client
8:08 - The first step to trusting again when you’ve been burned by an employee
9:21 - The second thing you need to do to help you regain trust
10:27 - The third step and why you need to beware confirmation bias
Find me on Instagram or LinkedIn or email me at hello@lesliedlyons.com.
As Mentioned In How to Learn to Trust Your Team Again
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Transcript for How to Learn to Trust Your Team Again
Hey boss, I am Leslie Lyons, your embodied leadership and sales coach, and this is Pleasurable Profits. This podcast is ideal for owners and leaders of tattoo shops, permanent makeup studios, cannabis businesses, movement studios, sex toy shops, and other industries that are too often left out of the leadership conversation. If you’re looking for a woo meets strategy approach to defining your strengths and values, designing a business that supports you, and creating a soul-driven, and of course, pleasurable plan for profitability, then let’s get started.
Hey, party people. Today we're going to talk about have you ever been burned by a team member before and that's made you hesitant or reluctant to hire again? My name is Leslie. I'm an embodied sales and leadership coach. I just want to talk a little bit about how we're going to free ourselves from the day-to-day in our business, that has been my focus for the last couple of weeks is really talking to those of you who own brick-and-mortar businesses in unconventional industries.
What's an unconventional industry? So glad you asked. It’s anything that isn't a traditional corporate business. It could be you own a pole dance studio, you own a dispensary, you are an infuser in the cannabis industry, you're a beauty bar, you're a lash tech. Anything that isn't traditional corporate could fall into the unconventional category.
I even have a real estate attorney who I work with, but she is unconventional because she's a real estate attorney who's really woo-woo into crystals and all of those things. You might find yourself in that situation. If you do, you are an unconventional business owner. Alright. Let's get to the chat.
For those of you who watch this on the replay, my DMs are open if you have questions, so I'll never forget, about two years into my coaching career, I spoke to someone who wanted to be a client of mine. When I was talking to her about what it is she was doing, she was just getting ready to open a studio, all of these things, I was like, “Tell me what made you want to open a studio,” and she was telling me everything she said. I don't want to give too much detail because I don't want them to know. But long story short, I didn't end up working with this person.
But everything she said was about how bad the previous studio she was a part of was; from the leadership to the instruction, complaint after complaint after complaint. Well, I already have a feeling in some way when people come to you with complaints on their lips about where they're leaving, I think it says something about people's character. It also shows that they may have limited vision about themselves because nothing can be done to you as an adult without your participation in it.
When I'm looking to work with leaders, I need to know that you have the type of mindset where you can look at situations objectively and say what part did I play in this? That was completely absent from our conversation. But here was the cherry on top for me, when I said, “Well, tell me what's going to make your studio different. I hear all the concerns you had, what's going to make your studio different? How are you going to attract clients?”
The key question was, how are you going to attract clients? This is what made me say ain't no way on God's green earth that I would work with someone with this because it's a character statement for me. She was like, “Oh, I downloaded their entire database of clients.” Excuse me? You're saying that you went into their CRM and you downloaded their entire database of clients? That's how you're starting your business? Oh, no. You can't work with me. Your ethics, it just doesn't feel right.
Now, I'm not judging people for what they do. I don't know the full story. But again, this is what she told me. I've heard stories like that since then. Yikes. The fact that she thought that was okay, it just rubbed me the wrong way. Again, I'm not judging her but I am saying that that's not cool.
I've heard other instances the same way where people who were managers had access to files, had access to revenue numbers, access to clients, and took it in these industries, but when I was incorporated, very similar, very similar. Top sales rep leaves, takes all their clients with them, starts talking crap about the company they worked for, all those things. People do downright dastardly things all the time in business.
When we're a small business like us, when I think about corporate, it hurt them, but it didn't hurt them. Why didn't it hurt them? Because number one, when it happened in the corporate setting, you know what happened? Those attorneys who are not on retainer, their attorneys that are on staff, sue the hell out of them, people. They went after those people legally.
While it was inappropriate, it didn't really impact them because they sue them. But in small businesses like ours, taking someone to court for these types of things could be an expensive and time-consuming endeavor, then maybe you just let it go. But here's the thing: you may have let it go but you are still scarred by it.
Man, I did a podcast once about entrepreneurial trauma. I'm laughing but it's not funny. But some of y'all got PTSD because you have had instructors, clients, previous artists, employees do you dirty. Now you're like, “I won't ever trust anyone else again. I won’t ever let anybody come into my circle again. I'll never let somebody get close to me again.”
I want you to know I understand the feeling but what I'm here to encourage you tonight is to trust again, because the only person that you're really hurting, because you're not hurting that person who did the dirty stuff, God will take care of that, vengeance is his, people don't get away with anything.
When they think they do, when they're wrong and they think they got away with something, you should take comfort in knowing they ain’t getting away with nothing. They’re going to get their just desserts as my mother would say. They've moved on. They don't even think anything about what they're doing. Like the woman who spoke to me, she thought what she did was perfectly fine. They've moved on.
But we are still holding on to that wounding. We're still overworked because we don't have the proper support. We're still hesitant about bringing someone in the fold. I want to encourage you to trust again.
Leslie, that's great. That's some words. That sounds good, trust again. How do you trust again? First of all, I want you to put your vision in front of you and your mission in front of you. When I talk to my clients about goal setting and strategic planning, all things that don't sound very fun, and every business does whether you're a Fortune 100 company, or you're a three-person shop, if you're a good leader, you're doing some type of strategic planning, I always remind them of what is your mission.
What is the impact that you're trying to make with your studio, with your dispensary? What are you trying to do? What's your mission? Keep that in front of you and say, “This is bigger than Nino Brown. This is bigger than this person who hurt me. I am so tied to my mission. I am so tied to my vision. I am so tied to my purpose that this ain’t going to stop me.” That's the first thing. Go back to the why you do what you do.
Second of all, look at the situation that you are in, even though the person did something nasty, remember I started this off by saying I really like to work with people who take accountability, so review the situation and see if there was anything that you could take some ownership for.
Did you not check in with them enough? Did you not give them support and training that they needed? Did you not have conversations about their well-being? Is there anything that you could take some responsibility for? Why that's so important is so that you won't do it again.
Number one, keep your vision in front of you. Number two, evaluate the situation, evaluate the betrayal, and say what can I learn from this so that I could possibly prevent this going forward? Then number three, know just like if you've ever dated somebody in the past, a bad person in the past, like you had a toxic boyfriend in the past or a toxic person in your life, a toxic friend who walked out on you, that's just that one person.
If I would have stopped dating after my relationship with my child's father because it was toxic as ever, if I would have stopped dating, I would never have married my husband, I would have never met him so I could have never married him. We had to say to ourselves that yeah, that was crappy that it happened to me, but that's not all, people.
If you tell yourself those three things, and you really internalize it because where you put your attention is what's going to grow, if you focus on just the betrayal, if you focus just on the negativity, you're going to perpetuate that. The way our brains are working or set up, there's a term in psychology that really talks about confirmation bias, which means that we look for proof of what we believe.
If you are convinced that everybody's going to be like that crappy employee who hurt you, who betrayed you, you're going to find betrayal in every person you hire. The only way that you are going to be able to step away from your day-to-day in your business is if you replace your heart. You need people you can trust.
Go back to your mission. Was there anything I can learn from this? Thirdly, not everybody is like that crappy employee. Hopefully, this helps you. This is a type of mindset work that we do, the reframes that we make because you know what, we're human beings, we hurt just like everybody else, we believe just like everyone else, we get tired just like everyone else.
But here's the thing, you have been put on this earth, your business has been birthed to make a difference. Don't let one bad apple spoil that for you. If you know that you need support around these types of conversations, and maybe just a soft place to land in terms of support, a community of people who gets you, if you want a mentor, someone to walk alongside you through this process and you vibe with my energy, I might be the coach for you.
In the link in the bio, schedule a 15-minute clarity call. Just think of this as an opportunity for you to tell me what's going on in your business and I'm just going to listen to you and then answer any questions you have. Because sometimes we just need people to hear us and I'm available for that.
Alright, my loves. I think I'll be back on Wednesday. If you have any questions, please reach out in my inbox @lesliedlyons. You can also email me at hello@lesliedlyons, or better yet, don't email me, go to the link in my bio and schedule your free 15-minute clarity call. Until next time, y’all be great. Grace and peace.