Chris Lema has become somewhat of a household name in the coder and WordPress community. In this episode, Chris talks about the early days in Silicon Valley and how much the internet has changed, even in the last five years.
Chris shares best practices on what to do to stand out online, what it takes to get noticed and gain traction, and what mistakes to avoid.
Welcome to Episode 304 of the podcast. Listen and access the show notes below or search for the Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and listen for free.
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CNLP 039: How to Build a High-Performing Team From Scratch—An Interview with Chris Lema
Blackboard Learn Help for Students
3 Insights from Chris
1. When you are just starting out, you have to lead with the minimum viable product
So many leaders start building a platform but end up quitting soon after because they want everything to be perfect before they hit publish. They end up dying because when it comes to being noticed on the internet, consistent good content is better than occasional great content. Most leaders don’t get that. All you need is the minimum viable product to hit “post.”
Once you do hit post on version 1 of whatever you are doing online, you have to learn how to make version 1 better for version 2, 3 and 4. The best leaders never stop this process. Chris has helped us walk through 10+ course launches, and every single launch we learn from, adapt and get better! You have to start with the minimum viable product, but you can’t stay there.
2. The same content will not work on every social channel
So many leaders and organizations decide that they are going to start building a presence online, but have no clue what to post, so they just start posting the same thing across all platforms. It makes sense why they would do that, but it won’t work. When deciding what to post on each platform, you have to ask yourself what the audience is trying to accomplish while they are on there.
For Instagram, aesthetics are everything. If you can produce something that looks great and gets people interested, you will succeed on Instagram. On Facebook, people want to see you as a person. Chris always posts about his family on Facebook because people on that platform want to see who he really is. On Twitter, you need short and punchy content that leaders and professionals love. Finally, on LinkedIn, you have to answer questions employers are asking while looking to hire someone.
3. We are losing top performers because we are keeping the worst performers
Companies who have high performers in their organization struggle to keep them. Why does this happen? Well, everybody keeps the lowest performers because we all struggle to fire people. So rather than firing these people, we make rules to keep them in line.
The issue with this strategy is that those rules also apply to high performing employees who don’t need them and view them as pointless and irritating. These people vote with their feet and walk out your door forever. When we let this process carry on for years, we end up with an organization that is bogged down by rules and full of terrible employees. Not a great strategy for success.
Quotes from Episode 304
Leaders have an incredible ability to lie to ourselves. @chrislema Click To Tweet If you're not being found by Google, you're not being found period. @chrislema Click To Tweet Perfectionism is the enemy of progress. @cnieuwhof Click To Tweet You're not a leader if there's no one following. @chrislema Click To Tweet If there's nobody listening to your messages, you probably need to improve your preaching. @cnieuwhof Click To Tweet Companies create rules for the best people based on the problems of the worst people. @chrislema Click To Tweet Everybody keeps the lowest performers because we all struggle to fire people. @chrislema Click To Tweet If you only do what you've always done, you'll only get what you've always got. @cnieuwhof Click To TweetRead or Download the Transcript for Episode 304
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Read or download a free PDF transcript of this episode here.
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Next Episode: Carlos Whittaker
A few years ago, Carlos Whittaker felt a prompting to quit his very successful career as a recording artist and worship leader to become a public speaker. Much to everyone’s surprise, that’s turned out to be a great move. In a wide-ranging conversation, Carlos talks about that change, battling through panic attacks, anxiety and mental health issues, whether leaders who struggle with mental health should lead, and how to tell stories that connect (and go viral).
Subscribe for free now and you won’t miss Episode 305.
