As ironic as it my sound, it is very true. People can definitely become superstars from something very small. You might think that I am going to tell a story about someone who made it from cleaning up in a restaurant, to becoming a CEO of a company, but I'm not. Instead, I am going to talk about the many cases where employees at entry level positions have made huge differences, and made it to management in many of my businesses.
I always say you should value everyone's thoughts and ideas, but I'm not sure if I have made a clear statement. For instance, I do value each of my employees thoughts, so whenever there are meetings or brainstorming sessions for ideas to grow the business, I have each employee contribute their opinions- even if they are part time employees. At each of my retail locations, I have made it very clear that there is always room to move up on the ladder and many have taken advantage of that and have helped themselves in getting promoted. A lot of marketing ideas that have been successful in growing some of my retail businesses, have came from young and ambitious people who have been hired to just help out with cleaning and such.
Many of my friends own companies where they only let senior management in on what the company is cooking up for its next marketing campaign or what they are planning to grow their business. But I feel like this is unnecessary. If you shut out some of your employees from contributing ideas to better your business, you might be hurting yourself in the end.
And it is a win-win situation in the end because if someone brings positive results with their thoughts, you can bet that they will be sticking around with a better title for a long time to come. I have a one friend who started out working in a McDonald's as a guy who just cleaned up, but now he owns multiple fast food restaurants. He always says, if it wasn't for his ambition and liberty to contribute his thoughts with management, he might have not been as successful as he is today.
So the bottom line is- take input from everyone and VALUE it. Don't just act like you are listening, but have your brain off while the person is talking, because it just might be a golden idea to help you grow.
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