The Power of Being Available in Leadership (2024)

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Welcome to episode 47 of Baktari MD! In this episode we talk about the power of BEING AVAILABLE and what that means! As a leader or CEO of a company, there are so many benefits to being available to your friends, family, clients and team members! All of the tips and trick you need are right here! Find out all of this and more in the full episode! 

   Jonathan Baktari MD is the CEO of eNational Testing, e7 Health, & US Drug Test Centers. Jonathan Baktari MD brings over 20 years of clinical, administrative, and entrepreneurial experience. He has been a triple board-certified physician specializing in internal medicine, pulmonary, and critical care medicine.
    Jonathan Baktari MD is a preeminent, national business thought leader interviewed in The Washington Post, USA Today, Forbes, Barron’s, and many other national publications. He is also an opinion writer for The Hill and the Toronto Star.
    He is the host of a highly-rated podcast Baktari MD as well as a guest on over 70 podcasts. Jonathan Baktari MD was formerly the Medical Director of The Valley Health Systems, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and Culinary Health Fund. He also served as clinical faculty for several medical schools, including the University of Nevada and Touro University.
   Jonathan Baktari MD is also the author of the highly-rated course High Converting Call Class where he shares his secrets of increasing revenue through incoming phone calls.

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Transcript

0:00

Being available, of course, you know, has its downsides. You can't be available to everyone at all time. But if you make yourself unavailable to people who can impact your business or and often, you know, personal too. But what you will do is you will pay a price for it. Hi. Welcome to another episode of Baktari MD. As you know, this year we're doing Crash CEO School, where we go over all the skill sets you need to take your organization to the next level. Today, I want to talk about a skill that is an intangible skill that many, many people who have really risen to the top of any organization often have. But it's not spoken about. It's not even recognized. But people know it's there. And what I want to talk to you today about is the power of being available, availability. And this is a very, very nuance concept when we're talking about availability, we're not talking about necessarily being available 24 hours, seven days a week. What we're talking about is, are you the kind of leader that makes yourself available to the people that matter in your life, whether it's your personal or business life? So many people, because of all of the electronics and messaging and social media and slack and emails and what have you have really put a cocoon around themselves where they filter a lot of the incoming messages and a lot of their requests for their time or attention, which is absolutely necessary. But I think that can be taken to an extreme and it can get to the point where it can actually hurt you. So today I'm going to talk to you about how you should look at your availability and how it might impact your career, impact your trajectory, whether you're starting your own company, whether you're inside of a company, your ability to grow in the company. And I think once I explained some of these concepts to you, you'll actually recognize them. You'll recognize them in the people you work with and in the organizations you've been involved. And I think you'll get an idea of what I'm saying. Getting back to the point that I was saying, I think a lot of people feel like they have to protect themselves from just a barrage of things that need their attention and from all over, whether it's a place of work, from new acquaintances, people they've met here and there. And so I think that they have come up with a structure where they protect themselves, probably in a good way, to make sure that they're not distracted and pulled away with unnecessary phone calls, text messages and other ways that will draw their attention away. But what I have seen is people take this to the extreme and they literally make it very difficult to get a hold of them. And I'm going to explain to you today why that may actually come back to hurt you, because at a certain point, when you send out the message to certain people in your life that you are difficult to get a hold of, it may actually have the reverse effect of them not actually reaching out to you when they should be reaching out to you, when you would want them to reach out to you. So you have to you have to calibrate it very carefully because what you may see that there's a core group of people that you really want them to be able to get a hold of you and get the message across or have a conversation that if you put a tight enough rein around your availability, that might become an issue. Before I go any further, let's just kind of talk about the different levels of availability. One, I like to break up availability into categories. I call them level one availability, level two availability and level three availability. And then we'll talk about what that means. Level one, availability is sort of what you give your friends and family, your mom, your sister, your brother, your wife, your spouse, your significant other. For the most part, I think people do a good job because that's part of that whole relationship. Other people extend that level one availability to if they're a CEO or they’re a leader to some of their senior staff that allows them access to them. And then certain people give that availability to certain key partners or vendors or customers or clients, and then other people, you know, surgically give that availability to acquaintances that they may develop that may be beneficial to them or provide them opportunities. And so that level one availability is sort of for that group. The level two availability is where people you allow people to get a hold of you, but there is somewhat of a filter. So that might involve making an appointment, sending you an email, possibly send you a text message or getting a hold of you on social media, on LinkedIn. And what we're doing there is we're providing a filter that allows us to screen some of those so we can control how we respond when we respond, if we respond. And I think that's sort of what I would consider like level two availability. Level three availability of course is when there is a complete filter on meaning, they simply can't get a hold of you unless you choose to respond. But that would involve calling your assistant and or calling at another department or or your company or other people besides you. And that often their messages or their inquiries get responded to without you being involved. And I think we do that, you know, for strangers, cold calling people or phishing people who are looking for things that we don't have a relationship with. And I think we all have some version of level three availability where we're basically not available. So going back to that first two categories, the one where you're definitely available and then the one where you could be available if they made an appointment, sent a message, texted you, and then at your leisure you would respond. What I have seen is a lot of people other than the friends and families, really go overboard and make everything level two, meaning you almost can't get a hold of them. And if you do, you're going to have to put in some work. You're going to call them multiple times, maybe send them a text, maybe wait 24 hours. And while that may seem like it's very innocent, what I have seen is that people often lose opportunities in business in their career when they become not available. One of the most common things that you see in any company is if someone is readily available, even maybe sometimes after work, when an opportunity comes or when something is really needed, they're the first persons you think of, even like think of it like on a personal level, let's say you have a couple of extra tickets to a baseball game that you can't go to and you're you want to go down the list of your friends that you might want to offer that to. I think even if you think about it like like most people do, you know, you may think of someone, but, you know, you're like, yeah, it'll take them 24 hours to get back to me. You immediately will go and probably offer those tickets to someone you want to give it to, but who you can probably get on the phone right away. Same thing is, if you have a problem, like let's say you have a real problem, you, there's a big leak in your house and your kitchen and, you know, there's one plumber that answers his phone right away, and there's another one you've got to leave a message. Blah. So often, you know, business opportunities don't necessarily go to the most qualified person necessarily. Sometimes it goes to the most available person. And I've seen this throughout my whole career. Being available, of course, you know, has its downsides. You can't be available to everyone at all time. But if you make yourself unavailable to people who can impact your business or and often, you know, personal too. But what you will do is you will pay a price for it. even in business, a lot of times, you know, we may have a business opportunity and we're thinking of a certain consultant that we may want to call. And hey, is this something you'd be interested in? What do you think of this, I want to throw this by you, see if you want to partner with us, if you know that it's going to take a week or two weeks to get an appointment, call their assistant or secretary and book an appointment, and then, you know, they're out of town for weeks at a time or they're they're in a conference, what have you. After you that happens multiple times. They they become lower on your list to call spontaneously if a great opportunity presents itself. You know, we have had multiple vendors that do the same thing for whatever reason. And a crisis comes up. And while sometimes you think one vendor might be slightly better than the other, you know, the tendency is to call the vendor that is more likely to respond, especially if you have a crisis or anything that needs urgent attention. And so whether it's negative, urgent attention, like something is really bad or positive. So, you know, you really want to, you know, give this opportunity, a business opportunity, to someone. The amount of work and pain you're going to have to do to get a hold of them is will potentially deter them as being the one to be called. I recently I had someone tell me, you know what, I'm the new generation. I only text and, you know, I try to get back to someone within 24 hours. Well, you know, that may be great. And if you're you know, you've hit the lotto and you're doing great and business opportunities don't mean that much, and the field that you're in doesn't really require. I get that. But I think for most of us who are in business, we do want to select a few people in our lives, whether it's personal or business or our own staff, to be able to get a hold of you in real time often. I'm always amazed by super successful people that no matter how successful their life, if I call them nine out of ten times, they're going to answer their phone. And the flip side is, you know, people who are struggling in their business, right? And you call them nine out of ten times, they don't answer their phone. And if you text them, maybe you hear back later that day or the next day. So I don't want to say that's a correlation because there's a lot of other things we've talked about on our podcast that can make you a success. But this is just one little aspect of it. It's not everything, but it's a it's one of the above things. Why hasn't getting a simple laboratory test been as easy as ordering something online? Well, now it is! With three simple steps on eNationalTesting.com, you can have your laboratory tests ordered, go in for testing the same day, and get your results quickly, right to your email! eNationalTesting.com is fast, convenient and confidential. Begin taking charge of your health today with eNationalTesting.com’s complete health care panels and easy to understand results at over 2000 locations nationwide. No matter who you are, where you are in the United States, or what your health concerns are, eNationalTesting.com is your comprehensive resource for laboratory testing services. It's time to focus on yourself. Let us do the hard work for you! eNationalTesting.com; Easy, convenient and tailored to your health needs. The last thing is even your own staff, right? So if you're a leader, you know your staff, the likelihood that they're going to call you if they're unsure about something was one, whether you welcome the calls or you welcome the request, and two, how quickly you respond, I think one of the things you want to be able to do is if there is a doubt and something a decision is about to be made and they want your input the fact that you're going to answer them in real time could often be the difference. What often happens is if you have a history of not answering your call and not answering your text or your email or your slack, what will happen is the decision will be made anyway, with or without you. And what you are going to find out is that is if the wrong decision was made or if you would have been able to put input into it that would have altered the decision. That's something that you're going to have to maybe then walk back after the damage is done. So if your senior staff knows that you're available and they can call you and they can rely on your input, mentorship advice, that's going to go a long way. Again, the more you have a history of not answering, the less likely you are to get the call. They will make the decision without you. They'll give the tickets away to someone else. They'll give the business opportunity to someone else. Not always, not often. But if you if you just give this aura that, hey, good luck trying to get a hold of me, you'll get a hold of me, but it'll be on my schedule, on my agenda, on my level of priority and, and again, let me reiterate. Yes. Obviously, someone who's cold calling you or some stranger who wants something from you. Of course we need those. I'm talking about the core group of people, the people who work for you, they’re your senior staff we're talking about, you know, people who are your business partners who may have an impact on you. So you have to calibrate this freedom that you're going to have by people not being able to get a hold of you by the missed opportunities and the potential to jump in and make an impact on things before decisions are made. And I think some people forget that sending the message that you're going to have a hard time getting a hold of me, although that's not on purpose, but sending that message out, you can and I've seen have consequences that really dramatically impact their business. Of course, it can also impact your personal life, too. But let's you know, we're here to talk about the business side of it. So think about that. You if you are that person who is very difficult, five out of ten times. Eight out of ten times, eventually people categorize you as difficult to get a hold of. Maybe they don't say in those terms in their mind and it can have that impact. The flip side of it is, you know, there are certain people I know who are giants in their industry but still pick up their phone, answer most phone calls. And, you know, somehow, no matter what, make time most the time to take your call, answer your questions, It's really baffling. Sometimes super, super successful people are the ones that seem to have the most amount of time to take inquiries and questions from that key group of people. That is important to them. And it's interesting, like some people who are not that yet successful are often the ones that have the most amount of guardrails around their availability. You know, I had someone call me a couple of weeks ago say, Hey, I can you spare an hour and help me with my team? And I responded, Yeah, I'm more than happy to. Can we get on a quick call to see what you really want and he says, Well, you know, I'm actually kind of I can't take a phone call for the next two or three days. Like, Wow, Yeah. Even on the drive home, you can't take a phone call. So that that sends a message that, hey, you know, my attitude is I'm going to protect my time. Even if I'm asking something of you. I'm not going to be available on just any random time. It's got to be something that we schedule. It's got to be several days in advance. And again, that may work. But if if someone ever needs something from that person, if there's an opportunity to give to that person, I don't think they're going to be high on the list of people spontaneously calling them, saying, hey, you know, this business opportunity just showed up. We thought of you and it will have a potential impact. And the flip side is the people who are somehow make it their job to be available. Somehow the deals that, you know, are floating out there make their way to them and only, you know, only opportunities that, you know, would have been missed by most other people are offered to them. So think about that. It's not a hard, fast rule, but you see it enough. The people who make an effort with their family, with their business partners, with their staff, with the people that matter in their industry often get all the breaks. And some of it is from other reasons hard work, knowledge, skill. But this availability thing is also a big part of it. Okay, I hope that helps. If you like this, please comment like and subscribe. Give me your examples of how availability has given you opportunities that you might have missed had you not, you know, been able to pick up the phone or get back to someone pretty quickly. Leave those in the comments below. But thank you so much and we'll see you on the next video. Thank you so much. Bye.