Heidi Alexandra Pollard is an international company culture coach, entrepreneur, investor, speaker and leadership expert. Her company UQ Power helps level the playing field for small to medium sized companies through unique brand and culture strategies, so that they can get their house in order before pitching for large corporate contracts. She is an expert in helping people and companies identify their uniqueness and then build a strategy plan, company culture and customer service around that point of difference. Her soon to be released book is called It All Starts With UQ Power! Boost Your Income, Influence and Impact.
You can find out more about Heidi and UQ Power here: www.uqpower.com.au.
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Franziska: Welcome back to Basic Bananas radio. Today I‘ve got Heidi Alexandra Pollard on the call with me. Heidi is an international company culture couch, a successful entrepreneur, a property investor, a very excellent speaker and I can say that because I’ve seen her speak.
A leadership expert and the founder of UQ Power, a process which helps leaders and organisations improve engagement, keep top talent and grow new leaders. Her company helps level the playing field for small to medium sized businesses through unique brands and culture strategies. So they can get their house in order. I’m very excited to have you hear today Heidi.
Heidi: Thanks Franziska, lovely to be with you.
Franziska: I hope I pronounced your last name correctly. Pollard.
Heidi: That’s fine.
Franziska: That’s the French way.
Heidi: That’s perfect.
Franziska: In English it’s probably something completely different.
Heidi: No, no you did fine.
Franziska: Did I? That’s great.
Heidi: Yeah.
Franziska: Well, I’m really excited to have you here because you’re not only an animating woman, you are also an incredible friend and we’ve done a few things together and I love your integrity and everything you do for the small business world. So, before I ask you a couple of questions about UQ Power and how we can help small business with that, can you tell us a little bit more about you and you’re business journey so far?
Heidi: Sure, thank you. So I guess I started out my journey in the corporate world as many of us do, and I spent fifteen years or so working in corporate from education to health to OHS and different sorts of industries. Primarily working in marketing and spending and helping organisations work with their stakeholders so lots of community consultations and all sorts of things.
I escaped as a corporate refugee in about 2007 and perhaps like many of your listeners went through quite a period of burn out when I just dumped too much and worked too hard and long hours. And started to look at what else I could be doing with the skills that I have. And so I went away and trained through Coach U to be a corporate coach. And started my journey there. So my first business was called Leading Value, and I was primarily focused on coaching people, corporates, politicians, CEO’s, all sorts of people.
I loved what I did, but again, perhaps like some of you listeners, I found that it was a bit of a one to one model. So, as far as the business goes, I didn’t have a lot of leverage as being a one to one model. And so, in about 2009 I also launched Leading Ladies International. And that was really an opportunity that I saw because I was investing in myself and spending time going overseas to be part of International Master Minds.
And I know you Franziska and Christo really invest in yourself and in your company too, which is fantastic. So, I was doing that, and seeing the power that came from actually working with other people. Cause in small business you can get kind of lonely. So I brought that concept to Australia launching Leading Ladies, to enable women who are in small business here, to benefit from what I was learning overseas and to benefit from being part of a community of people who were also going through the same struggles and challenges.
And so Leading Ladies is still in existence and we still run events and we actually operate an online and a coaching program through that now. So, earlier, actually late last year and then earlier this year we launched into UQ Power and that came about because I realised that some of our own marketing and the way we were doing things… Even though I came from a marketing background, was not as great as it could be and not as targeted as it could be.
And so UQ Power came out of lots of different research and I think my own growth and learning as a business owner. And that‘s where our business is going today which is all as you said Franziska about helping other companies to find that uniqueness and then build a company brand both internally and externally that helps them really penetrate the market place.
Franziska: Yeah, I agree and I’d love to know a little bit more about UQ Power. I love what you do with it and you’ve also run a workshop for our team here at Basic Bananas and my team members loved it. They actually loved what you did with the guys, and we did a workshop on creativity. So, I’d love to know for our listeners a little bit more about UQ Power, what you do with it and what it means to have UQ Power for a business.
Heidi: So really, UQ Power is so necessary today. I think because there’s so much noise in the market place, so much media, social media, our friends, other businesses and what’s happening. And a lot of global market competition. So, perhaps from someone who‘s got an administrative business, a VA business or something like that, there’s now assistance available from as little as five hours on five hours week. You can go on Craig’s list and find people who would do something for next to nothing.
And the growing markets of India and Asia and the Philippines, etc., means that there’s really high market competition. So for anyone who’s in business today, unless you’re in the top five percent of your pedigree, you’re really gonna be struggling for scraps. That’s the reality. Is that the people who are doing the best, usually have the biggest presence then they are most well-known so they’re referred more, they’re respected more.
It improves their power to get out there, improves their presence, and their market place penetration. So UQ stands for Uniqueness QuoCent and it‘s all around finding what’s unique about you and then learning to leverage that through everything that you do. Through the every customer touch point that people have with your company, through the way you talk about what you do, from your website to your uniforms, to how you show up when you’re actually working with a customer or client. So we have to be memorable today to stand out because there is just so much clutter in the market place.
Franziska: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more and so many businesses, especially sometimes when businesses are young or when somebody is starting a new business, are based on looking what other people are doing and then doing the same thing.
Heidi: Yeah.
Franziska: Which is not so cool, and I love that you help people find that uniqueness. I have probably two questions. One of them is how do you help them elaborate what’s unique about them? Which is a huge question. The other one is something that you‘ve mentioned in the past. Is UQ Power House. So I’d love to hear a little bit about that but let’s first go with the first question. So, how do you help businesses come up with what’s unique about them because most of them would say “Well, I’m not unique. I’m just the same as everyone else.”
Heidi: Sure, exactly. So, really it’s quite an in-depth process for many businesses. And we usually start with people doing a half day. So we actually come in and work with them for half a day where we go through a whole range of topics and questions and really get the magnifying glass out. And with a fine tooth comb go through their business. The history.
What are their values? What experience do they have? We ask them about what are customers inclined to say about them. What are their stakeholders and suppliers say about them. So we really look at what’s their quark? How do they stand out and how do people remember and talk about them today. Once they’ve defined that, and that as I said does take a little while, and sometimes it takes a few weeks to settle in. Particularly for the business owners if they’re the people who started the company.
They have a long way in who they are and where they come from. And we want to draw on that; particularly if it is a company or say, lead by someone who founded the company. Often even what they wanted to be when they grew up as a child. I know that sounds crazy but sometimes it really does give a clue about some of their own strengths and skills. So I’m wondering Franziska, I’ll put you on the spot, do you know, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Franziska: I wanted to be a vet first, an animal vet cause I love animals and then secondly when I realised that I can really kill them, when I have to put them down or open their wounds or stuff like that, I wanted to be a teacher.
Heidi: Oh, lovely… excellent. So, I was a bit the same, in the beginning at first I wanted to be a teacher when I was really young like three and four. I use to actually teach my older brother with his books that we brought home for school.
Franziska: That’s fantastic.
Heidi: But then, it sounds very superficial, but I know for quite a while, many years, people would ask me what I wanted to be when I was a child and I used to say a business woman. And they would say what kind of business? And I used to say I don’t care as long as it is with people and I can carry a briefcase and wear big shoulder pads.
Franziska: And high heels.
Heidi: Yeah. So it was all about the image of brand for me, even back then.
Franziska: Yeah.
Heidi: So, yeah, sometimes for a business owner, you know what they wanted to be and maybe there’s been a thread of something through their career. We look at what is that that makes them stand out and unique. It could be sometimes their quark is how they do something a little bit differently. So I know for example, Apple, is such a great brand, and some of the ways they stand out is through the cleanliness and the simplicity of their brand.
Even when you look at their box, that the iPhone comes in. There’s not a lot of advertising and marketing and writing over that box. It’s pretty plain white with just an image of what the actual product is. Their stores are very similar. Even the desks that they stand at, the square corners on those desks; they’re very neat and very clean. So it can sometimes be just the way you do things, the approach that you have. Maybe that you are plumber and there’s lots of plumbers but the way you do that service is different.
It maybe that you guarantee that we won‘t play loud music and we won’t leave rubbish on you site when we visit. It could be just something like that. And we have a new book coming up next month actually, which is all about UQ… And in that we actually take people through some of these questions to help them identify what’s unique about them.
Franziska: Yeah, and what‘s the book called?
Heidi: It’s quite a funny quirky book, it’s obviously a business book but it’s called “It all starts with UQ – business impact, influence and income”. And for anyone who does actually say it, Franziska and Christo have a quote in it and have reviewed it for me and it’s quite quirky. It’s an illustrated book so it’s an easy read. You can pick it up and just open a page and get a concept for the day and off you go.
Franziska: It is a fantastic book so make sure you let us know when it’s out and where it’s available so we can let the guys know too.
Heidi: Absolutely, thank you.
Franziska: No, I love how you, pretty much towards women you’ve been able to tell our listeners how they can start developing their unique quirk which is so useful for them. I’ll love to hear also about you UQ Powerhouse, and I believe that there are four rooms to the Power House. Did I remember that correctly?
Heidi: You did. Spot on.
Franziska: I did pay attention.
Heidi: You did. Top of the class.
Franziska: Thank you.
Heidi: Okay. I tend to think in pictures and a lot of my team are very visual thinkers as well and creative thinkers. So we use this thing called the UQ Power House to help businesses improve and get their house in order so that their brand and how they do business is really solid and just as Franziska said, there is four rooms to the house.
And if you think about your own home where you live right now, whether that’s an apartment or a house or whatever, I’m wondering if it has a room, a messy room. One of those rooms where you shove everything in and if you have visitors over you don’t open the door to that room. Do you have anything like that Franziska?
Franziska: Yeah, I definitely have one. It’s our music room. It’s also my room where I just shove everything in and close the door.
Heidi: Exactly, so, we often have one of those room or we have a mad cupboard where everything gets shoved in and you can’t open the door on it. So, a business it’s a little bit the same. You actually want to clean out and make sure that each of your room is really solid and very clean and you know exactly what you’re doing in each room. Otherwise it ends up like that kind of hidden corner that you’re shoving all of your stuff in and it means that when you go and present yourself to the market place, it’s something that’s not quite jolly.
So to be as powerful as possible, you have to kind of spring clean your house. And there’s four rooms, as we said, which is IQ, which is how intellectually focused your business is. How intelligent it this in the way you’re doing things. How clear it is that you know what you’re doing. How clear your team are and how focused you are. So, are you spending lots of time on things that aren’t going to give you bang for your buck or are you really focused on what the most important things are?
So that’s one room. Another room is AQ, now this is one maybe a lot of business owners overlook and AQ is how interpersonally connected you are. So this is how well you’re connecting with your customers and clients, internally with your stuff, how well people know who you are and what you do. And how much they love what you do. So that’s really, really important. For big and small businesses.
The third room is body and this is how physically energised you are. So, when I say physically energized do I mean actually in the body of your people and yourself? Yeah, I do. I mean that as well as your brand and the physical attributes that people come into contact with. So, it could be a logo, a brand, natively physically energised. Perhaps you had your company brand created in the 80’s and it’s time for a refresh to make it more modern and appealing.
It might be that you’ve got a great brand but some of your brochures and things are getting a bit old or your website doesn‘t work that well. All that sort of physical parts of your brand. It’s also how your team and your staff show up when they go out to a job or when a customer comes into your store, or into your business.
How physically energised they are. Imagine if you ran a gym, it would be no good if your staff would walk around with their head down, stepping and dragging their feet. It just doesn’t match what your brand is about. So it’s really important to get the body side working as well. And then lastly and just as important as the other three, but almost one of the most important is your vision.
So, how purposely aligned you are? How strong the reason why you are in business is? And do your team know why you are in business? Do they understand and do they come to work everyday wanting to contribute to whatever that bigger picture is? So that’s really critical. And if I could just share quickly Franziska, a client recently that I was working with.
She is a photographer, excellent at what she does, has really high IQ so very technically proficient in her role. She has really good AQ so that room was going pretty well. As far as most of the people she photographed, they always say she makes them feel comfortable and they’re really relaxed with her. She heads a great body… so a great brand online, her own personal brand was good.
What she was doing on social media was very much congruent with her brand but she lacked a bit of vision and so through identifying that process, that’s where we worked with her because while she was great at what she was doing, she has finally found that she was starting to live month to month because she was having to chase work.
She‘d get some work, she’d do that and then she’d be out chasing again. And part of that was because she really didn’t have a vision or a plan of where her business is going to go. And we really helped her shape that vision and then everything else started to fall out of that. So I hope that kind of explains how we might work with someone.
Franziska: Yeah, I love it. And I love the four rooms. I’ll go through them just quickly to review for our audience, for the listeners. So the first one is IQ so intellectually focused. Is that also a little bit about, so you said it’s about working on the right things. Is it also about strategy, like having a strategy and then implementing that?
Heidi: Exactly. So once you got the vision you have to have IQ which says how does the rubber hit the road. How are we actually gonna implement the strategy so, IQ is all about how smart you are in your business.
Franziska: Excellent. And then the second one is AQ and that’s about connecting with your people and your team members. The third one is your body which is about being consistent in your branding and how you are perceived in the market; and the last one is vision.
Heidi: Exactly. Spot on, Top of the class again.
Franziska: I did write them down as you were talking so…
Heidi: Clever girl.
Franziska: There we go. Yeah, that’s so useful. So now, for the listeners and what they can do is they can go through those four rooms, those four elements of the UQ Power House and see if their are some elements that are missing. And focus on those elements to improve their UQ Power.
Heidi: Exactly.
Franziska: Something else I wanted to ask you because I know that something you also do with business is you help them work on their company culture and you help them create better work environments. What do you believe makes a good work environment, a strong work environment?
Heidi: Sure, great question, and company culture I think it’s everything. In today’s market, like I was saying there’s so much competition. One of the only ways you can actually stand out with our uniqueness is through people. So, if we don’t have our company culture right, the delivery of your product and service is not going to be spot on.
So the more you can build a strong company culture, that’s something that your competitors can’t copy. They can’t copy the great ingredients of what you’ve got going on. And I know for you guys, Franziska and Basic Bananas, you have a great team culture there. Coming and doing some workshops on innovation with you really helped me see how great and how closely and very open the communication was and that’s definitely one of the keys to having a great company culture is having open communication.
And I think more than anything, respect for each other so there is this healthy respect and open communication. It‘s also really, really important to have strong leadership. If you don’t have strong leadership, it’s like a ship at sea with no runner. So whether that’s one person right at the top or it’s delegated to managers or however that is, someone needs to be, I guess, creating that vision and inspiring people to want to follow it.
So you have to have a really good leader. And just like we apply the four rooms of the Power House to a business you can apply it to your leaders as well. So each individual person can look at their personal Power House and think “Well, maybe I’m good at IQ but I’m not so good at AQ”. And I know I recently worked with a professor who was excellent at IQ, really, an intelligent, smart man but he was needing to work on a collaborative research project with about three different universities and some medical facilities and he was really lacking in AQ so he was actually annoying people and putting them off.
And people didn’t want to join the team and he really needed this collaboration to work. And so in identifying his house he realised AQ really needed some work. So we worked a lot on his improvement of his AQ skills, of connecting with other and relating and leading people. And then things improved. So, you need a leadership team that have strong houses themselves. You also need to have challenging and interesting work.
People need to want to come to work each day. And some of what would make them come to work is having interesting work. Some of it is also that you accept mistakes or what I would call missteps. So sometimes people need to try things, and if it doesn’t work the first time, they need to try another way. There needs to be a culture that accepts and allows people to try things out. Otherwise it gets too rigid and people want to leave.
And lastly, in all of that, the main thing why people come to work, is because they want to contribute to some kind of purpose, bigger than them. So this is where the vision part is really important. Helping your team understand why you do what you do and how you’re helping and making a difference. It’s what will keep them coming back. We recently did an info graphic which I can share with your audience if you wish Franziska, which is all about how to motivate employees. And if you look to all the research, people tend to join a company but they leave their manager. And that’s because the manager is not relating to them or inspiring them to be there.
And, they don’t come to work just for the pay check. As much as you can think it’s all about the money, for many people it’s about more than that. We want to feel fulfilled and we want to enjoy what we are doing so a great culture has many of those ingredients. So, good communication and respect, challenging and interesting work, acceptance and allowance for people to try new things and make mistakes, and then really to get that why. Why are you there? What is the bigger vision? All that needs to be in place and then you’ll grow a great company.
Franziska: Yeah, and I love that you bring that up the part about that they want to be part of something bigger than themselves and often they want to contribute and I’ve been doing research about that for a while to study about how you can really reward your team members and I think Daniel Pink has a good Ted talk where he also talks about most people are actually not driven by monetary benefits but by something else. By recognition and by contributing and by stuff that is different to a monetary benefit. I think that that‘s exactly what you say.
Heidi: Exactly. I mean we just ran a workshop yesterday for a team of researchers at a research company and it was all about that. For them it was about having colleagues who were supportive and had their back. It was about flexibility in the workforce and it was that they were not for profit. So it was about the fact that they were contributing to the community. No one had mention their pay.
Franziska: Interesting. Cause often business owners think that’s the only think that people care about.
Heidi: Yeah.
Franziska: Something else that I found in terms of company culture and getting the right people on board and I’ve made mistakes myself, is to really get to know that person and knowing what they actually want to do and what they are good at. Because actually there is different types of people, but there is two types that are very distinguished and one is the more creative person and then the one that is more process driven.
And I’ve definitely had for an admin role, you like someone that is more process driven and check lists and everyday looks similar and I’ve also made the mistake where I have hired someone who was more creative and a bit of a goer, an implementer, into and admin role and that can sometimes, not work as well as it could.
Heidi: Absolutely. As well as I often see in small businesses, when I work with other small businesses owners, what they do, it’s often hire people who are clones of themselves. Because it’s a natural human tendency to like people who are like us. And so sometimes they actually hiring people who are similar to or entirely to them or even employing people who want to go on and do what they’re doing and that sometimes is a big mistake.
Because you’re not getting that well-rounded … is like the four rooms, you’ll find that you’re strong in one and if you hire everyone strong in that one, some of the others are gonna be left behind. So it’s really important to look at exactly what you need in that role and what will complement the skills you already have in your team before you go out looking for that person. And exactly what you were saying Franziska, is higher slow, fire fast.
Really get time to get to know the person, a lot of people think I’ll read your resume and maybe meet them once for 20 minutes and I always say that is that really long enough to get to know someone? It’s like going out on a date and asking someone to marry you after you had half a coffee like … You really want to get to know them better. And often one way you could do that, if I can give a quick tip is if you have a team already, is to let them employ or be involved in the employment and in the interview process as well.
So while you might be doing the interview, when they arrive maybe get them to sit down with your team and have a coffee and in a casual way just chat about who they are and where they come from, and what they believe in and what they’re like, so that you start and your team start to see if they’re a match of values. Because if they’ve got to work with them every day, you’ve got to make sure they’re a good fit.
Franziska: I love that. I love that idea and I’ll definitely be doing that for our next team member hires. That’s a great tip.
Heidi: Great.
Franziska: I could talk with you for ever and ever and ever and ever. I just love what you’ve got to give to the community and your knowledge is so deep. To wrap up the show though, I’d love to give our listeners a little bit of a challenge or action step. So what do you think we could give them? Something, it could be one or two things that we could just challenge them to go and do. So that when they listen to this show they go and actually implement.
Heidi: I would say a challenge for them to do is as they’re working at what they think makes them unique, I would like them to write down three words that they think makes them or their company unique. So they really try and think, If I could describe my company in three words what would I use and write them down.
And then go out and ask five customers or clients to write down what they think is unique about your company and then just have a look at the three words you came up with, and the three words your five clients or customers come up with, and see if there is a mismatch or is there a marriage happening there.
And then you know if you’re on the right path or if you maybe need some help from Basic Bananas to focus you marketing better or work or some of your systems and processes. I always say in UQ the U is not what you say it is, it’s what other people see you as. So it’s really important to get that kind of secondary opinion about what’s working in your business.
Franziska: Yeah, and that‘s a very great distinction. It’s not about who you think you are or what’s unique about you, but what actually your customers think that you are and makes you unique. I love that exercise. I’m actually gonna get one of my guys to do that for Basic Bananas, just to see what happens.
Heidi: Oh, great, let me know what they come up with?
Franziska: Yeah, absolutely. The one question that I always ask is, what’s the weirdest or funniest thing that has ever happened to you in business? I know it’s such a weird question but, sometimes we get some really funny and weird stories. I was wondering if you have something that comes to your mind.
Heidi: I have so many. God, I think we have lots of fun things happen all the time. And often that it’s because we work off-site in people’s companies and businesses a lot so I’ve had some weird ones where, let me think … One would be where I had to go and do a workshop in a regional area and it was quite a high aboriginal population in the area and they were very respectful of that culture and I didn’t know that we were going to do this. And I arrived to run a workshop and they had a smoking ceremony and I don’t know if you know what that is …
Franziska: No.
Heidi: But it’s an aboriginal tradition where you clean the room and you prepare for work that you gonna do. And we were gonna work together on two days on a strategic plan and so they had built this bonfire thing.
Franziska: That’s great.
Heidi: Outside the building and we had to walk through the smoke. And I was wearing a skirt that day and I was having smoke blown up my skirt literally as I walked through this. And in high heels so not expecting that at all.
Franziska: I hope you got a video of that.
Heidi: No, I don’t, but I’ve been smoked. But probably I think it’s not so much weird or funny but I think the thing that has been the biggest “aha” for me in business particularly when I started first with my first company Leading Value, is I came from a marketing background, I have degrees and masters in those kind of topics.
And all my life I have told my own clients and customers that I’d worked with corporately, about how important it is to niche yourself, how important it is to understand your target market and to be focused on what you are about. And when I started my businesses I was trying to be everything to everyone so… that was probably the biggest learning for me. It was a door moment when I realised that I was never taking my own advice.
So I was a plumber with a leaky tub. And being a bit of a copycat and going “Oh, they’re doing this… I can offer that. They’re doing this …”So instead of honing in on what was important and unique about our business, I was trying to be everything and everyone. And you never hit any home runs when you’re firing balls everywhere so … Yeah that was probably the biggest learning for me.
Franziska: That’s right. But at least you are honest about it and now you’ve changed your direction and you’re much more focused.
Heidi: Totally.
Franziska: So where can people find out more about you? Where can they go and check you out? Where can they check out UQ Power? Anything they wanna learn about you, where would we send them?
Heidi: So probably the best way is to hop over to our website which is uqpower.com.au or also on LinkedIn UQ Power, Facebook, and same thing. Our book as I said is coming up in August and that would be a great way of getting a head around the concept of uniqueness and how to make yourself stand out better in your market place or industry. And it would be a bit of a laugh, so… Hopefully people will enjoy that as well.
Franziska: I will definitely enjoy it and we’ll put some things in the show notes so they can go site UQ Power maybe or maybe even Leading Ladies.
Heidi: Yeah.
Franziska: And find out more about you and if they wanna get in touch with you they can do that through your website.
Heidi: Right. And probably one last thing, speaking of Leading Ladies, if they’re interested in finding more about their own communication style, on our website leadingladiesinternational.com.au we have a free quiz you can take that tells you what your shoe style says about your personality. So that’s a bit of fun if people want to play with that.
Franziska: Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun. I’ll add that link in the show notes too so … Thank you so much Heidi, is been a pleasure like always, to chat to you and I thank you for giving so much value to our listeners.
Heidi: Thanks so much for the opportunity Franziska.
Franziska: Thanks Heidi.
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