Christina Davis

The main thing is messaging and people. What you do and sell might not change or you might be adding to it or reducing some services or products, but it's how your people talk about your brand. Brand messaging is vital, so I'd like to combine this with "define vision" and "iterate often" and tie it into creating connections with your people. If you can build trust from the start, you can navigate any friction around brand messaging between parties in the future. I suggest having the leadership and executives personally write up a letter explaining how each role, department, service, and product impacts the overall goal in their own words - it ties everything together in a more personal way. Share this from the start and reference it often!

Why not ask your customers? Start your research. Ask for feedback from both internal and external customers to see what stands out or why they chose you. You're bound to find something to run with. Once you can define it, it starts from the top. You have to put that message everywhere in your company from top to bottom. It takes collaboration across all teams and departments. On top of it all, you need to talk about it every chance you get. Talk about what you are doing to support it and share ideas around it. If leaders talk about it, employees will talk about, and it spreads. Shared goal, shared actions, shared stories. Word of mouth. People are going to talk either way.

I agree! So much so that I am going to be doing an Intro Accounting course to assist me in my marketing. You’ll be ahead of the game in that aspect. Handling a marketing budget and communicating this to others will be much easier with finance experience. You just need to be creative with words and images too. In any role, I think it’s important to focus on rounding out your skills and finding a good balance.

One of the best ways to do this is always giving them a visual, and I don't mean you actually have to draw it out for them. Just give them something to visualize. What does the final product accomplish? What is considered finished? It's like giving away the ending, but they write the story. Another thing is set the goal and provide them a way to track it. Share with them how it will be measured and what all will be measured. This helps them see the 'bigger picture.'

This can be hard, I'll admit. Outside of the situations where required, I never once had my phone on silent for four years. I turned off all notifications for the first time when I went on my honeymoon. Needless to say, it felt strange. I felt anxious at first, but that faded. I began to think about my team and how they'd handle things without me. Not surprisingly, I felt a sense of trust. The worry subsided as much as it could. I remember my first manager telling me "at the end of the day, it's just freight" and while that can sound bad in a way, I knew what she meant. It was more so that we will find a solution and to be hopeful that things will work out, rather than freight being unimportant. That stuck with me and I repeat that often.

It's important to put recharge time into your daily, at least weekly routine. Regular downtime is good for your brain! Plus, it sets the tone as a leader, showing others that it's okay to not overwork yourself and to prioritize time off. I think the best way to recharge your mind and body during a true vacation is to focus on living your values in ways that have nothing to do with work. For example, one of my core values is curiosity, so I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts or reading articles about current industry trends or events. A true vacation would be learning something that has nothing to do with freight, trucking, logistics, supply chain, nothing like that. Finding that true separation between work and home.