When thinking about the concept of leadership, many individuals assume that it is the same thing as management. This couldn't be further from the truth. There is just so much qualities that a good leader should possess and one of which is hating complacency. On the Team Engagement Podcast with host Shaun R., Darrell Evans tells more.
Shaun:
Welcome to the Team Engagement Podcast, where leadership teams share their insights. We discuss five questions in about ten minutes and I am very grateful to have Darrell Evans with us today. He is the co-founder at Yokel Local Marketing out of Las Vegas, Nevada. Darrell, thank you so much for being on the show today. What would you like for people to know about you and Yokel Local Marketing?
Darrell:
Thanks, Shaun, for having me. I appreciate it—Darrell Evans was born and raised here in Las Vegas, Nevada. I started my entrepreneurial journey at 20, so I've been around for 30 years in this business, and I just think that I would want them to know is that the success is found in the journey; very cliche, but it's been a fun ride. I learned a lot of things along the way. And, our work at Yokel Local is to help companies drive revenue. So we help people who got stuck in this digital landscape. We have had a good run for about 11 years. We're digging in for the ever-changing environment that we consistently live in.
Shaun:
Well, congratulations on surviving the pandemic through all of that too. We have these challenges we all have to deal with. Well, let's jump right to our questions then. Our first question is to share with the audience a collaboration you've had within the team.
Teamwork Makes the Dreamwork
Darrell:
Lots of collaboration in the last 30 years, as you can imagine. I want to go back to one that I am proud of. In 2017, it was May, and we decided to have a live event, a seminar. Actually, when you sit in chairs and invite people into a building, this is foreign in Covid language because now everything's virtual. And, we put this event together in about 53 days. It ended up with 80 people in the room and had an amazing time. Our team just rallied together - from our operations manager to our marketing team leaders to build the decks and training. We already had the idea for several years, but that was probably the funniest opportunity of collaboration, and we went on to do an eight-week coaching program on the back of that. So that is one of my recollections of a great collaboration. I want to say I want to offer it a hitch, it probably didn't, but it just went well in a short window of time.
Shaun:
I was going to say, 53 days? That's remarkable! That is really impressive. Well, you obviously pulled that off, and kudos to you and to the team for pulling something like that in such a short period of time. Question number two, I hear from other leaders that measuring engagement within the team can be challenging. What are your thoughts?
How Check-In Meetings Strengthens Team Engagement
Darrell:
Shaun that is an interesting question for these times. Because now we are a virtual company, we had an office here in the city of Las Vegas. So we started with a one-off office for seven years, we transitioned to a bigger office about two years before the pandemic. So we were a company that is physically in an office even though we have digital capabilities as a digital company. Since the pandemic, now we are virtual. We actually have a team abroad, outside of the United States now. A new conversation for me as an entrepreneur. So today, it isn't easy to really understand the tone of engagement throughout your team, but obviously, we can see the interactions through technology. But, I think the one important insight, this actually started before the pandemic and just continued.
"I think as a leader, you have to find check-in points with your team and open up a doorway for dialogue outside of the realm of a project or a task. So, you really could talk to them and hear out how they're feeling."
Darrell Evans
Listen to the rest of the interview and learn why giving your 100% in everything is the best way to go up.
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