April Shprintz, Driven Outcomes – InnovaBuzz 247

April Shprintz, Driven Outcomes

In this episode, I’m really excited to have as my guest, April Shprintz, Founder of Driven Outcomes. April has extensive experience as a TV news anchor for the US Air Force and subsequently a highly successful corporate career in a variety of roles, where she says that the best part of her job was making the impossible, possible, especially when everyone else had given up.

April says that every significant step she’s taken in her life was something someone said was impossible. So, when someone tells her they haven’t been able to overcome a limit, fulfill a dream or reach their biggest goal, she gets really excited because she knows it’s possible and how to help. At Driven Outcomes, she has created a new category of business coaching that she calls Business Acceleration. She helps business leaders and entrepreneurs achieve their goals in days, weeks or months rather than the normal months, years or decades.

In our discussion, April and I talked about:

• The two characteristics of people that will determine how they work in business and in life
• Using ideas from other industries to accelerate the success of your business
• Making the impossible possible.

Listen to the podcast to find out more.

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Show Notes from this episode with April Shprintz of Driven Outcomes

Key points and takeaways from this episode include:

• Business acceleration is identifying really quickly the very important things for your clients and getting to them very quickly. 
• If you have the thought and idea, then, it is possible. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have the thought and idea at all.
• Oftentimes, the most stupid question is the real thought-starter for a way of doing things that are completely outside of the box and are even more successful.
• What is innovation to one industry is sometimes just the way another industry goes into the market. 
• 80% of the barriers to growth are self-perceived. Some are just opportunities to be more creative.
• If you view yourself as an exception, so does everyone else.
• Your fear is more painful than how the actual experience would be if the worst thing happens.
• Share some of your fears with your employees. When you’re willing to be vulnerable, it builds up a bond and loyalty with your team that always being the tough guy or woman doesn’t allow you to have.
• Create a culture where it’s OK to be afraid and to make mistakes. You can’t have innovation if it’s not OK to fail.
• Generosity culture applies to every different area of your business.
• Adding value is all about wanting the best for your prospects and clients whether that is through your product or service or not.
• When you genuinely care for your customers, they are going to feel that. And, not only does it increase sales but also customer satisfaction. It also increases your employees’ satisfaction in their jobs as well because they can feel how they are making an impact.
• The generosity culture is very symbiotic. When you give, it comes back.
• Both aptitude and attitude are very important for business success and individual success. Aptitude is easy. It can be learnt. The more important thing is attitude because you can’t teach attitude to anyone.
• Everybody adjusts to change differently. Individualise the way of helping people see the benefits of the change to them. Validate the concerns that they have and help them understand why those concerns are probably more fear-based so that they can go back to being calm and excited about their roles and what they are doing.
• It’s a blessing to be excited and happy about what you are doing.
• People are not good at uncertainty much more than they are not good at change. Uncertainty is what makes people uncomfortable.
• Give voice to people who may have the best ideas about what’s happening and the changes that can be done. Get them involved by having group conversations, cross-functional organisational talks, and brainstorming sessions, where there are no bad ideas. 
• You need to have processes in place in order to scale. Have repeatable processes that don’t always require you as the leader. It frees up more time to be strategic and to think about things that will reinvigorate you about leading the company.
• If a leader is not willing to give up certain tasks then people in the organisation will not see how they can continue to grow.
• Think about everything that you appreciate about what you are doing. When you focus on the things that you like about where you are, you’ll be amazed by all the creative ideas that will come to you that could lead to the next place.

The Buzz – Our Innovation Round

Here are April’s answers to the questions of our Innovation round. Listen to the interview to get the full scoop.

1. #1 thing to be more innovative – Quit being afraid to fail. Failure is just the next step on your way to success.
2. Best thing for new ideas – Talking to people who do things I don’t know anything about.
3. Favourite tool for innovation – Lessons from Brene Brown and Mitch Harper
4. Keep project / client on track – Accountability. Listen to what clients are not saying.
5. Differentiate – Do what you are passionate about. If you are passionate and excited about it, you will be different because most people are not terribly excited about what they are doing.

To Be a Leader

Think of failure as a step that you take on the way to being really successful. It’s unimaginable, the things you can do, when you’re not afraid to fail. As a leader, if people see you embrace failure, they are going to look up to you, be more loyal to you, and they will feel that they too can be innovative by following your footsteps. 

Reach Out

You can reach out and thank April through her website. 

Suggested Guest

April suggested I interview Mitch Harper of Insane Growth. So Mitch, keep an eye on your inbox for an invitation from us to the InnovaBuzz podcast, courtesy of April Shprintz.

Links

• Website– Driven Outcomes
• Twitter – @AprilShprintz
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• YouTube

Are you ready to accelerate your ability to grow your business beyond its limits? Check out April’s 3-Part Acceleration Profile and discover your next most logical step to accelerate your business fast.

Cool things about April

• She gathered rocks from their driveway, painted them blue, and sold them to her classmates for twenty-five cents each when she was 6 years old. 
• She was a TV Anchor during her time with the US Airforce. 
• She’s also a philanthropist, having founded My Global Mission™ – a Business Philanthropy Platform designed to improve your business and the lives of children all around the world.

Listen to the Podcast