Kat Cole’s Hot Shot Recipe
Kat Cole is the President, COO, and on the Board of Directors at AG1, one of the fastest growing direct-to-consumer wellness brands in the US. She joined AG1 after a long career optimizing businesses in Limited Service / Fast Food restaurant channels at Focus Brands (Owners of Jamba, Auntie Anne's, Cinnabon, among others), which she joined after a long career at Hooters.
After listening to this TSC episode a few months back, her ideas around leadership have been living rent free in my head. One of which, she calls “The Hot Shot Rule.”
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Photo by: Steph Grant Photography
What’s the “Hot Shot Rule” you’re wondering? It’s essentially a monthly exercise Kat puts herself through in order to ensure she’s consistently improving how she operates in her role, and creating space and time for her to see the obvious things she could be doing better immediately.
How do you complete this exercise? You ask yourself one simple question: “Assume for a moment that someone you really admire, respect and think is excellent takes over your job tomorrow. You are unable to tell them anything or provide any context. They simply get access to your email, your direct messages, and your documents. What is one thing they would immediately identify as an area of opportunity for optimization and or something?”
The goal is this: Get yourself out of your own perspective for a moment. Release yourself from context-laden decisions that were made in the past and may or may not be relevant at this time. And then… ACT on it within the next 24 hours.
The result of this over time? If you complete this each month, and as a result do something different (and better), the effects compound, and your business is stronger as a result, your leadership is stronger as a result.
How to get started? Try it once. Put a one hour block on your calendar for next week on either Monday or Friday. When that hour comes, spend the first thirty minutes identifying your “Hot Shot” (the person you are going to pretend is taking over your role), now journal for a few minutes about what they would instantly see as a result of having access to your calendar, email, and documents, in terms of opportunity. Identify a few things they would immediately be doing different. Choose one of those things to execute on. Begin the execution of that item with the second half of your one hour time block. Before time is up, allocate another hour to continuing the work that was identified as part of this exercise. Bonus points: if you enjoyed the exercise, add another one hour block to your calendar for next month. When that time comes, identify a new “Hot Shot” and repeat the exercise.
Since listening to the episode in January of 2024, I’ve done the “Hot Shot” exercise two times with two incredible results. As a sales leader responsible for new business and renewals, it’s really important that I know what we have in the pipeline and in the renewal queue. As a result of my first “Hot Shot” exercise, I developed a new system for monitoring and managing renewal cycles with my team. As a result of my second “Hot Shot” exercise, I developed a new system for upskilling my team’s knowledge of our products, our resources, and enhancing their overall sales skill. I can’t wait to see what I come up with next.
I hope you enjoy this simple, yet powerful, exercise, and your business/team benefits as a result!
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