The 3Cs are three steps, but don’t get too excited. I’d love to tell you that all it takes to improve your and your team’s skills is to stop drinking coffee, smile at your co-workers and do some yoga in the morning. As much as I wish it were true, I know just as you do that boosting leads and improving revenue is by no means a question of a day’s worth of miraculous changes.

In the world of finances (and not exclusively there, of course), getting better at what you do takes hard work, constant education, and learning from (often costly) mistakes.

I’m not going to give you any magical tricks, any zen miracles, nor “add water” success. What you will get, though, is a solid piece of advice on how to work on yourself, encourage your team to more towards improvement and, yes, to eventually boost leads and improve revenue. But nothing comes free. You gotta be willing to work for it, my friend.

Identify the goals in the mission

Having a clear mission and being able to share it with others is a part of your job, but way too often managers tend to get caught up in the big words and distant goals. Keeping the big picture in sight is vital, but to your team it’s much more important to know what they need to do to get there. My advice to all managers is this: acquire the skill of breaking down the mission into specific and targeted goals. This requires excellent organization, analytical, and also communication skills, so that you’re able to keep every part of your team on the same page while moving towards the goals. In the ideal world, each of the goals is designed to bring you one step closer to fulfilling the mission.

Develop talent 

You hired the people on your team because you saw their talent and their potential. But this is where many managers lie back on their laurels, put their feet up and expect the newly hired miracles to become (and remain) top performers.

Wrong! This is the catch: a good manager will offer training and guidance when needed. An outstanding manager won’t wait for the need to appear, and will do everything in his or her powers to keep pushing their team towards excellence.

Inspect your expectations 

Never mind ABC — ABA. Always be Analyzing. Whenever you’re about to set a goal, ask yourself first whether a) the timeline makes sense, b) the results are realistic, c) the process makes sense and d) the result is aligned with the company’s mission and philosophy.

Keep a critical eye on yourself, but also on your team. Ignoring bad behavior only results in it being compounded. Nobody likes confrontation, especially at work. But you’re the role model, and you should never allow yourself to let your guard down.

I promise you that this straightforward approach will go a long way. Your team will know exactly what to expect from you, and vice versa. The “3C” formula, as I like to call it (Clean air, Communication, Control), is something anyone can do, but not everyone can keep up. If you master it though, you’ll see it in the results.