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What do you need to BE in 2023?
Read more: What do you need to BE in 2023?December is my trigger to start thinking about business goals for the next year. My process has two main steps. First, I go through my last four quarterly FLOW Planners, looking at where I spent my time, the wins I had, the goals I achieved, and the lessons learned. That time is critical because we […]
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Employee Experience STarts at the Beginning
Read more: Employee Experience STarts at the BeginningIf you want to frustrate your best new employees, I have a foolproof way. Be unclear on your expectations. Frustrated new employees rarely develop into high-quality long-term team members who contribute to a remarkable customer experience. So those first impressions of the work and how they go about it are crucial. The good news is […]
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Getting Pushed is How we Learn
Read more: Getting Pushed is How we LearnAny business can grow from the inside out. I start with that fundamental belief. The journey to that goal is seldom easy or obvious. That was certainly the case when I first started working with RHB, a higher education consultant based in Indianapolis, Ind. There were early doubts that it was a good fit. I […]
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Three lessons for your business from Steve Jobs
Read more: Three lessons for your business from Steve JobsIt’s been 10 years since Steve Jobs passed away, but the lessons to be learned from his life and the business he built will be around for a long time. Possibly the best insight into what made Jobs what he was comes from the biography “Becoming Steve Jobs” by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli. The book was published in 2015 but I read it […]
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The “And”
Read more: The “And”Most of the companies I work with have been built on the passion and drive of a charismatic founder. The sales “process” was simply to free up as much of the founder’s time to spend with prospects and watch them magically convert. But they quickly realize that if all sales has to go through them […]
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You can’t know everything
Read more: You can’t know everythingIn a meeting with one of my clients, a member of the leadership team mentioned that she was surprised when a member of the team she manages asked about a new development in another area of the business and this leader didn’t know about it. The implication was that there was a communication breakdown at […]
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TNU – They’re Not You
Read more: TNU – They’re Not YouI was recently visiting with the HR director at a five-year old company that has experienced significant growth. They have a good product in an expanding market. In the early days, it was the CEO who was doing most of the selling, and – like the CEO of every company who has early success – […]
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“The only people who don’t want to hear from me are the people I’m paid to talk to.”
Read more: “The only people who don’t want to hear from me are the people I’m paid to talk to.”I was speaking virtually to a group of salespeople recently and you could see their demeanor change as they came to this realization. Like most companies, theirs looked to hire extroverts – the “High I’s” on the DISC assessment – that would be comfortable talking to new people. This can be a great strategy, but […]
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Should we slow down?
Read more: Should we slow down?That was the question posed by the leadership of a highly successful business that I recently started consulting with. They had recently come through a period of rapid growth. And that growth exposed some missing systems. A few client engagements had gone off the rails. Salespeople were chasing the wrong deals. And the leadership team was […]