Bob Schultek

Bob has more than 30 years of service as a senior sales and business development executive, CEO and business owner. His expertise includes customer-partnered business development, strategic planning, sales management, customer service, operational alignment, lean process analysis and improvement, quality assurance, and performance management. He has worked in the energy, medical device, bioscience & pharmaceutical, discrete and process manufacturing, packaging and distribution, communications and information technology, and business-to-business service industries.

What is Discretionary Effort Worth?

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet When a qualified person does the job – completing obligations and achieving assigned goals with expected behavior, we recognize this as acceptable performance. But when a person contributes more than the common standard, more than what’s expected, that’s discretionary effort. While it can be a bit rare, leaders realize that inspiring this additional energy from those they lead is what makes change possible. If leaders cannot drive productive change that improves results, …

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Inspiring Change

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Improving results means tackling change. Change is hard work, demanding commitment, perseverance and discretionary effort.   Only the people in a business can change it, and they will invest their talent and energy to do so if they believe that their actions will make a difference. Commitment, perseverance and discretionary effort cannot be commanded…they must be inspired. Inspiration is possible when people believe that their work is meaningful, a realization that springs from an appreciation that their leaders …

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Is This Business Sustainable?

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Bob Schultek Author of  The Gauntlet There are a multitude of models used to assess the sustainability of a business. Most evaluate strategy, performance, market growth potential, customer retention probability, governance and the management of human resources. In a dynamic, competitive market, where customers believe they can find all they need on the internet, and where a competitive advantage built on technology cannot long be sustained, it’s an organization’s culture and people that constitute its most …

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Is Your Promise Synching?

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet Your sales team is making promises that the rest of your organization is expected to fulfill. Are those who must deliver on these commitments prepared to do so? Is your promise to a customer synching with the operational resources necessary to satisfy the commitment? The most productive strategy for increasing sales is to build enduring relationships with customers that generate more orders. Sustaining these relationships requires that your customers recognize you as a …

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Leadership and Change

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet Leaders drive change. Whether reacting to an external challenge that threatens the business, or proactively disrupting the status quo to improve performance, leaders and change are inseparable. The most visible leadership stories describe triumphs over trouble, departures from the past, doing what has never been done, or going where no one has ever been. Every story is about challenge and change. The same is true for those who lead their …

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Two Directions for Culture

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet Culture tends to move in one of two directions, and as a leader who influences which path your organization and team will take, you have a decision to make. It’s a choice that impacts how you work with others in the organization and the investments you make in your business and yourself. One path leads towards more openness and transparency. Turn the other direction for control and dependence. Does your business benefit if …

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Transaction or Investment

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet When a customer requests a proposal, how do you respond? If you propose a solution that merely resolves the stated problem, then you may relieve the customer’s immediate pain without ever discovering how your solution could help the customer succeed in the longer term. Your solution is a transaction, a one-time resolution that wastes an opportunity to reveal your organization’s broad experience and competency in a way that differentiates you in the …

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3 Questions Your People Ask About You

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet Leaders rely on feedback from their teams as one metric to gauge their effectiveness. Asking each team member what’s going well and what can improve produces some insight, but empathetic leaders seek a more comprehensive perspective that explores how their credibility and intentions are perceived by their teams. To gain this perspective, these leaders suppose that their personnel are asking 3 questions about them: 1. “Do you care about me?” Does …

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When Growth Stalls

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet When growth stalls, the need to reassess strategy, people and process becomes urgent. The people evaluation may considers the “right person-right job” question, balancing an individual’s performance against the consistency of actual versus expected behaviors. The process evaluation may challenge best practices. What has worked well to deliver productivity with consistent quality versus what can be improved, by how much and how soon. The strategy evaluation is typically the most comprehensive assessment, often beginning with a review of …

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3 Attributes That Boost Customer Loyalty

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet When asked why they are loyal to a particular supplier, customers don’t award the highest grade to outperforming competitors on product or service, or to securing a better price-to-value ratio than the competition. The highest grade is consistently awarded to the sales process they experienced. The primary driver of customer loyalty is the sales experience itself. A salesperson or business that respects the customer’s time by demonstrating urgency and efficiency earns …

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