Leaders Enable Team Success

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet Leaders want their people to succeed; success lifts the person and the leader. Leaders cannot succeed if those they lead fail. The most effective leaders invest significant time engaging and coaching their people. Exceptional leaders appreciate that empathy and emotional intelligence, paired with experience and intellect, enable them to engage and collaborate with their employees such that those they lead gain awareness about how each person makes a difference. This truth is what …

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Culture and Value Creation

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  The fundamental premise of any business acquisition is that the merged organizations will be more valuable together than they would be if they continued as separate entities. An acquisition is supposed to be an exercise in value creation. Yet, a KPMG study indicates that 83% of acquisitions fail to boost value, and often, value is actually destroyed. Something goes very wrong along the way. Of the five key due diligence parameters for acquisitions – risk, price, strategy, …

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Pulling the Fire Alarm

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet As sales leader, you encourage your team to develop strong customer relationships. Because this takes time, you counsel them about perseverance, commitment and accountability, and enlighten them that they will know that preference has been earned when they are invited to participate in more strategic discussions like new product development meetings. Like most sales professionals, your team is highly self-motivated, with each member consistently demonstrating initiative. They understand that the …

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What Are You Worth?

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet All our lives, we struggle to improve, to advance our careers, and to strengthen the financial well-being of our families. There is genuine value in this pursuit, and during our lifetimes, we’ll have opportunities to make more money. But, is the pursuit of wealth what truly drives you? Is that what defines you? Most leaders acknowledge that real satisfaction comes from what they do, how they act to overcome …

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3 Behaviors That Cultivate Customer Loyalty

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet Who in your organization directly interacts with customers? For most business transactions, people still want to buy from people, rather than buying a brand or company name.  Enduring relationships evolve from these personal interactions. To cultivate customer loyalty, here are 3 behaviors you want your customer contact people to consistently demonstrate: Generosity Seek first to learn about potential customers – their story, their needs, their aspirations – and share ideas, trends and suggestions that might …

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Lessons From Failure

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet Failure has always been a better teacher than success. Failure promptly resets our perspective, making us aware of the need for change and the pursuit of knowledge necessary to implement it. Overwhelming our natural risk aversion, it opens our minds to ideas we’ve never considered or have previously rejected.  Seeking understanding, we dampen our hubris and humbly tap our relationships in search of a broader array of input and a deeper …

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Believe It or Not

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet In today’s marketplace, there’s lots of barking and not much listening. Everyone is in a hurry to inform why they are right, loudly and clearly. When your debate or pitch isn’t resulting in a dialogue about facts or rationale, when no one is conforming to your ideas or even engaging with you in a productive discussion about competing ideas, then the easy answer is to decide that your audience simply doesn’t …

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Triaging Opportunities

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet Patients arriving at hospital emergency rooms are often triaged into three groups:  (1) No amount of intervention will save the person, (2) patient can survive if care is eventually provided, and (3) survival requires immediate care. This process focuses scarce resources where they can do the most good.  Opportunities for your business often arrive in bunches. Does your organization have a process to rapidly and efficiently prioritize them? To avoid a decision …

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The Lowest Price Myth

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet When Henry Ford introduced mass production to the fledging automotive industry, his objective was to make Ford cars affordable for everyone by optimizing efficiencies in car manufacturing. But then, he and his team discovered that people didn’t want the cheapest car. They wanted a car that made them feel special – a car with some style, that was safe – a car that they were proud to drive. Every …

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Managing the “Gorilla” Customer Relationship 

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  Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet When your business with one customer exceeds 25% of your annual sales, then you have a “gorilla” customer and you’re probably feeling vulnerable. You’ve earned the business by serving them well, and if they offered you more, you’d likely be pleased to expand the relationship, but be wary. Loss of a gorilla customer can be devastating, and typically that loss has nothing to do with your performance. The 3 …

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