Customers Don’t Care About Your Product or Service

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Customers care only about the value you offer them. They ask about your products or services because it’s easier for them to evaluate your offering versus others in terms of features, functions and price. But what they’re really assessing is the value your offering could produce for them. How easy you make it for them to discover this value determines your success in earning their business. Before responding in detail to product and service inquiries, …

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New Year, Fresh Start – A Time To Ask Why

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Each new year is a gift – another opportunity to begin anew. It’s a fresh start, and a time to ask why? Make the most of this new beginning. Answering these three questions can get your new year off to a productive start:  Why were you able to accomplish what you did last year? What was achieved? What worked well? Does your team know how they contributed? Did you take time to celebrate success? Why does …

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New Years Come & New Years Go

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A new year approaches, a chance to start anew To overcome barriers, and achieve a breakthrough. To develop new plans, and consider new dreams A fresh start to ponder, new goals to achieve. Invest more energy with your people this year There’s much to learn from what you’ll hear. Your advantage they are, there’s more you can gain With less focus on “things,” rewards to be sustained. New years come and new years go But …

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Leaders Make The Difference

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As their leader, your people are always watching you – and you are impacting how they perform.  Leaders make the difference. When you’re the leader, to your direct reports, you’re the most important person in the organization. You influence their willingness to stay or their urge to leave. You shape their career trajectory, their behaviors, their motivation to do their best work, their connection to your company’s purpose, and their commitment to exceeding your customers’ …

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3 Steps to Capitalize on Growth Opportunities

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New growth opportunities rarely pronounce themselves. Most organizations have their heads down, focused on increasing sales of current products or services. You probably recall a time when you failed to act quickly enough to take advantage of an opportunity. Promptly evaluating and responding to new opportunities is a key growth driver. Here are 3 steps to help ensure that you don’t miss a discovery or fail to develop a novel concept that can fuel your …

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3 Revelations of Optimistic Leadership

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Counting our blessings during Thanksgiving often generates optimism and energy.  Optimism, as it turns out, makes a difference in business metrics like productivity, customer satisfaction and profit. Why? Because optimistic people expect to succeed. When they encounter obstacles, they try harder – instead of giving up, they find ways to overcome the barriers and reach their objective. Leaders who are optimistic raise the aspirations of their people to see what’s possible and to achieve their …

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Pursuing the Tipping Point

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The marketer’s challenge is to reach the tipping point where most people in the target audience feel that most other people are already benefiting from the marketer’s new product or service. The role of proactive marketing is essentially to alert the right people in this audience that now is the exact time to acquire the new offering, if they want to remain in sync with others in the market, which is a goal for many. …

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Warming the Climate for Learning

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More is more when it comes to learning. Exceptional leaders recognize each new and unknown experience as an opportunity to learn. They have a profound appreciation for the importance of learning and accept that it necessarily involves making mistakes. “What can we learn?” This is the first question these leaders ask, and by doing so, they cultivate a climate in their organizations that is warm to learning experiences and to the accelerated progress they stimulate. …

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The Bridge of Whys

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The best sales people have developed proven methods that help them discover a customer’s current needs. They are so comfortable with their technique that they often reject any refinement, even though they realize that an improvement could make them even more effective. If the purpose is to win a transaction, then devotion to an existing discovery process may be enough. But if the objective is to consistently earn a customer’s business, to earn that customer’s …

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Searching for Opportunity

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When I served in senior leadership roles, it was a constant struggle to break away from current challenges so I could focus on the future. Everyday problems relentlessly seek to attract your attention, and it’s easier to deal with these – you’ve seen them all before. Contemplating what’s next for your business is the bigger challenge, and a great opportunity. It forces you to get your head up, to look outward and to assess the …

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