How Did We Get Here?

The election is over and many feel relief. No more debates, no more ugly ads, no more vague promises. The outcome of the election shocked the media and the world. One historian compared it to the 1948 election when “Dewey beats Truman” was the famous headline–a premature announcement due to an upset victory by Truman. …

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The Crystal Ball on Future Target Customers

Every business needs to discern which customers are their target customers—the ones that best fit their business model. Those customers are the ones that your company makes money on, can best serve based on your unique capabilities and strengths, and are going to grow over time. The first two may be obvious. The third criteria …

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Be Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

Tim Finley, Air Force Captain and Iraq veteran, stationed at Fort Riley, knows that he has to “be comfortable being uncomfortable” to succeed in today’s world and he spreads that message to school children every time he is asked to speak. Finley didn’t just come up with the message, he has lived it. He has …

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Are You a Growth Master?

Lately I have been studying masters. We have all heard of the Masters Golf Tournament, and when you google the word masters, stories about Charles Schwartsel, the latest golfer to put on the green jacket, pop up. Or how about the masters of art or music, Beethoven or  Picasso? Webster’s says a master is a noun and an adjective. A master …

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Why Strategic Plans Fail to Drive Growth

strategic-growth

Almost every growth-minded company has a strategic plan. Unfortunately, the vast majority of strategic plans I see are lists of projects that don’t comprise a strategy. Worse, they place heavy demand on resources while potentially creating new operational systems or solutions within functional areas, which may not work seamlessly with the new direction of another department. Together, this can add work, undermine results and cause companies to spend lots of money with little to show for it.

The odds that strategic planning will improve your company’s growth performance are pretty dismal. Consider these statistics:

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Three Silver Bullets That Transform Your Company’s Performance

What is the number one challenge of business leaders worldwide? Time. We have more challenges than we have bandwidth. There are only so many hours in a day and even with all of our mobile and digital aids, we can’t get to everything we would like to—whether they are problems or opportunities. As a result, many leaders want a silver bullet—the one shot wonder that solves everything. Life and business isn’t quite that easy, BUT…here are three silver bullets that can transform the performance of your company.

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Secret to Growth Success: The customer is always right

As hard working business professionals, it is easy to get caught up in what we know: how hard we work, how important something is to us, the nuances we think are valuable. We see things from our own perspective. However, the market doesn’t really care how we see it. At the end of the day, if we want customers to buy our goods and services, it is what the customers think that counts.

3 Key Areas to Assess Your Business

As business leaders, we admit that it is hard not to be wearing rose-colored glasses when it comes to assessing our teams. They work hard and invest a significant effort to deliver goods and services to the market. In addition, they are our work family, in many cases people we have coached and mentored over the years. We are proud of …

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