Pursuing your passion with the Passion Planner

This is not a paid endorsement and I have never spoken to anyone at the Passion Planner company. I like their product and wanted to share with our subscribers.

Planners, journals, and organization tools are highly personal. I found this planner in late 2014 while browsing around Kickstarter. What grabbed my attention was the name “Passion Planner.”  And the fact that this was a softcover, lay-flat,2-week-at-a-glance, bound 8.5″ x 11″ book.

I have tried all kinds of paper planners over the past 40 years: spiral, looseleaf, and bound; soft and hard cover, as well as 3-ring and 7-ring binder; small, medium and large; Daytimers, Dayrunners, Franklin Planners, blank notebooks, Moleskine, and other long-forgotten brands. It wasn’t until 2014 that I found what I believe is planner that best fits my work style.

For me, it has just the right amount of flexibility and just the right amount of structure. I hope you’ll check it out.

NOTE: A few times in the past, I tried planner software like Lotus Organizer (remember that from the 1990s?) and a couple of other long-forgotten programs, but never for more than a few weeks at a time. Inevitably I would revert back to paper. For me, I like the actual effort of writing stuff down on paper. With paper, I seem to remember things better, plus I like the tactile feel of highlighting things, and crossing things off, and being able to draw diagrams and charts in a free form manner.

What’s great about the Passion Planner:

They use top notch materials; the binding is high quality, the paper is perfect, and the cover is ideal; soft, slightly padded, and durable

2-page per week layout – I personally prefer the “week at a glance” layout rather than the 1 or 2 page per day

For each month, they provide a “month at a glance” view (granted, most planners have this view also)

Stirtched and bound – Yes, looseleaf is more flexible/customizable by allowing you to add pages, but NOT being able to add pages keeps things more simple for me. I keep folders and binders for loose sheets, but these days pretty much everything can be digitized.

The right amount of structure and the right amount of flexibility

You can learn more about the Passion Planner at their website: https://passionplanner.com

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Company Culture Sustainable in Any Market

This is a Guest blog post from CONNECTpreneur partner and Coach Ines LeBow, CEO of Enterprise transformation Solutions, which specializes in helping early stage companies raise capital.

Herodotus, the ancient Greek intellectual who became known as “The Father of History” coined the phrase “Culture is King”. Companies rise and fall based on their culture, and challenging situations like we’ve faced here in 2020 test company culture to determine if it’s real or just a façade. In a recent article, I gave advice on how to “Pandemic-Proof Your Funding Pitch Deck”, but as an entrepreneur, are you really able to pandemic-proof your company culture? The answer is a resounding “yes”! In fact, you can create a culture that thrives in any market situation, including Covid and beyond.

Leadership-Driven Culture

How you, the entrepreneur, and the executive team lead at the outset of your business and through “normal” times sets the tone for your culture that will carry you through times that are trying. As Frances Hesselbein so succinctly put it, “Culture does not change because we desire to change it. Culture changes when the organization is transformed; the culture reflects the realities of people working together every day.”

For the leadership team that truly prioritizes the culture of their organization, there are a few core values that will be emphasized down the management ranks to the front-line employees and a call to have the actions of all personnel align with these values. The top core values include:

• Two-Way Communication – Consistent and ongoing opportunities for the executive team to interact with staff (both speaking and listening) and for all team members to interact with customers (again, both speaking and listening)
• Engagement – Fostering a sense of ownership and a common purpose throughout the organization to energize all employees and get them working toward a uniting vision
• Organization Model – What is the composition of your workforce? Do you require staff to be on premises? Are you dependent on contractors or outsourced partners?
• Wellness and Balance – Setting policies that value employees’ work-life balance, mental and physical health, and general wellness
• Programs and Tools – Enacting programs and implementing tools that allow employees to thrive in personal and professional development, workplace collaboration, idea innovation, mobile and remote work setups, knowledge sharing, and more

The combination of forced and voluntary business shutdowns that occurred nearly overnight as a result of the Coronavirus response quickly led to 88% of companies that either required or encouraged their employees to work from home, according to a Gartner survey. Some companies were ill-prepared for this rapid shift. Many of the companies with the technical capabilities for hosting a truly remote workforce, however, lacked the type of culture that would keep employees engaged, communicating, and thriving when not in an in-person environment.

Having a great framework in place is essential and must include employees who come to a physical office location as well as employees who work from home, in the field, or from a remote office. As companies return to work, executives and board members are going to re-imaging how the company operates. The old approach of leasing large office spaces may alter significantly, causing companies to adopt a more aggressive mobile and remote work model. Re-thinking how these core values that contribute to the corporate culture can be dealt with is just as important to strategize over.

To learn more about creating an engaging culture or how to create an epic fundraising story for digital presentations to investors, contact me for a complimentary consultation by phone at 314-578-0958 or by email at ilebow@transformationsolutions.pro.

About the Author: Ines LeBow

Ines LeBow is the CEO, Transformation Executive for ETS. She is a known catalyst for business operations, bringing 30+ years of hands-on experience. Ines has a long history of being recruited into senior executive roles to improve the execution of business operations and to drive revenue growth. You can see her LinkedIn Profile at www.linkedin.com/in/ineslebow, view the ETS website at www.transformationsolutions.pro, or email her directly at ilebow@transformationsolutions.pro.

So You’re Healthy… Is Your Organization?

This is a Guest Blog post from my good friend, Beth Berman, master executive coach and Certified EOS Implementer.

Most of us are beginning to go back to “normal” when it comes to our health. We are confident in our immune systems and life has, “started to resume”. Many of us will now schedule long-overdue annual physicals to ensure all of our bodily systems are functioning, just like we would in any year. 

This is all great news. 

But have you given your organization a real checkup lately?

• Are you sure your people are going to execute above and beyond your expectations this quarter? 
• Does your leadership team have it all together?
• Are people in your organization actually seeing your vision clearly? 

If you aren’t 100% positive about the above questions, it’s time for a free 4 minute Organizational Checkup! 

ORGANIZATIONAL CHECKUP BENEFITS

Strong businesses require monitor their organizations often – at least annually.

 The benefits of a check-up include:

• A clear picture of what’s working and what’s not, with an opportunity to fix issues before they become debilitating.
• Getting the Leadership Team on same page regarding organizational priorities.
• Clear, measurable markers that your organization is improving, every year.
• Confirming alignment on a single long-term path and driving execution (Traction) of clear steps to get there. 

EOS® clients answer a simple questionnaire prior to beginning the EOS Process™ and then every year thereafter. This annual discipline helps drive the conversations that lead to strong and cohesive organizations.

Want a clear vision, real traction in executing on that vision, and a healthy, aligned team that makes it happen? Contact Beth:  beth@compellications.com

REAL-WORLD COMPANY ALIGNMENT

I recently completed a 2-Day Annual Planning Session with one of my client leadership teams who already are thinking about their strategic plan through September 2022. They completed the Organizational Checkup during our session, as we always do during our yearly off-sites. We celebrated the strong areas. Most importantly, we focused in on the areas where answers skewed from team member to team member (and, of course, where answers were ranked low across the board).

This exercise enabled us to pinpoint the parts of their business that needed the most attention.

Their overall score averaged 72/100.  Companies hit inflection points when they get to 80+/100 in the Vision, People, Data, Issues, Process, and Traction components, so an 8-point delta really isn’t half bad. The good news is even better when you consider that their original grade was 36/100 (and this is while they were profitable, growing, and doing well. Just not GREAT… yet).

The team was proud to double their score—since starting to work with me 9 months ago—but they know they have more room to grow. They have specific tools and disciplines that will make their recent growth even more sustainable.

With the Organizational Checkup exercise, they pinpointed those exact tools (Quarterly Direct-Report Conversations; predictive, activity-focused scorecard measurables, and a clearer marketing strategy). They now have a strong plan heading into the quarter to address all three immediately. 

Spend 4 minutes and take the Organizational Checkup to the same clarity today. 

Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership – Part Four

This is the fourth and final part in a 4-part Guest Blog post series by Sarah Polk, Chief Marketing Officer at Chief Outsiders.

Embracing Your Competitive Advantage

Ask any sports athlete what gives them the fire to take their field of play, and they will likely cite the prospect of beating their rival. Indeed, without the subplot of competition, sports would be exceedingly boring – for both the players and the viewers.

As CEOs, competition, too, represents our drive, our passion, our reason for being. Though we might actually prefer owning the playing field and having it all to ourselves, we can be relatively assured that we will have company as we pursue excellence and strive for the only true tangible measure of success – revenue growth.

As you know, this blog series has been keenly focused on helping you achieve this drive for excellence. In previous blogs, we have looked inward – talking about how being more engaged with your team and how focusing on the way consumers are embracing (or eschewing) your product or service, are critical keys to growth-oriented success.

Now, it’s time to take a look beyond our walls – at the competitive forces that we must manage in order to ensure survival. Understanding how our rivals are nipping at our heels is the essential insight to positioning our product or service appropriately in the marketplace. To be a successful leader, you must be able to identify where your company advantages are really resonating — whether it is product quality, customer service, uniqueness, corporate structure, or some other characteristic — and use those attributes in your promotional efforts.

In my work with companies, I have noticed that a surprising number have not considered these competitive essentials. Even more companies have stuck with antiquated methods to promote their competitive advantage – only to watch that advantage evaporate due to technology.

In these situations, there are some fundamentals that I recommend CEOs follow immediately to get their competitive efforts on track:

Review Your Positioning: With the world changing so rapidly, this is something I recommend doing on an annual basis. What may have been a competitive advantage five years ago may not even raise the consumer’s eyebrow today. This may require some internal restructuring – particularly with marketing – to ensure that the company can keep pace with market dynamics.

Take the Pulse of the Market: Now is the time to invest in robust qualitative and quantitative research that gets to the heart of changing consumer tastes. I often see companies that come up with a great idea for a new product and accelerate its launch, while skipping critical steps. Gauging consumer demand, surprisingly, generally is the step that is overlooked.

Understand the Essence of Sales Pressures: It has been easy for any company to blame flagging demand on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic – which has been a smokescreen for some companies who were already experiencing the effects of competitive pressure. The ability to see the big picture through a regular, and in-depth, competitive analysis, is a critical part of sifting through the superficial and getting to the heart of matters.

Call in an Expert: Sometimes, putting the competitive landscape into perspective is a bigger job than your existing go-to-market team is able to manage. Even people who go to a doctor for regular checkups will, at times, need a specialist – or a surgeon! That’s why it can be wise to call upon a specialist in market analysis to make a true, objective, third-party examination of the forces that are impacting your standing in the marketplace. They can also help you assemble a library of resources so you can consistently be updating your competitive research and ensure that you don’t fall behind on this important strategy again.

As a CEO, it’s critical that you use the tools in your arsenal to earn – and keep – your competitive advantage. Rather than viewing competitive research as an expense item, consider it a priority to help you break through the clutter that has only been amplified due to the onslaught of digital tools.

In case you missed the previous articles in the series:

• Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership – Part Three
• Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership – Part Two
• Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership

Sarah Polk

With deep senior level management and marketing expertise, Sarah leads businesses through international expansion initiatives, difficult transitions, mergers, acquisitions, and turnarounds. Adept at recognizing growth opportunities, strategic positioning, creative conceptualization, new product launches, and brand management, she builds and expands extensive marketing departments to maximize ROI and shareholder value. Also skilled at product marketing, she works with engineering teams to craft products that meet the market’s needs. With an ability to inspire and lead cross-functional global teams, Sarah builds productive, long-lasting business relationships.

Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership – Part Three

This is the third in a 4-part Guest Blog post series by Sarah Polk, Chief Marketing Officer at Chief Outsiders.

Knowledge Is Power

What’s holding you aloft in 2020?

Whether or not you have cracked the code of 2020, most CEOs have spent the year snapping back to a changed reality. In our last blog, we looked at the importance of being engaged, insightful, and plugged in as the “table stakes” of leadership change in turbulent times.

But all the engagement in the world is pointless if you don’t know the direction from which your headwinds and tailwinds are coming.

More to the point: If your company were an airplane, then insights—the detailed information you need to understand competitors, targets, trends, and market news—can be considered the wind beneath your wings.

And if you don’t have a keen focus on how these megatrends are keeping your ship in blue skies, you may just find yourself hopelessly lost in a cloud bank. And falling asleep at the controls – well, that could just be deadly.

A recent example: I was working with a large hospital group in the mid-Atlantic region that was trying to understand why a satellite emergency care facility wasn’t generating the profits they expected. My first fact-finding mission—a demographic market survey—uncovered a critical misstep by the group: There was simply no need for the satellite facility to begin with, based upon the existence of other healthcare facilities in the region and the size of the market.

It became abundantly clear: A simple dive into the basic blocking-and-tackling of insights would have saved the company millions – and the awful mistake of building something for which there was no demand.

It’s a faux pas that I see repeated time and again: Leaders, without any research whatsoever, and based simply on a “good idea,” are convinced to plunge resources into products or services that fall flat in the market, and then wonder why they’re not making any sales.

In my view, this is but one example of why the ability to look at data and insights is a critical skill for CEOs who are looking to make more effective decisions – a basic tenet of being in charge these days.

So, what types of insights should a CEO be focused on in order to ensure the relevance of their offerings? Here are just a few fundamentals that I believe are useful:

Customer Focus: It’s important not to become too far removed from your buyers these days. In days of yore, it used to be that successful CEOs could get away with pushing off customer insights on other department heads. Now, with digital marketing, and the availability of instant knowledge about target audiences, the CEO has to be keenly aware of market factors which can move for – or against – them quickly.

The most successful CEOs I work with are the ones that have innate knowledge about their customers and their relationships with their companies. They even phone customers directly to hear what is driving their decision making. In this manner, they can see a necessary pivot coming if customer needs are changing, or if the market is exerting different forces on their business.

Insights Machine: Some companies have elevated insights to an art form and have even installed Chief Information Officers to help lasso, wrangle, and otherwise manage myriad data points into submission. This new CIO role ensures that a member of senior leadership has accountability for delivering proprietary knowledge and a library of information that helps keep the company’s competitive edge sharp.

Research, Analyze, Repeat (Often): Both CEO and CIO will benefit from a robust and dynamic industry analysis program that delivers insights on a very regular basis. No longer is it appropriate to conduct this type of research once a year – once a quarter may be the appropriate interval to gather data that spells out all the threats and opportunities that are hitting their specific industry. And in my experience, the most insightful companies don’t just insist, but mandate, that their entire senior leadership team, as well as their board members, consume this knowledge.

As an example, I worked with a company recently that was experiencing massive shipping delays as a result of the pandemic and couldn’t quite figure out why. After gathering insights, they learned that lighter packages were being delivered significantly faster than heavier ones. By unbundling some of the shipments into smaller chunks, they could significantly accelerate their supply chain.

Another company in the beverage industry was having trouble sourcing the bottles that their drinks were packaged in – and upon analysis, learned that this would remain a challenge during the pandemic. They pivoted their entire production line to can-based packaging to ensure their ability to keep up with the surging demand for their product.

In our next blog, we’ll roll up what we’ve learned about the importance of being an engaged and well-informed CEO and put these traits to work in honing your competitive advantages in the marketplace.

Sarah Polk

With deep senior level management and marketing expertise, Sarah leads businesses through international expansion initiatives, difficult transitions, mergers, acquisitions, and turnarounds. Adept at recognizing growth opportunities, strategic positioning, creative conceptualization, new product launches, and brand management, she builds and expands extensive marketing departments to maximize ROI and shareholder value. Also skilled at product marketing, she works with engineering teams to craft products that meet the market’s needs. With an ability to inspire and lead cross-functional global teams, Sarah builds productive, long-lasting business relationships.

Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership: Part Two

This is the second in a 4-part Guest Blog post series by Sarah Polk, Chief Marketing Officer at Chief Outsiders.

The Four Inhibitors of Engaged Leadership

Little known fact about ducks: Though they exude grace as they glide atop the water, ducks hide a little secret just below the surface.

For all the poetry they project in our view, ducks are actually shuffling their feet quite quickly to achieve that silky-smooth movement.

As a CEO, you know this bifurcated existence all too well. Though you are expected — nee, required — to display a semblance of outward calm, beneath this facade are the fears, insecurities, and realities that come with the job.

So why must you glide and not shuffle — especially given all that the recent past has thrown at business leaders?

It’s a proven fact: If a business leader is passionate, energetic, and hardworking, it filters down to company employees. This is leadership by example at its best.

In addition, an effective leader can quickly gather the information needed to make decisions and act without hesitation. With such a leader, employees are loyal, self-actualized, and tend to go beyond traditional work requirements. Competitors have difficulty replicating this leadership style.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the costs of being a disengaged CEO can be immense. One study undertaken by The Engagement Institute found that employees left rudderless by ineffective leadership can cost companies between $450 and $550 billion — with a B — per year.

So, what are some of the pitfalls that can derail engagement and cause you to paddle in circles, rather than to glide ahead?

Lacking Authenticity: Having your actions match your words — coming off as being authentic and true — is as simple as doing what you say you’re going to do. To the contrary, if a CEO is saying something about how valuable employees are — and then turns around and cuts retirement benefits or buys himself a corporate jet in a time of austerity — he can inflict significant damage. Being authentic is the first key to displaying the guts and leadership skills to take quick action.

Indecisiveness: A lack of decisiveness can put a stranglehold on your resources, and by extension, your company. Any time not spent on executing the strategy and vision to move the company forward tends to be wasted. One coping mechanism I have observed over the years has been when a leader ends up spending too much time in tactical minutiae, as a distraction to making the big decisions that will move the company forward. A fearful leader — one unable to make decisions — can have a ripple effect throughout the company and create a culture of fear.

Lack of Emotional Intelligence: It’s critical to remain focused on the task at hand, and to see it through to completion. Too many times, I have observed CEOs lose the respect of their employees because it was clear that they were trying to be good at EVERYTHING, and instead weren’t any good at ANYTHING. This often is embodied in a patchwork of short-term fixes that made little sense for the long-term growth of the company (though they did look good on the CEO’s resume). This type of behavior became transparent to the members of the leadership team, and ultimately made it hard to keep people motivated to undertake, and execute, on the big-picture items.

No Support Structure: There are others in your shoes who are grasping for the same brass ring, but struggle with the same insecurities. Groups like Vistage and other executive networking programs provide the missing outlet for the need to have a truly honest and inwardly focused discussion.

I recently met with the CEO of an up-and-coming West Coast beverage company, led by a similarly rising star in enterprise. In his early 30s, this CEO already has expanded nationally and completed two rounds of capital raise. But all this time, he felt the crushing stress of having to undertake this major expansive cycle in isolation. Through the supportive atmosphere of Vistage, the CEO was able to find solace among others who had walked in his shoes.

In our next blog, we will explore the ways an engaged leader uses insights and intelligence to make more effective decisions. Meanwhile, check out my recent interview with OnFire B2B Podcast.

Sarah Polk

With deep senior level management and marketing expertise, Sarah leads businesses through international expansion initiatives, difficult transitions, mergers, acquisitions, and turnarounds. Adept at recognizing growth opportunities, strategic positioning, creative conceptualization, new product launches, and brand management, she builds and expands extensive marketing departments to maximize ROI and shareholder value. Also skilled at product marketing, she works with engineering teams to craft products that meet the market’s needs. With an ability to inspire and lead cross-functional global teams, Sarah builds productive, long-lasting business relationships.

Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership

This is the first in a 4-part Guest Blog post series by Sarah Polk, Chief Marketing Officer at Chief Outsiders.

In 2020 and beyond, the notion of leadership has been indelibly changed. No longer is it adequate to rule from 30,000 feet, to remain at arms lengths from strategies, and unable to touch tactics with a 10-foot pole. 

Leadership from a distance, in a time when distance is not just a suggestion, but a mandate, can strike a critical blow to a company that is already likely still trying to divine its direction in a pandemically-impacted landscape.

Buying habits, like it or not, have been forever transformed. Going forward, people will consume differently, express their preferences in new and unforeseen ways, and likely exhibit a great deal of caution in how they part with their almighty dollars.

Thus, today’s CEO and C-suite must be more dialed in than ever – hands-on, consumer focused, and action-oriented – if their company is to find the proverbial pot of gold at the end of a rather discolored rainbow.

Indeed, an engaged CEO is one that is able to command his or her enterprise toward a horizon of explosive growth while not forgetting those who supported the journey. Leaders must be able to engage at the customer level, encourage team members, and rally investors and stakeholders in promoting the grand vision.

If done correctly, this new and enhanced level of engagement can also have a remarkable impact on both tangible and intangible measures. Gallup found that top-performing leaders reduce turnover by 59 percent, experience 41 percent less absenteeism, find 40 percent fewer quality issues, notch 20 percent greater sales productivity, and, yes, 21 percent more profitability.

So, how can you refocus your energies and intentions on the task of reaping the maximum rewards for your product or service?

In my experience working with CEOs and private equity firms, I’ve found that the barriers to C-suite success have been surprisingly simple. Rather than undertaking a lengthy journey toward reinvention, I’ve found that most CEOs can retool for growth by making some simple, yet purposeful, changes to their leadership style.

In future blogs in this series, I will shed more details on the seven steps to success that the most effective CEOs have embraced.

These steps include:

• Passionate, Energetic, and Decisive Leadership: Exuding a level of confidence that can be infectious across the organization, creating loyalty and the ability to row in the same direction.
• Knowledge is Power: Diving into the detailed information most companies are collecting about competitors, targets, trends, and market news, and using this information to make more effective decisions.
• Embracing the Competitive Advantage: Identifying what it is that makes the company special and serving as a figurehead and voice of reason in playing up these advantages.
• Hiring Talent and Setting Them Free: Serving as a key cultivator of human resources, the top performing CEOs obtain the best talent for the job – and then get out of their way.
• Creating Like No Other: Cultivating messages, go-to-market strategies, and other product communications that break the mold, and break through.
• Measure, Measure, Measure: Taking a keen interest in the analytics that are resulting from legacy activities and being unafraid to pivot on the fly to fine-tune and improve.
• Celebrating Success: Making sure that the team understands how appreciated they are for the efforts they’ve invested to supporting positive outcomes.

Ready to forge a new, enthusiastic sojourn toward profitability and growth? Read the next post in this series.

I’d love to hear from you. How have you been changing your management focus in these uncertain times?

Sarah Polk

With deep senior level management and marketing expertise, Sarah leads businesses through international expansion initiatives, difficult transitions, mergers, acquisitions, and turnarounds. Adept at recognizing growth opportunities, strategic positioning, creative conceptualization, new product launches, and brand management, she builds and expands extensive marketing departments to maximize ROI and shareholder value. Also skilled at product marketing, she works with engineering teams to craft products that meet the market’s needs. With an ability to inspire and lead cross-functional global teams, Sarah builds productive, long-lasting business relationships.

No Excuses: Three Steps to Prepare for 2021

This is a Guest blog post from sales leadership guru Chris Tully. This is Part 1 of a two part series on Preparing for 2021. Please “Like” and Subscribe! Thanks!

Don’t Let 2020 Become an Excuse: Three Steps to Prepare for 2021

With a sense of uncertainty hanging in the air, Owners and Sales Leaders are reluctant or have even become paralyzed when it comes to developing their 2021 sales budgets. It is a completely logical reaction given all that has happened in 2020, but it is already Q4 and it’s now or never to plan for next year. The important thing is to not let the uncertainty of 2020 become an excuse or crutch for not creating your 2021 sales budget with anything but a strong, attainable plan.

The key to successful planning lies in tapping into all the bumps in the road that you encountered in 2020 and working backwards. There is no doubt that we have learned a lot this year – about our businesses, about market behaviors, how to crisis plan, and about how to refocus sales efforts. All of that information needs to be strategically used to develop your sales budgeting and road map for 2021.   Most of us will likely want to be in a different place at the end of 2021 versus where we are currently as 2020 winds down. But the question is: How do you get there?

We are sharing three steps to help you isolate the pieces to this equation and how they need to play into forming your 2021 sales forecast.  

STEP 1: Take inventory of your strengths. Before you begin generating your 2021 sales budget, ask yourself what you know, and what you don’t know (even that is important to account for!) Ask yourself:

• Do you have a high degree of predictability and comfort-level with how you are going to finish top-line revenue in 2020?
• Are your current forecasts performing within 20% of projected numbers?
• Do you have a forecast methodology that you trust?

If you answered “yes” to the above, make sure the remainder of your2020 sales plan is mapped out and proceed to Step 2. Congratulations on having clarity into your current situation because that is your starting point for 2021 planning! If you answered “no”, STOP and request a consultation call! If you do not have confidence with where your current plan will finish or a clear path to achieve its goals, you cannot have confidence in building a reliable plan for 2021. Don’t worry if you answered no – you’re not alone. 2020 has been filled with anomalies that even the best planning could not have accounted for. In fact, about 89% of owners and sales leaders struggle with setting effective sales goals and quotas under normal circumstances, let alone under the market conditions that this year has tossed our way. 

STEP 2: Identify the considerations that need to be layered onto revenue trending that revealed itself in Q4 2020. It is important to really understand and pinpoint all of the changing market aspects that will continue playing into your sales results in 2021, as well as the anomalies that happened throughout the year, to come up with an attainable 2021 sales budget.

You’ll want to designate your accounts or markets into three categories for 2021 based on the shifts you saw in the market as a result of COVID-19, and map them out accordingly.

RETAIN – Accounts or markets that have organic demand and buying habits are already trending back toward normalcy in the last quarter of 2020.

TRANSFORM – These are accounts or markets that experienced demand vanish in 2020. Under this category, you will need to completely shift to serving all new markets in 2021.

HYBRID – This is a combination of Retain and Transform – accounts or market in this group have contracted but are still active. However, to make up what is dissolved during 2020, you will need to subsidize with new markets in 2021.

For your “Retain” or “Hybrid” accounts or markets, Owners and Sales Leaders must ask themselves if they can expect buyers behavior to mirror what they saw in 2019 or will it be more like what they are seeing as business is trending back toward a “new normal” in late 2020? Whichever the case, you’ll want to apply the proper revenue pattern to your sales budget for 2021.  Other things to consider in your projections are new product and service offerings. What new expenses or resources will be needed to make this new offering a success? Owners must also pay attention to macroeconomic trends that have the potential to heavily impact select industries or even dissolve them over time. If you are unsure how to develop a layered model that accountsfor these variables, STOP and let’s have a conversation.

STEP 3: Set the sales team loose to go after a quota they believe can be achieved. You’re in the home stretch! Now that you established your 2021 sales budget, it’s time to formulate quotas to achieve the number. Ultimately, the business world knows 2021 will be another year of unknowns, so the objective is to gear up your sales team to climb the next rock going into 2022. Ask yourself…

• Are you certain you have the right balance in your comp plan to incentivize your sales team while also allowing for appropriate company profitability?
• Have you traditionally been good at setting Quotas that have been consistently attained? If not, you will frustrate your salespeople with overly aggressive growth goals without having clarity on how attainable they are. Sales turn-over is not a risk you want to take as you rebuild your revenue path.

The real prize will be successfully positioning yourself differently by this time next year. 2022 will be the time when record breaking sales will be realistic, and a time when prepared companies can leap-frog their competition!

Make sure to watch for my next blog on Reforecasting and Adjusting in 2021. This will be critical in 2021 as we navigate changing market dynamics.

Chris Tully is Founder of SALES GROWTH ADVISORS. He can be reached at (571) 329-4343 and ctully@salesxceleration.com“For more than 25 years, I’ve led sales organizations in public and private technology companies, with teams as large as 400 people, and significant revenue responsibility.I founded Sales Growth Advisors to help mid-market CEOs execute proven strategies to accelerate their top line revenue. I have a great appreciation for how hard it is to start and grow a business, and it is gratifying to me to do what I am ‘best at’ to help companies grow faster and more effectively.Let’s get acquainted. I am certain I can offer you an experienced perspective to help you with your growth strategy.”

Leadership Transformation in 2020 – Change is inevitable. Transformation is by conscious choice.

This is a Guest blog post by Bei Ma, Founder and CEO of The Pinea Group

Leadership Transformation in 2020

Change is inevitable. Transformation is by conscious choice.

 

Photo by Evgeni Tcherkasski on Unsplash

 

As Bill Gates recommended 5 summer books in his recent Gates Notes on May 18, 2020, he wrote: “The Ride of a Lifetime, by Bob Iger. This is one of the best business books I’ve read in several years. Iger does a terrific job explaining what it’s really like to be the CEO of a large company. Whether you’re looking for business insights or just an entertaining read, I think anyone would enjoy his stories about overseeing Disney during one of the most transformative times in its history.”¹

Yes, indeed. Robert Iger, in his 2019 book “The Ride of a Lifetime”, shares in great detail on how the ten principles that strike him as necessary to true leadership have transformed Disney. And the ten principles are: Optimism, Courage, Focus, Decisiveness, Curiosity, Fairness, Thoughtfulness, Authenticity, Relentless Pursuit of Perfection, and Integrity.

While each of these ten principles speaks the truth of leadership, we need more, we need more for an unprecedented year we are in at this very moment. The year of 2020 perhaps manifests every aspect you can imagine that life does not always go the way you expect it will.

We are still in the middle of the global pandemic. Period. The director of National  Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Fauci spoke at BIO Digital virtual healthcare conference on June 10 that the coronavirus pandemic has turned out to be his “worst nightmare” and warned that it’s not over yet.²

Millions of people still have no jobs or steady income despite an optimistic labor report of May by the Department of Labor. According to Business Insider, US jobless claims totaled 44 million, meaning more than one in four American workers have lost a job during the pandemic.³

Social reform is well likely underway with the “Black Lives Matter” movement amid nationwide protests. New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo says he intends to sign the package of bills passed by New York legislators for comprehensive police reform.⁴

In the business context, CEOs have been facing an ultimate leadership test. While business executives shall absolutely continue to incorporate and implement in their daily business life the ten principles of true leadership by Robert Iger: Optimism, Courage, Focus, Decisiveness, Curiosity, Fairness, Thoughtfulness, Authenticity, Relentless Pursuit of Perfection, and Integrity, leadership transformation is imperative. CEOs must make conscious choices for leadership transformation facing one crisis after another in the year of 2020 and onward.

In this article, we explore two actions, accompanying mindset and qualities that can help executives navigate such perfect storms and future crises and consciously make leadership transformation.

Leading with Compassion

Numerous studies show that in a business-as-usual environment, compassionate leaders perform better and foster more loyalty and engagement by their teams.⁵ However, compassion becomes especially critical during a crisis.⁶

Four months into the pandemic, the nation is seeing a historic wave of widespread psychological trauma driven by fear, isolation, uncertainty, anger, and distress. Nearly half of Americans report the coronavirus crisis is harming their mental health, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll.⁷

To an organization, collective fears and existential threats triggered by the crises call for a compassionate, empathetic, caring and highly visible leadership. If executives demonstrate that everything is under control with business-as-usual meetings and overconfident emails with an  upbeat tone, afraid of showing the genuine vulnerability, empathy to connect and compassion to support their people, reduce their stress and burden, absurdly, this might backfire and will certainly not create the confidence, innovation and creativity from people to enable them navigate through the crises and recover the business.

       “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people

       will never forget how you made them feel.”

       – Maya Angelou –

People feel it and will never forget when leaders act with genuine compassion, especially during the crises.

 

     Leading with Rooted Power

In routine emergencies, experience is perhaps the most valuable quality that leaders bring. But in novel, landscape-scale crises, character is of the utmost importance.⁸ Deliberate calm is the ability to detach from a fraught situation and think clearly about how one will navigate it.⁹

Crisis-resistant leaders, as the captains of their ships during a perfect storm, will be able to unify the teams with deliberate calm, clarity, and stableness, making a positive difference in people’s lives. The calmness comes from well-grounded individuals who possess rooted power of humility, hope, and tenacity.

Crisis-resistant leaders return to their roots, core values, beliefs, and principles during a perfect storm. They pose questions to themselves and teams about what the organization stands for, what the purpose is, and what should continue to do or stop doing, what need to be created as new practices or ways of working, new norms that are emerging.¹⁰

The rooted power of crisis-resistant leaders is originated from physical health providing energy and stamina; mental health providing optimistic and positive view; intellectual health providing acute decisiveness and clarity; and social health providing the trust and transparency.

Only grounded leaders with such rooted power can beat landscape-scale crises.

………………………………..

The crises and overwhelming consequences ask for leadership transformation. Besides the ten principles to true leadership¹, business leaders who make conscious transformation: leading with compassion and leading with rooted power, can support their organizations and communities, navigating through the perfect storms.

 

Reference

1. https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Summer-Books-2020
2. https://www.today.com/health/dr-anthony-fauci-says-coronavirus-his-worst-nightmare-isn-t-t183838
3. https://www.businessinsider.com/us-weekly-jobless-claims-coronavirus-layoffs-unemployment-filings-economy-recession-2020-6
4. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/10/us/new-york-passes-police-reform-bills/index.html
5. Jane E. Dutton, Ashley E. Hardin, and Kristina M. Workman, “Compassion at work,” Annual Review Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Volume 1, Number 1, 2014, pp. 277–304; Jacoba M. Lilius, et al, “Understanding compassion capability,” Human Relations, Volume 64, Number 7, 2011, pp. 873–99; Paquita C. De Zulueta, “Developing Compassionate Leadership in Health Care: An Integrative Review,” Journal of Healthcare Leadership, Volume 8, 2016, pp. 1–10.
6. Jane E. Dutton, et al, “Leading in times of trauma,” Harvard Business Review, Volume 80, Number 1, 2002, pp. 54–61; Edward H. Powley and Sandy Kristin Piderit, “Tending wounds: Elements of the organizational healing process,” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Volume 44, Number 1, 2008, pp. 134–49.
7. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/04/mental-health-coronavirus/
8. Gemma D’Auria and Aaron De Smet, McKinsey & Company, Organizational Practice, “Leadership in a crisis: Responding to the coronavirus outbreak and future challenges”, 2020.
9. Helio Fred Garcia, “Effective leadership response to crisis,” Strategy & Leadership, 2006, Volume 34, Number 1, pp. 4–10.
10. Adapted from Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky, “Leadership in a (permanent) crisis,” Harvard Business Review, July–August 2009, hbr.com

 

About the Author

 

Bei Ma is the founder and CEO of the Pinea Group (Pinea). Pinea serves as a trusted partner specialized in cross-border fund raising, market access, clinical studies, regulatory pathway, licensing, and distribution to help medical devices, diagnostics, pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical organizations to achieve the best patient outcomes and commercial success.  Previously, Bei Ma served as Vice President of Global Healthcare Business Development at British Standards Institution (BSI) Group. Bei can be reached at 410.271.7267 and beimalong7@gmail.com; her LinkedIn profile is https://www.linkedin.com/in/beima/

KEEPING IT REAL with our Summer Interns at #tech2000 and #appnetic

I had the privilege of having lunch with our Tech 2000 and appnetic summer interns yesterday. I’m pictured above with them and one of my Partners, George Churchwell, Co-Founder and President of Tech 2000.  This crop of 7 of the best and brightest students from MIT, Georgetown, Emory, UVA, UNC, and Virginia Tech give me a high degree of confidence in the future leaders and entrepreneurs of America! They are smart, confident, talented, ambitious, and want to make an impact in the world.

We had a terrific discussion about entrepreneurship, innovation, startups, business, and management.  They are each excited about learning new skills and garnering some good business experience.  They came to the right place and we are very grateful to have them this summer (We selected these 7 out of over 150 applications; special thanks to our awesome Head of Talent, Jackie Churchwell!).

Inevitably the conversation turned to advice, on both business and life. So I divided my thoughts into 2 lists: “Winning Advice” and “What I Wish I Knew at Your Age,” the latter of which is one of my favorite slides when I speak to students at some of our local business schools.

WINNING ADVICE FOR OUR INTERNS

Integrity is #1 – this is about you and your reputation. Do the right thing and keep your promises, be honest and transparent.

Find your Passion – it’s ok if you don’t know it yet. I know 50-year olds who haven’t yet found theirs. Experiment, try new things. You will find your passion or it will come to you.

Always give 100% – work hard, be proactive, bring your “A” game, and be prepared

Learn how to sell – the most underrated yet important skill you will ever have is knowing HOW TO SELL. Understanding your customer’s motivations and buying patterns is critical to business and life.  Life is about selling and persuading, and your “customers” include friends, family, bosses, etc.

Have Fun! Life is short. If you’re not having fun, then you’re wasting your time. Move on until you find something you truly enjoy.

“WHAT I WISH I KNEW AT YOUR AGE”

Everything is hard! Everything takes longer and costs more than you expect. If you go into any endeavor knowing this fact, you will have more reasonable expectations and not get so discouraged when you have a few setbacks.

Nothing comes without Hard Work and LUCK – you need Luck, and eventually it will find you. The harder you work, the more prepared you are and the “luckier” you will get.

When building a startup, there’s no such thing as “Work/Life Balance.”  It’s “Work/Work Balance.” Once you find your passion, life and work converge and become one. I don’t know any successful entrepreneurs who have not put in huge hours and sacrifice.

Work with great partners, advisors and people. The key word here is great. Great people can achieve multiples of what mediocre people can do.

Don’t waste your time with liars, posers, and cheats. Eventually, they will bring you down. You will be known and judged by the company you keep.

Trust YOUR gut, it’s usually right. You know more about yourself than you realize.

Money is overrated and Contentment is underrated. Enough said.

Please let me know what YOU would add to these 2 lists.  Thanks for reading and subscribing!