The importance of really clarifying your mission is that everything else flows from it. Consider your mission the foundation of your business: a shaky foundation produces a weak business. Once you know your mission, you can begin to ask and answer important strategic questions within … Read more
We’ve all seen mission, vision, and values statements on lobby walls, in marketing material, or on websites. They’re usually well-crafted and are meant to convey the best intentions of the owners or the employees (hopefully both) so others understand what the company is all about. … Read more
So, how’s that 2021 strategic plan? Is it ready to go? If it’s like most things during this time of COVID, it’s running late. If that’s true for you, don’t give up. Dust off last year’s plan or the draft of this year’s plan and … Read more
We’re in a different world than we were a month ago and our business and personal lives have been upended. As with any seismic event that changes us, our outlook, and our opportunities we look for ways to navigate through it. The first phase of … Read more
Marketing means so many things to so many different people that it’s hard to pin it down. In many ways, it’s a misunderstood discipline, so when one of my clients kept saying, “we need more marketing,” I finally sat him down and asked, “what does … Read more
Recently, I saw a parent teaching a child how to ride a bike. It made me smile to see both the excitement and fear on the little boy’s face as he said “now don’t let go ‘til I tell you,” and then the joy when … Read more
There was a great article in the Wall Street Journal this week reinforcing one of the concepts we teach in the SBA’s Emerging Leaders Course – Customer Lifetime Value. It’s always interesting to me that most small to mid-size companies don’t know what a customer … Read more
Recently, I saw a parent teaching a child how to ride a bike.It made me smile to see both the excitement and fear on the little boy’s face as he said “now don’t let go ‘til I tell you,” and then the joy when he … Read more
Yes, it’s that time of year again to dust off the old strategic plan, or goals and see how you are doing. If you’ve been doing this monthly or quarterly, or even better bi-weekly, good for you, but you are in the minority. It was … Read more
I was recently revisiting an article in the Wall Street Journal by Bill Gates entitled “My plan to fix the world’s biggest problems…what’s missing is often good measurement and a commitment to follow the data…” Actually, I had to laugh when I read it because … Read more