Strategic Leadership

How clear are your KPIs?

March 25, 2022
Key performance indicators, or KPIs, are progress metrics intended to help drive business decisions. Strong businesses don’t just ask, “How are we doing overall?” They discuss and define which specific KPIs best reflect their goals most effectively. Here’s just an idea of the range of KPI tools.

Stifle your staff’s blame game

March 25, 2022
Technology leader Nickolas Means gave a talk in 2008 about the lessons we can learn from one of the great engineering disasters in history: the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in March 1979.

Managing using the ‘5 Whys’

March 11, 2022
One of the most enduring approaches to problem-solving at work is the 5 Whys. Toyota founder Sakichi Toyoda developed this tool in the 1930s. The method starts with a problem, which is then deconstructed in a series of “why” questions—usually at least five.

Build a powerful call to action

March 9, 2022
A CTA, or “call to action,” is part of a campaign or advertisement that instructs your interested party what to do, what action to take or how to proceed to the next step. It’s the “click here to buy now” button, the download button or the button that says, “Yes, I’d like to receive a year of fresh vegetables delivered to my door.” Here are some things to keep in mind for crafting successful calls to action.

Get face to face with a customer base

March 9, 2022
More and more pioneering companies are holding customer meetings, both at their own facilities and at customers’ work sites. Follow these steps when setting up customer meetings.

Create an organized referral program

February 9, 2022
Referrals are an important part of your business. And if you’re serving your existing customers well, they are usually happy to recommend you to others. But instead of waiting for referrals to come your way, you should be actively pursuing them.

Get real about ‘company culture’

February 9, 2022
You can’t cut corners on your company’s culture.

How to recover lost customers

February 9, 2022
When you lose a major sales account, your best response is to conduct a sales “autopsy” in the hope of finding out why your company didn’t get the order or the contract. By conducting a post-mortem, you may even find a way to win back your customers.

Bad advice that sounds great

January 28, 2022
All day long, managers are inundated with buzz-phrases and tropes that can do more harm than good. Heed these popular (and thrown-around, thoughtlessly) business tips at your own risk.

Understand what makes consumers tick

January 12, 2022
Author Tara Nicholle-Nelson says that the question “What should we do on social media?” is starting the wrong conversation. She recalls a breakthrough marketing moment.