How One Simple Tool Can Transform Your Business

Without a clearly defined business strategy, your business is destined for decline and failure. By business strategy, I am not referring to the behemoth, 10,000 page business strategy document that takes years to write and now just collects dust on a shelf in your office. I am talking about a simple, concise, focused, nimble plan that you constantly refer to and measure progress against.

When I first moved from a technical role into a business leadership role, I created a strategic business plan masterpiece that covered all areas of our business including marketing, sales, proposals, project execution, competitive analysis and even customer analysis. This document took quite a few months to put together and was very impressive. I still keep a copy of it in my office as a reminder . . . of its futility!

Who Is In Your Library?

Last week I wrote about the importance of setting up your Advisors Network and I listed a number of my Advisors Council members that have really helped me over my career. This weeks post will list some of the books or references from these icons that I have leveraged over the years. In many cases I have multiple books from each of these authors but I will limit the list to the one source from that individual that made the biggest difference in my professional development.

Business

Set Yourself Up For Lifelong Success: Build Your Advisors Network

We have all heard a lot about networking over the years and how it is important for each of us to get out into the marketplace and build our network. Although I agree that building this personal network is important, it is what you do with the network you create that will determine your future success.

The focus of this post is not on leveraging your network for business or sales but rather working with your network to set up what I call an Advisors Network. No one knows everything that is needed to be successful in life and business in every circumstance. We all need help in many areas over the course of our lifetime. This is where the Advisors Network comes in.  It allows you to leverage the expertise of many people when you need this specific expertise. Each of these people brings something to the table that you may not have as a strength or as a skill.