Our Thanks

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As we celebrate Thanksgiving, I want you – our clients, members, and readers – to know how grateful I am for your support and friendship.

As we reflect on the past three years, the StrategyDriven Team and I have much to be thankful for, in particular, the opportunity to serve people like you. Through our engagements, we helped clients identify over $200 million in performance improvement opportunities, enhance their safety cultures, and receive recognition as industry leaders by external oversight organizations. In 2015, we launched the StrategyDriven Personal Business Advisor Program, turnkey Sevian Business Programs, and StrategyDriven Analytics service offering. Most importantly, our clients’ trust and patronage enabled us to provide for our veteran and service-disabled veteran team members and their families.

We appreciate your considering StrategyDriven to support your future performance assessment and improvement needs. Together, we can make 2016 a successful and prosperous year.

May you and your family enjoy a very Happy Thanksgiving!

All the Best,
Nathan Ives, President & CEO, StrategyDriven

Nathan Ives
President & CEO
StrategyDriven Enterprises

“Joinership” is the new Leadership

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It’s no secret that most companies value leadership over just about anything else. It’s an attitude reflected in our culture and on the surface, it appears to be the key to success. However, in my experience, there’s another component more important than strong leadership—an element that rarely gets the spotlight, because it’s all about not stepping into the spotlight. I’m talking about “joinership.”

A recent survey of over four thousand Ph.D. candidates found that only 11 percent of respondents expressed a desire to be a “founder,” while a massive 46 percent expressed interest in becoming a “joiner.” That’s a difference of over 4 to 1, but is it really that surprising that most people would rather join a passionate team than try to build something themselves from the ground up? Strong leaders may inspire people to join their cause, but it’s those early hires and early adopters – the fledgling community who believes in a company’s ideals – that will make or break a young business.

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About the Author
Nick Goode is the Global Commercial Director of Sage One, Sage’s cloud accounting and payroll solution for start-ups and small businesses. He is accountable for the commercial, channel, product and marketing strategy for Sage One worldwide. Nick was previously Head of Sage One for Sage UK, and prior to that, Head of Marketing for the Accountants Division at Sage.

Strategizing for Success: Keys for Planning Annual Sales & Marketing Goals, part 1 of 2

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Each fourth quarter as the New Year approaches, it’s prudent to prepare a profitability plan for the coming year, especially with respect to your sales and marketing endeavors. Doing so can give you a notable competitive edge, particularly given the extraordinary number of professionals that don’t bother producing this strategic tool. But, whether developed before or after the start of the New Year, the importance of creating a tactical plan for sales and marketing success cannot be overstated. Here’s how to set yourself up for annual planning success.

Successful annual planning requires one key ingredient: your mindset. Indeed, the first step towards successful financial planning is setting an intent to successfully complete your plan. What doesn’t get scheduled doesn’t get done. Make a commitment now to complete an annual financial plan by midnight of December 31. If you need some help getting this done, you can sign up for my annual Sales and Marketing Plan training and you’ll have an opportunity to submit your plan to me by December 31. If for some reason you don’t end up reading this until after December 31, make a commitment to create an annual plan over the next month so that you have it ready by the start of the next quarter.

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About the Author

Eric LofholmEric Lofholm is a Master Sales Trainer, author, business success guru, communications expert and lauded speaker who has presented his proprietary, proven sales and success systems to Titans of Industry and thousands of other professionals world-wide. He founded and serves as CEO for Eric Lofholm International, Inc. — an organization that professionally trains achievement-minded individuals and employee groups on the art and science of selling. Connect with Eric online at www.SalesChampion.com.

Professional Development Warning Flag 1 – Over-reliance on the I’ll Take Care of You Boss

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Broken manager promisesStrategyDriven Professionals continually seek to excel personally and professionally. As such, these top performers become the ‘go to’ person superiors rely on when difficult and/or critical tasks need to be completed; knowing they can rely on these individuals to get the job done right the first time. At times, however, these significant taskings diminish the professional’s ability to achieve his or her personal goals. Rather than revise the goals, managers taking the easy out nebulously promise to ‘take care’ of the professional during the performance review process. Reliance on such promises places the professional’s demonstrative achievement of personal goals and organizational value in peril and as well as his or her career advancement.

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Prof K’s Brand Narrative Manifesto – Differentiate Emotionally and Activate Passion

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If you ask people why they chose a certain product or service or candidate or team, they might try to give you a sensible, logical rationale.

“It was cheaper.”
“It looked better.”
“She has the right qualifications to lead this city.”
“They’ve got a top-notch coach.”

But the real reasons people make those kinds of choices go beyond these answers. For many of the products and services consumers buy, as well as for many of the things they buy into, other more subtle rationales are at work.

The days of differentiating a product or brand by function and/or price are over. You can’t merely say, “We’re different because we’re a little cheaper,” or “We’re better because look at our special organic molecules.” That kind of copy just doesn’t cut it with the consumer who has seen it all and heard it all.

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About the Author

Richard Krevolin is the author of The Hook: How to Share Your Brand’s Unique Story to Engage Customers, Boost Sales, and Achieve Heartfelt Success (Career Press, November 2015). Richard has been an adjunct professor at ASC Cinema/TV School, UCLA Film School, Emerson College and several others. He is a brand consultant for numerous Fortune 100 companies and a master os storytelling, sales and communication.