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Breathing Life Into Your Values-Based Culture

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What does your company’s culture look like? Can you clearly define it and how it contributes to the overall success of your business? Could your culture benefit from some special attention? Throughout my 25 year career, I’ve admired certain companies that consistently outshine their competition. What is their secret ingredient? I’ve arrived at an undeniable conclusion? company culture.

But when it comes to building and establishing that culture, where do you start? I’ve learned that one of the most essential steps is determining the difference between your company’s priorities and values. Priorities are the day-to-day demands of our jobs. They can shift and change constantly. In contrast, values are the glue that bind us together. Our values must not change; they are non-negotiable. Our daily decisions are grounded in our values, and the key is discovering what is most important to us. I learned where my values lied when I was working for a former employer. My boss was a headstrong individual who would lock in on an idea, lobby some employees to join his cause, then push his ideas on everyone else until he got his way. His behaviors led to some ill-conceived and financially dangerous decisions.

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About the Author

Brian Fielkow is the author of Driving to Perfection: Achieving Business Excellence by Creating a Vibrant Company Culture and owner of Jetco Deliver. in Houston, Texas. He and has presented to thousands of people across the country on how to establish a healthy culture. To continue the conversation, contact Brian at [email protected], and learn more at drivingtoperfection.com.

Top 10 Cyber Security Tips

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These days, more people than ever use technology, including mobile devices, to conduct their professional and personal business. Companies of all sizes place incredibly valuable data in cloud-based repositories, and hackers are constantly testing new ways to gain access.

For these reasons, it’s more important than ever to safeguard vital assets with sound cyber security practices – and to remain vigilant to prevent breaches. Here are 10 cyber security tips that can help you reduce vulnerability:

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About the Author

Bill Carey is Vice President of Marketing & Business Development at Siber Systems Inc., which offers the top-rated RoboForm Password Manager software.

Three Ways Document Management Software Can Streamline Operations

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No matter what size or type of business you run, chances are, you’re overwhelmed with incoming files – both paper and electronic documents. It generally starts slowly – an email here, a receipt there, incoming invoices and customer correspondence, and before you know it, you’ve got a mountain of paper and no way to find the documents you need.

There’s a better way. Document management software can put important documents at your fingertips in seconds and help you keep everything organized. But which document management solution would work best for your office? Here are three tips to help you understand how document management software can help and which features you’ll need to make it work.

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About the Author

Jeff PickardJeff Pickard founded Lucion in 2005 and brings over 15 years of management experience and innovation to Lucion, where he continues to steer Lucion’s technology advancements in the document management and paperless office software markets. After three years as an attorney with the Chicago-based law firm Kirkland & Ellis, Jeff founded zCalc, LLC, a software company which served the needs of professionals in the estate and financial planning fields. In 2005, he sold the company to Thomson Fast-Tax and then began to focus his attention on paperless office software. Jeff graduated cum laude from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, where he was editor-in-chief of the BYU Law Review.

Standards and Expectations – Defining Performance Standards, part 1 of 8

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StrategyDriven Standards and Expectations ArticleStandards and expectations define how work is to be performed; providing guidance for the consistent, efficient, value-based execution of tasks. At the outset, developing a comprehensive set of performance standards often appears to be an overwhelming and daunting task as employees within even the ‘least complex’ organizations perform countless different activities every day. However, it is not intended that performance standards be developed for every conceivable activity. Rather, standards should be formulated for those activities reflecting organizational values, implementing corporate strategy, and presenting significant risk. The documented basis behind this finite set of standards provides the guidance needed for employees to make rational judgments about the conduct of less significant activities.

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StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 21e – An Interview with Duane Sparks, author of Sales Strategy from the Inside Out

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StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Special Edition 21e – An Interview with Duane Sparks, author of Sales Strategy from the Inside Out explores how businesses employing a consultative sales method realize dramatically increased revenues. During our discussion, Duane Sparks, author of Sales Strategy From The Inside Out: How Complex Selling Really Works and Chairman and Founder of The Sales Board, shares with us his insights and illustrative examples regarding:

  • the five decisions individuals go through before making the final buying decision
  • how to bring other team members into the sales process and the benefits of this practice
  • determining the right number of client needs identification interactions before presenting a solution balanced with the client’s desire to hear the solution given their time investment
  • role of the sales professional in orchestrating solution presentations made by client personnel

Additional Information

In addition to the invaluable selling skills insight Duane shares in Sales Strategy From The Inside Out and this special edition podcast, please visit his company’s Sales Training or Sales Management site. To discover why this selling skill is so effective at maximizing sales productivity, purchase Duane’s book: Sales Strategy From The Inside Out.

Complimenting Sales Strategy From The Inside Out, are Duane’s four other books on the consultative sales process including:


Read a Summary of the above Sales Books.

Final Request…

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Thank you again for listening to the StrategyDriven Podcast!

About the Author

Duane Sparks, author of Sales Strategy From The Inside Out, is Chairman and Founder of The Sales Board, a Minneapolis-based strategic sales training company that has trained and certified more than 350,000 salespeople in more than 3,000 groups in the system and skills of Action Selling. He has written five sales books, personally facilitated more than 300 Action Selling training sessions and continues to engage in the business and art of the strategic sales process. Read Duane’s full biography and the history of Action Selling Sales Management Training.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:35 — 44.8MB)

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