Strategy – Page 29 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

SMART Goals: How to Make Your Goals Specific and Measurable

February 17, 2021/1 Comment/in Business Toolkit, Entrepreneur, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Part 1 of 2: Use the SMART acronym to set better goals. Learn how to make your future goals specific and measurable.

When you go to set goals, I suggest you try to set smart goals. Smart is an acronym. It stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. These are the key characteristics of a good goal. Now there are multiple versions of smart out there, but they all get to the same thing: creating clear and actionable goals that matter.

This week, let’s focus on the first two smart characteristics: specific and measurable.

Specific

The first characteristic of a good goal that you should focus on is that the goal is specific. Make the goal Read more

The 4 Negotiation Styles: Which Should You Choose?

February 10, 2021/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Entrepreneur, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Your negotiation style should change depending on the situation. Learn four negotiation styles and when to use them.

You should be deliberate in choosing a specific style of negotiating. The way I encourage people to look at choosing a style is first, understand the importance of your relationship with the other party. The relationship can have low importance (somebody you’re just meeting for the first time and you won’t have an ongoing relationship with), or high importance (a strategic, long-term relationship).

The second thing you should consider is the importance of the outcome of that specific negotiation, from low importance (there’s not a lot of value on the table), to high importance (there is a lot of money for your organization or it’s a high-risk outcome). And what you end up with is a two-by-two matrix with four different negotiating strategies: Read more

Using The 80/20 Rule to Think Critically

February 3, 2021/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Entrepreneur, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Learn how an Italian gardener’s simple principle can make problem solving much easier.

Critical thinking doesn’t only apply to coming up with recommendations. You need to think critically about the way you’re going to spend your time and energy. Those things are limited. You have too many problems to solve and not enough time. I encourage people to follow the 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle.

The Pareto Principle

The Pareto principle was coined by Vilfredo Pareto when he noticed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. He was also a gardener, and he noticed 80% of the peas coming out of his garden came from 20% of the pods. He said, “That’s interesting. Two totally different realms demonstrating the same principle.” 20% led to 80% of the impact, and that’s the 80/20 rule. 20% of the drivers will drive 80% of the results. You need to think about your work the same way. You can’t focus on that 80% that only drives 20% of the results. Focus your efforts on the meaningful. Let me offer an example. Read more

Life Lessons Interview with Mike Figliuolo

January 20, 2021/0 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Career, Entrepreneur, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Mike Figliuolo, thoughtLEADERS’ Managing Director, recently sat down with Jinky Diola of WorldClassPerformer.com to share some life stories, perspectives, and experiences that have shaped his career to date.

Read the full interview below. You can find links to this interview and other WorldClassPerformer interviews at the bottom of this post.

Where did you grow up and what was your childhood like? Did you have any particular experiences/stories that shaped your adult life?

I grew up in New Jersey just outside New York City. I had a normal suburban kid life. I was entrepreneurial from a very young age. Started by selling painted pencils at school. I’d use about $0.10 of materials and charge $1.00 apiece. After that, it was a paper route. Then my comic book collecting/selling business where I actually ran comic book conventions at hotels at the age of 14. I cleared $1,000 in a day (and for a 14-year-old in 1984 that was a lot of cash). My entrepreneurial background has really been something that has enabled me to succeed in running my own business for the last 16 years.

What is something you wish you would’ve realized earlier in your life? Read more

Marketing 101 As We Head Into 2021

January 18, 2021/0 Comments/in Books, Guest Blogger, Leadership, Social Media, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

As the world continues to change, organizations can benefit from adapting their marketing strategies. Michael Stahl shares ten ways to make the most of your marketing efforts in 2021.

Today’s post is by Michael Stahl, CMO at SERVPRO (CLICK HERE to learn more).

The year 2020 brought both challenges and opportunities to marketing professionals. In fact, that’s probably an understatement. But the year has come to a close (thank goodness!), and it’s time to look ahead to hopefully brighter, safer, and more profitable days. As we shift our sights to 2021, I’ve put together ten marketing basics that can help you build a strategy to increase engagement, market share, and revenue.

Reposition your product for modern consumer needs

Considering we don’t know when the global pandemic will end, nor fully understand its long-term repercussions, we need to Read more

Timeless Advice for Beginner Entrepreneurs

January 13, 2021/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Entrepreneur, Leadership, Strategy, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Starting a business? Don’t know where to start? Avoid beginner mistakes and make the most of your time by taking advice from someone who’s been there before.

Today’s post is by Mike Figliuolo, Managing Director of thoughtLEADERS.

In 2012, I gave an interview to The Metropreneur in which I shared my answers to the five most common questions I’m asked about entrepreneurship and thoughtLEADERS LLC.

Although this interview took place eight years ago, I believe all the guidance is just as relevant today as it was when I first said it:

When do I talk to the venture capitalists?

Five years from now. Seriously, entrepreneurs need Read more

Crises Need Leaders, Not Superheroes

November 30, 2020/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Entrepreneur, Sales, Strategy /by Ryan Shaw

Navigating crisis is not for the faint of heart, but what it takes to see your team through crisis is true, authentic leadership.

Today’s post is by Joseph Michelli, author of Stronger Through Adversity (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

Crises are humbling. They unmask imposters and reveal dormant strengths.

During COVID-19, many leaders navigated unrelenting and unchartered territory from their bedrooms, not their boardrooms. Some found themselves uttering previously unspoken words like “I don’t know,” “unprecedented,” “new normal,” or “pivot.”

I was fortunate to have a front-row seat on leadership behavior during the pandemic while serving on crisis task forces for my clients (C-suite leadership teams at globally recognized brands). Aided by videoconferencing technology, I observed vastly different leadership responses to the pandemic. As I worked with diverse teams, I asked senior leaders to share insights on strategies, successes, mistakes, and lessons learned during the pandemic.

In the months that followed, I spoke with more than 140 remarkable leaders (clients and their colleagues) who navigated chaos, lockdowns, re-openings, and more. These leaders stewarded for-profit, nonprofit, and public safety organizations. They included CEOs and Presidents of companies like Target, Verizon, Kohl’s, Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz, Marriott, Farmers Insurance, Dairy Queen, Zappos, United Way, and the Salvation Army.

The 4 Need to Know Approaches to Growth

November 16, 2020/1 Comment/in Business Toolkit, Entrepreneur, Sales, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Knowing your growth strategy and understanding four key growth approaches – organic, acquisition, new products, and geographic expansion – will help you be more successful in achieving the growth you desire.

You have to ask yourself – how does your business grow? Is it geographic expansion? Are you selling new products? Are you selling the same products to new customers? Are you growing by acquisition and buying other businesses?

What’s your overall growth strategy? You need to be able to answer this question. Look at your historical growth and where it came from. That’s usually a pretty good indicator of how your organization is going to continue to grow from here. Pull out your strategic plan and look at your marketing plan to see where the future growth is expected. Assess whether or not that sales and marketing plan is aligned with where the future growth is supposed to come from.

Different Approaches to Growth

There are some very common methods for growing and they all have very different economic profiles.

Acquisition

One way you can grow is acquisition. The economics of conducting an acquisition are you spend a lot of money up front to buy another company or portion of another company. You’re buying a large piece of the market when you do so. The way you make acquisition economics work out is you reduce the costs of the combined entities by looking at synergies.

So, you bought another company. Congratulations! You have two HR departments now. You have two marketing departments. You have two Legal departments and two IT departments. You have two of everything! How do you consolidate those and reduce costs? That’s the first source of economic value in an acquisition.

The second source of acquisition value is all about growth. Now you have a new market you can enter if the acquired entity was in a different geography or targeted a different market segment. You can sell your existing products into that new market. You can sell the products you acquired into the existing markets you were in pre-acquisition. That’s how an acquisition is going to drive top-line growth.

Organic Growth

How well do you practice self-care during stressful times?

November 5, 2020/0 Comments/in Communications, Leadership, Poll, Strategy /by Ryan Shaw

Our reader poll today asks: How well do you practice self-care during stressful times?

Extremely: It’s a top focus, especially during stress. 8.01%
Very: I give it a lot of attention during stress. 23.15%
Somewhat: I could definitely do a better job of it. 45.42%
Not very: I only practice it occasionally during stress. 17.42%
Not at all: I never practice self-care during stress. 6%

The most important kind of care. If you don’t care for yourself, it’s extremely hard to effectively care for others. Almost 70% of you report you need to do a better job of it. What’s stopping you? Get some rest. Eat well. Exercise. Put these things on your calendar. In stressful and change-filled times, everyone gets a little crazy — it’s up to you to step outside of that race, catch your breath, and make sure you’re okay. Pick a regular practice and build it into your routine for a month. In doing so, you’ll be well on your way toward building a habit of self-care. The longer you do it, the harder that good habit is to break.

Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

How well does your organization stand behind its product or service?

October 29, 2020/0 Comments/in Communications, Leadership, Poll, Strategy /by Ryan Shaw

Our reader poll today asks: How well does your organization stand behind its product or service?

Extremely well: We ensure 100% customer satisfaction. 47%
Very well: We stand behind our work the vast majority of the time. 35%
Well: We generally stand by our work but occasionally miss. 11%
Not well: We regularly miss customer expectations and standards. 6%
Not at all: We don’t back up anything we do. 2%

Backing your product matters. 82% of you make pretty strong commitments to backing your product or service. For the 18% of you not in that group, recognize it may not affect that customer sale or relationship today, but it’s costing you dearly tomorrow. It’s far too easy these days to build a bad reputation for your business, given online reviews and the speed of information sharing. Many times, the commitment you need to make isn’t big relative to the cost of lost opportunities.

The next time a customer or client has an issue with your product or service, try resolving it on the first interaction. Go above and beyond what they might expect. You will see the immediate benefit of a happy customer and, more importantly, you’ll see future sales come through due to your enhanced reputation and referrals to your business. Don’t all into the trap of winning an argument today that will cost you dearly tomorrow.

Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

How much of a difference do you see between the roles of being a manager and being a director?

October 22, 2020/2 Comments/in Communications, Leadership, Poll, Strategy, Training /by Ryan Shaw

Our reader poll today asks: How much of a difference do you see between the roles of being a manager and being a director?

There’s a world of difference. They’re completely separate types of roles. 48.84%
There’s some difference between them, but not a lot. 36.45%
Pretty much no difference — a director is a glorified manager. 14.71%

The role is what you make it. If you’re not seeing a big difference between managers and directors, someone is falling short of making that director role everything it could be. Moving to director is where you make the shift to getting things done through others. The other big shift is moving from having the right answers to asking the right questions. Directors need to see beyond the horizon and ask about the things no one (including themselves) is thinking about yet. Pushing the thinking beyond today’s pressing needs is how new opportunities and threats are identified.

Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!

When you’re angry with a team member, how do you approach it?

October 8, 2020/0 Comments/in Communications, Leadership, Poll, Strategy, Training /by Ryan Shaw

Our reader poll today asks: When you’re angry with a team member, how do you approach it?

I cool off and don’t show any emotion when I speak with them. 45%
I wait a bit to talk to them but show them some of my anger. 51%
I pause first but let them see a lot of my anger. 3%
I unload my anger toward them immediately so they can see it. 1%

Pause and compose. The vast majority of you (96%) pause for some period of time before confronting a colleague who has made you mad. Cooler heads can have more rational discussions. The groups seems evenly split, though, on whether to show some of the anger when the conversation does happen. The pro of showing that anger is the person really gets a sense for how much they’ve upset you, but the con is it could inflame the situation. Conversely, not showing your anger and simply expressing concerns could cause them to misread how much their actions upset you, which might lead to repeat behavior. In any case, deliberately choose which approach you’ll take (whether or not to show some anger) and have a deliberate reason for doing so. Also, have a contingent strategy if your choice goes wrong. If you’re showing anger and it makes things worse, hit pause and cool off. If they seem to be ignoring your concern, perhaps let some of the anger show.

Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!