In any discussion about team building these days, the D-word is sure to come up… diversity.

A growing number of studies show that diversity isn’t just the right thing to do from a people perspective, it’s also the right thing to do for a company’s bottom line. According to BCG, diverse companies report 19% higher revenue rates. Forbes reported diverse companies are 1.4 times more likely to have sustained profitable growth. The key to realizing those benefits is ensuring you’re addressing diversity holistically and not equating it to inherent traits only.

When to hire, who to hire and when to fire are some of the most challenging decisions a business owner or manager must face. All three elements are critical, but, in our experience, clients are most likely to get hung up on identifying the right time and pace to scale their staff.

There are countless articles, blogs and podcasts decrying the importance of sales and marketing team alignment, and the negative impact on revenues when these efforts aren’t aligned. Misalignment between sales and marketing can cost companies 10% or more of annual revenue.

A few weeks ago, a Twitter connection of mine posted that she’d been at a Venture Capital event and one of the VC’s on a panel discussion openly stated that he didn’t invest in founders over the age of 40 because they “don’t have the stamina.” As you can imagine, that set the “twittersphere” on fire.