I’ve worked with all kinds of CEO’s and C-level teams since launching ScaleHouse in 2015. Some were amazing sales leaders and understood how to engage and convert high value prospects. Others….not so much. Although I often encourage the C-suite to get involved in sales and marketing activities, in truth this strategy can either drive, or kill, deals.

Although there are over 100,000 results on Amazon if you type in “business growth book”, one of my top growth reads is from Tiffani Bova, Global Growth Evangelist for Salesforce and her 2018 book “Growth IQ”.

One of my favorite quotes is from Nolan Bushnell who said “the true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer”. Bushnell knows a thing or two about the difference between dreaming and doing: He founded Atari in the ’70s and is considered one of the founding fathers of the video game industry…before going on to start the Chuck E Cheese pizza chain.

Back in 2019, Wharton’s J. Daniel Kim published research that the average age of the most successful entrepreneurs is…..45. This bucks the long-held belief that to be an entrepreneur (or at least a successful one), you need to start a firm in your teens or 20’s– and because the stories of entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates get so much media attention, it’s easy to think of their stories as the norm rather than as the exception.

With so much uncertainty surrounding us (pandemics, elections, trade wars…even murder hornets), it’s easy to get caught up in what feels like day to day survival and forego annual planning. That said, when it feels impossible to plan for the future it becomes even more important to ensure you have guiding objectives and strategies linking the company’s future to the present day.

The pandemic has revealed more fissures than we’d like to count including a major gap between the sales haves and have-nots. In the early stages of the shutdown, new business opportunities all but disappeared. The most resilient companies were those already clued into the importance of relationship based, personalized sales and service experiences. The good news is, it’s not too late to learn this important lesson. Whether you’re a newbie to the world of personalized sales or you’re ready to leverage personalization through your entire customer lifecycle, here are three ways to drive better connection.

We’re doing a lot of scenario planning these days for risk adverse firms that are looking to scale in a business climate that is still experiencing volatility and uncertainty. Although we’re seeing increased hiring for mid-level roles, often times C-level roles (even those desperately needed) go unfilled due to overhead cost concerns.

With travel at a standstill for most of the world, most vacations are turning into “staycations”. Regardless of how you’re spending your downtime this year, at ScaleHouse we’re advocates for continuous learning. Here are some of our favorite business reads that you can sprinkle in between murder mysteries (or the book genre of your pick!).

Remember when open floor plans were the business world’s solution to collaboration and innovation? The concept of promoting collaboration was well-intended, but the idea of sitting mere inches from your colleagues seems foreign now and may become the stuff of urban legends. 

It is easy to “bubble up” these days, to find yourself in a routine of siloed work, interacting mostly with the same group of teammates and colleagues. Instead of battling the annoyance of the office loud-talker, now we’re navigating Zoom fatigue.

The COVID driven rapid change to business and life as we knew it has forced whiplash inducing adjustments. After celebrating that we’ve made it this far, we should funnel the survival instincts of the early days of the pandemic toward driving new revenue opportunities for the long term. The companies that are positioning themselves for continued success are resourceful, creative, resilient and innovative.  If the world as we know it is changing, why not take advantage of the innovation environment HBR recently highlighted and prepare your company for whatever comes next? Here are a few tips for fostering a more innovative environment: