Whether you’re thriving or just focused on surviving in business in these tumultuous times, there are a few key activities you should consider:

For many, the pandemic brought business impacts we’d rather forget. Lost revenue streams; shrinking teams; postponed projects and product launches and cancelled events, coupled with the reality of illness and loss, left permanent scars. However, as businesses start to reemerge, some more bruised than others, we need to pause and be honest about what we still need to and can fix. The cracks that presented themselves over the last few months point to near and long term areas of profitability improvement. Strong leaders will look across industries to identify strategies that can be applied to their own businesses. Luckily for you, we’ve done that leg work.

For every story we hear about firms struggling to stay afloat during recessionary times, there’s a firm that is managing to survive and, in many cases, thrive. What’s their secret?

This month we’re pivoting our focus to help those of you who are suffering from what is clearly “pandemic paralysis.” We are collectively in a time of “business unusual” which is causing a lot of uncertainty and business volatility.

Having helmed businesses that survived the dot com crash of 2001, and the massive economic downturn from 2007 - 2009, here are my three best pieces of advice to help you weather this pandemic storm.

I’ve read a fair number of articles on growth over the course of my career and I can tell you, firsthand, how easy it is to get distracted by the newest, shiniest bauble of advice. Just like the latest tech device or a cool new app, it’s easy to grab on to new ideas and hope for the best— without really having an understanding of how impactful a new strategy or tip or trick might truly be.

In the past 60 days I’ve spoken at events in Edinburgh, Denver, Mexico City, London, Bucharest. Lisbon and Los Angeles. As with every conference, the days are filled with networking opportunities and endless vendor pitches for new products and services. So how to cut through the clutter? 

Last month I was lucky enough to spend the day with the Qualtrics team in Provo, Utah, videotaping a Master Session on optimizing brand experience.

After leaving a recent major industry event, I had multiple conversations with attendees who marveled at the number of vendors and foot traffic in the exhibit hall but then confided that, off the floor and away from the bustle, they really couldn’t differentiate them. One attendee summarized it well, “Even after listening to the pitches, I walked away unable to really tell what they could do and unable to tell how they were different from the five other vendors that seemed like them.”

If you touch any part of the commercial side of a business, you are intimately familiar with the promise and pressure that is Q4. Whether you’ve been planning for this the whole year and are working a solid pipeline, or it’s snuck up on you and you’re clawing your way to the finish line, it takes a special mix of endurance and focused drive to make it to the end... successfully.  We asked some of the experts who’ve motivated (and sometimes carried!) teams over the finish line to share their tips for inspiring teams to their best performance.

Q4 is known for the frenetic pace that inevitably comes with the final push to meet (and exceed!) annual goals. Amidst the frenzy, we need to pull ourselves out of the weeds of the current plan to focus on creating next year’s plan. Short on time, many leaders short-change the planning process, committing a few cardinal sins that perpetuate the planning-to-scrambling cycle.