Growth Insights for CEOs

Is Your Contracting Business Growing on Purpose, or on Luck?
Most successful subs know their operations cold. You know your backlog, which jobs are on schedule, where labor is tight, and which estimates are due this week.
Most of you also don’t have a sales department. Business development belongs to the owner and the project managers who are already running projects, so growth work happens in whatever time is left over.
Recent Posts

The CEO Mindset: Resolving Sales Performance Challenges | Part 4
Mon, Jul 3, 2023 — Part 4: Is Your Sales Process Supporting Revenue Growth? At the dinner table, you tend to get immediate feedback when the recipe of the dish being served is not quite perfected. In the business world, where the steaks….er….stakes are higher, it is no less important to have a plan which appropriately combines the ingredients for world-class success.

Brand Confusion Won’t Work, Even if it’s Intentional
Fri, Jun 23, 2023 — On June 22, 2023, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about “the H-bomb,” which I learned refers to mentioning that you are a student at or an alumnus of Harvard University. Harvard College’s dean, in a Crimson (the campus newspaper) article where he was asked to give a word of advice to seniors, decided that the best use of this opportunity was to say “Don’t gratuitously drop the H-bomb.”

The CEO Mindset: Resolving Sales Performance Challenges | Part 3
Fri, Jun 23, 2023 — Part 3: Technology Platforms for the Win The market for sales enablement platforms has never been more robust. As companies like yours clamor for clients, revenue, and growth, they’re showering billions on the latest technology tools to help get them there. In fact, a recent report projects that the global market for sales enablement tech will grow at a 15 percent rate over the next five years, topping $9 billion by 2028.
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The CEO Mindset: Resolving Sales Performance Challenges | Part 2
Thu, Jun 15, 2023 — Part 2: Finding the Right Talent for the Game Here today, gone tomorrow: Did you know that the average tenure of a sales professional is just about a year and a half? It’s a mind-blowing statistic that is, on the surface, an indicator of the rigors of a sales role, in any market segment.

The Rise of Purpose-Driven Marketing: Connecting with Generations Through Authenticity
Tue, Jun 13, 2023 — It was a watershed moment for consumer advertising, with shock waves that are still being felt today – the 2004 launch of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. The groundbreaking marketing initiative challenged more than traditional beauty standards – it challenged the conventions of advertising at its core. Eschewing airbrushes and retouching, the personal care brand presented women of various sizes, ages, and ethnicities – without makeup, and without prejudice.

The CEO Mindset: Resolving Sales Performance Challenges
Thu, Jun 8, 2023 — Are you one of the 31 percent of CEOs who aren’t completely satisfied with your sales team’s performance? Today, CEOs are consistently underwhelmed with their firm’s sales throughput when measured against their expectations. Yet despite their high degree of business acumen, passion for their product, and past successes, they lack the resources to understand and resolve the problem.

Building a Growth Engine with Effective, Efficient Marketing
Wed, May 10, 2023 — “Efficient marketing requires a target, followed by a message that immediately resonates sufficiently to foster a conversation between two willing parties.” - David C. Baker When that pithy sentence from marketing guru David Baker hit my email box in February, it rang true.

Navigating Communication from Boomers to Gen Z
Thu, May 4, 2023 — Our friend Traci Philips, an exceptional executive leadership coach in Raleigh, NC recently attended a presentation by someone who called herself a “generational strategist.” Firmly in the camp of the organizational effectiveness crowd, she spends her days crisscrossing the country, visiting organizations where generational dynamics are creating a disconnect and affecting business.

Eliminate Marketing Info Overload with These 10 KPIs
Mon, May 1, 2023 — Not one of you reading this blog would disagree: We live in a world of information overload. At your company, data likely streams in by the petabyte – sales figures, consumer habits, competitive information, big picture, small picture, and so forth.