Because the growth potential and risk factors associated with your company are two key measures investors use to predict their profitability (and yours), the successful growth of your organization will absolutely hinge on your company’s organizational effectiveness – your company’s top-down ability to consistently achieve organizational goals!

It’s critical to always be assessing, developing, and measuring your organization’s effectiveness at achieving organizational goals in five core areas:

1. Management
2. Marketing
3. Sales
4. ‘Customer’ Experience
5. Executive Leadership

Part 1 of this article focuses on managerial effectiveness.

Demonstrate Organizational Effectiveness with your Management Team!

Although important, go beyond the track records and professional experiences of your management team and closely examine their managerial talent: their proven ability to increase the amount of profitable behaviors in your company.   Right now, can you make a list of all the profitable behaviors that take place in your company?

If you are a manager, ask yourself these additional questions:

• How am I effective at increasing the amount of results-driven behavior within my company, team or department?
• How have I been able to achieve and show measurable results that directly impact the strategic direction of my organization?
• What is the strategic direction of my company?
• When have I provided clear, strategic direction for my department?

One of the biggest challenges your management team will face is creating an environment where people are excited to perform for the results of the organization!  Managerial talent is proven through effectively…

• Leading in response to a variety of situations
• Setting goals to establish direction, define actions, and measure results
• Turning solutions into goals, and goals into actions
• Achieving Production, People, and Time Management Goals
• Planning with a clear and communicated purpose
• Making decisions employees can become committed to achieving
• Getting desired results from people
• Communicating in a way that cultivates knowledge and acceptance
• Dealing with negative behavior vs ignoring it or upholding its root cause

So how does your management team rate in managerial talent and effectiveness?

If there’s room for improvement, consider adding these concepts to your annual or quarterly performance appraisals, OR ask your management team to rate themselves in each of the above competencies prior to their reviews.  Follow-through with setting goals to improve and develop your team.

Sound like a lot of work?  It is!  That’s why the best companies are the best.  They’ve earned it.  Again…we have choices!

Only talented managers can create a profitable environment that demonstrates organizational effectiveness, and thus presents less risk to investors!

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Wouldn’t it be nice to have investors signing-up to receive updates on your progress and achievements, as well as contacting you for a meeting?  Establishing a powerful online presence and/or “hub” where you serve as a resource and educator in your industry will attract investors.

I’m about to give you ten steps to show you how, but first there are five “laws” to consider for successfully implementing these steps:

1) You need to know who you are and where you are going

Executive leaders have strategic business, marketing and sales plans to guide their organizations toward achieving critical milestones.  It will be impossible to create an online hub that attracts investors if you don’t know who you are or where you are going – guaranteed!  Your web strategy must be in alignment with a clear direction provided by your leadership.

2) You need to understand that traditional websites are dead

An internet-brochure (aka website) will not work for you.  At best, it will provide investors and other visitors information (like a brochure).  At worst, it will cost you time, money and opportunity (due to its ineffective ability to help grow your business).

Highly effective websites of today serve as a sales and marketing machine.  They are a hub of empowering information, inspirational ideas, personal connection, and motivational conversion.  Your hub is a one-stop-shop for investors and customers to build trust and loyalty with you and your company!

3) You need to implement education-based marketing strategies

Your online hub should be a distribution center of empowering information to help investors learn all they don’t know they didn’t know about your industry and scope of solutions.  Outside of proprietary information, you can never give away too much helpful insight how your innovations can solve specific problems or make something better, easier, or faster.  If you’re really good at this, you will help readers make important decisions about THEIR business.

Of course you should provide your latest studies for download.  But as interesting and informative as your studies are, are they empowering?  Do they hook your reader emotionally?  Do they move people to action?  It would be nice if they did; however, studies serve as proof only.

You’ll need more to pull funding in your direction!  Whitepapers, Case Studies, and Articles are great pieces for edu-marketing.

4) You need to target specific investors and investor groups

This is where sales strategy comes in.  Just like any other market segment, you have to identify your “targets” and keep track of your investor relationships. You don’t want to attract ALL investors, but only those who fit your predetermined criteria. Your online hub will effectively generate warm leads for you to consider adding to your CRM system/software.

5) You need to always be driving investor traffic to your site

By nature, the activities outlined below will help drive traffic to your site (for example, blogging provides fresh content for Google spiders.) But in addition, you should always direct investors to your site because this is your HUB.  You position and brand yourself on your hub.  You move investors to sign up for your updates on your hub.  All things important to attracting and getting funding happen on your hub, if done right.

CAUTION: If you can’t embrace these concepts it’s highly unlikely you will be able to attract and connect with investors online.  And I will tell you this, either becasue they’re skeptical or because they’re not interested in putting forth the effort to exercise new skills, I meet business owners every week who struggle to accept one or more of the above concepts.  This is good news for YOU!  Take the actions I’m about to present below and you’ll win!  You will stand out from the market, and increase your attractiveness in it!

10 Steps For Attracting Investors To Your Online Hub

Step 1: Define the sort of investors you want to attract.

You want to be able to speak directly to your ideal investor types.  Create a profile for your investors that include things like location, criteria, attitudes, and beliefs. You don’t need to be concerned with ALL investors being interested in your technology and company! Concern yourself with speaking only to those genuinely interested in your scope of innovations – you’ll ultimately earn faster results!

Step 2: Create a free whitepaper (or some other educational piece).

You’ll want to have empowering information ready for download when investors sign up to receive updates on your hubsite.  A whitepaper is a highly effective tool to educate investors on all solutions, history, and milestones in your industry, and then wrap up with your specific technology.  A whitepaper serves to tactfully educate and help people make decisions, while soft-selling your own solutions toward the END.

If you’d like to learn more about writing effective whitepapers that educate and earn thought leadership, pick up Michael A. Stelzner’s book, “Writing White Papers: How to capture readers and keep them engaged.”

Step 3: Determine your web platform and auto-responder

Here you must decide if you’re going to pay an expensive web developer/designer to do everything for you (which is fine if it’s worth it to you personally), or if you will go with less expensive options such as Wordpress, Weebly or Quansite, which don’t require you know code.

Quansite (formerly Blog i360) is what I use because it provides advanced features no other platform can accommodate, such as auto-updating all your social bookmarks for you. For this reason and many more, I highly recommend it.  You can learn more about Quansite by visiting www.quansite.com.

You will also need an auto responder to capture investor contact information and regularly communicate.  You’ve likely seen many examples of these by now, such as Constant Contact and iContact.  My favorite is Aweber because you can automatically broadcast your blog posts to your email list.  Whichever auto responder you choose, you will use it to save time and effectively edu-market your contact list of investors and provide them company updates.

Step 4: Design your site map for investor navigation

If you already have a company website, I recommend adding a tab called “Investors” which will take them to an “investor universe”. This universe is a blog platform of your choosing, as mentioned above.  Ask yourself, “What do investors want to know?” And create pages tailored to their needs.  The following tabs will make a great start:

• Welcome: The most important page, as explained below in Step 5
• About: Interesting info about your company; don’t be dry!
• Management Team: Picture/video and bio of each member highlighting relevant background that makes them an excellent choice for a management position in your   company
• Board of Directors: Picture and brief bio highlighting the value they bring to the company’s achievements and milestones
• Scientific Advisory Board (if applicable): Pictures and brief bio highlighting specifically why they were chosen to serve on this important board
• Blog: Include case studies, updates, opinions, etc…this is your space to differentiate your company, innovations, and most importantly, demonstrate your thought leadership!

Step 5: Shout your “cause” from your Welcome page!

Your welcome page should NOT say, “Welcome to XYZ company!  We bla bla bla…”  This is typical as well as boring!  Instead use your Welcome page to your advantage!

Your Welcome page is your opportunity to communicate – loud and clear – what you stand for and represent!  Have a conversation that hooks your readers emotionally regarding the problems your technology can and will help alleviate.  Avoid brochure talk.  Get investors inspired to sign up for your company updates regarding your milestones and technology.

Step 6: Capture investor name and email

Remember that whitepaper you wrote in Step 2?  Aren’t you glad you did!  It took time and preparation, but it was worth it because now investors get it as an added bonus once you’ve moved them to sign up for your company updates on your inspirational welcome page.

If your title on your guide/whitepaper is well crafted, they will begin to read it.  If the first few paragraphs are extremely helpful, they will keep reading and get to the page where you talk about your solutions (the last page, sorry!).  If they read through the whole whitepaper, you’ll have made a footprint on their minds.

Your updates and other educational material you provide via your auto responder will have greater impact and quickly grow your thought leadership in your industry.

Step 7: Nurture-market your list with your updates

Once you have your investor list, use it wisely!  Don’t email useless nonsense.  Only send things of high value as seen through the eyes of the investor.  They will want to know milestones.  They will want an announcement of your blog post that provides a video of useful or interesting information about your technology.  They will want to know of your latest research publications with a summary in lay terms.  Think before email marketing!

Step 8: Blog your case studies and other helpful information often

Blogging is Marketing 101.  I know it’s extra work, but those who do it effectively attract the market and grow their business.  If you are trying to decide whether or not to blog, a good question to ask yourself is, “Do I want to grow my business?”

Realistically decide how frequently you can blog on a consistent basis. The more frequently you blog, the more you attract your market/investors.

Step 9: Implement multi-media on your site

An important lesson I learned from one of the most amazing marketing courses I’ve ever taken, Tribal Seduction, is that people (no matter who) want to be entertained.   I realize this isn’t exactly new information, but it’s often easily forgotten when we’re getting down to business.  People are drawn to pictures, video, sound, “a cause”, controversy, drama, and other emotion-laden content.  Implementing multi-media will attract the market, even investors (Investors are people too, yes?!)

Step 10: Tap into 1-3 social networks

I’m easily annoyed every time I hear things like, “You have to get on Facebook”, or,  “You must be on Twitter”.  “Why”, you might ask?  “Because it helps you with your business”, people will tell you.

The only people who maximally benefit from social networks are those who have done something very similar to steps 1-9 above, plus understand that strategy comes before tactics.  Facebook and Twitter are tactics, and not quick fixes to lack of direction and/or a strategic marketing plan.  But, with a strategy and a plan, they can be powerful tools indeed!  Proceed with knowing who you are and where you are going!

Furthermore, don’t stress yourself out trying to learn all of the social networking tools at once, especially without a strategy.  Take one at a time!  If you have an effective online hub, Facebook, twitter and LinkedIn will be ancillary (yet powerful) tools for driving traffic to your site, where your thoughts and company reign supreme.

The science and technology you work on everyday are more “rocket-science” (for some of you quite literally!) than social media tactics will ever be!  Keep these thoughts in mind, and you will implement these tools with ease and effectiveness!

A note on SEO: Of course SEO is a consideration for attracting investors to your online hub.  You can pay all kinds of money for search engine optimization services (and potentially discover disappointing results), or you can visit www.wordtracker.com…they will show you the inexpensive and effective way to apply SEO with keywords.

I hope you’ll find these concepts and steps implemented into your strategic marketing plans.  They will improve your marketing effectiveness and thus increase your attractiveness in the market!

When can you and your team complete Step 1?

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Yes…money is tight, investors are being highly selective with their funds, and they are interested in a return on their investment in the form of profits.   As mentioned in my first post of this series (I Continue Meet Scientists and Business Owners Who Need To Do MORE To Attract Capital Funding), this implies big opportunity for the fit-minded!

Times like these bring out the best in innovative science and discovery, because the fit-minded will adapt and change what they’ve been doing.  They will employ new strategies and a well-defined process to attract funding.

The Wrong Way To Attract Capital Funding:

In my opinion, there is only one wrong way to attract capital funding: Keep doing what you did last year!  Instead of growing a prosperous enterprise, you will grow a cynical attitude.

Investors and other financiers know passion when it presents itself.  You cannot have both cynicism and passion for the future of your company, research and products.  Great companies and innovations grow on passion!

If you have it in your head that investors “can’t see the possibilities”, OR “all they care about is profit”, you are going to be absolutely correct!  Your behaviors – being influenced by your mindset – will in turn influence your investors’/financiers’ perceptions of you, your company, and your future.

Do any of these behaviors sound like you?

• Settling with journals/studies to market your company and ideas
• Presenting a business plan that took you a day or less to create
• Communicating your innovative concepts in your preferred language and format
• Presuming you have all the skills you need to grow your business
• Lacking passion and vision for the impact your innovation will have on the world
• Focusing on a company acquisition verses the vigilance and sustainability of your company

The Right Way to Attract Capital Funding:

As with any market, Capital Markets need to be marketed to effectively.  You may have noticed that marketing today isn’t what it used to be – even when compared with one-two years ago!

Furthermore, and somewhat ironically, the slower economy has accelerated change in marketing methodologies.  End users and investors alike have new demands for products and communications, and many business owners fall far behind in knowing how to overcome these crucial market obstacles.

With the growth of your company at stake, this is not a time to turn a blind eye to the changes you must make to attract capital.  You are competing for funds like never before!

Below are my humble, yet highly effective suggestions for attracting funding.  No BS…I do believe they will help you!

Create a TRUE Strategic Business Plan

A true strategic business plan is for you and your executive team.  Consider that investors and others simply have the pleasure and opportunity to look at your plan when examining your credibility and viability.  A good plan will take at least 3 to 5 days to create with your team.  Don’t write a plan to check the box (kiss of death!)

Your plan is your vision for success.  It represents the values your company is built on, and how you see your company and innovations impacting the world in 5 years or more.

It shows the critical milestones you will achieve with funding in the next 5 months, and then the next five months after that, and so on.  IP Strategy, primary/secondary market research, “what if scenarios”, Financing Strategy, Critical Milestones…go deep here; spend some time!  This is YOUR guide!

To not create a true roadmap for success means you are open to allowing external and other market forces to guide you.  You will be a weathervane, and you’ll be seen as non-credible.

Communicate In a Way Investors Will Grow Interested and Understand

So you have a TRUE strategy plan to share.  Will this suffice?  No!  You need to provide your audience with a Strategic Plan Recap: One for your business plan, one for your marketing plan, and one for your sales plan.

Strategy recaps are succinct and to the point, helping to prevent you from going too heavy with speaking jargon. They will also stimulate interest in looking deeper into your strategy.  Remember, seek first to have your investors understand, then you can be understood!

Here is what a good Strategic Business Plan Recap should consist of:

• Your company’s 3-5 core values
• Your company’s core purpose for existence
• Your company’s 5-Year goal, simply stated
• Your Critical Milestones for achieving your 5-year goal
• Your objectives for achieving your critical milestones, with a special emphasis on your objectives for the next rolling 5 months

Including these concepts in your business plan recap will effectively show who you are and where you are going.  This makes for quick and interesting reading (without sacrificing pertinent details) and immediately helps investors identify if they care to learn more.  It’s all about stimulating real interest.

Here’s what a good Marketing Plan Recap should consist of:

• Your marketing philosophy (edu-marketing, traditional, new media, or mixture, etc.)
• Your market niches, capital markets included (as applicable by growth stage)
• Your Unique Value Proposition
• Your Competitive Advantage (s) (per your well-thought IP strategy)
• Your Objectives for “getting the word out” in the next rolling five months

A marketing recap like this one will effectively show investors whether or not you know how to attract your markets in order to achieve your critical milestones presented in your strategic business plan.  An excellent marketing plan will establish faith in your capabilities.

And finally, here is what a solid Sales Plan Recap Should Consist of:

• Key Differentiators (what about your company and innovations is both unique and valuable to the market, through the eyes of the market)
• Key selling tools (what you will implement to promote your key differentiators to the market)
• Product Strategy (Sales flow and points-of-contact)
• Sales Channels
• Objectives for bringing the sales plan to fruition, again with the next rolling 5 months in mind

A sales plan recap like this one reflects your dedication to action.  No matter what your stage of growth – seed, emerging or promising – you are selling, and you need tools and a plan.

Get out of the Past: Update your Marketing Approach

Studies are required, but whitepapers are desired!  By whitepapers, I mean any information that serves to empower investors and other markets with useful and educational information they can use to make decisions.  Recall the scientist I told you about from my first post in this series?  More of the same!

There is a real opportunity to differentiate yourself if you can be the first to establish thought leadership in your industry.  In addition to having your latest research study published in a peer-reviewed journal, you should provide additional educational pieces specifically geared to your audience in the form of guides, whitepapers, articles, videos or case studies.

How much more will equity financiers be attracted to your organization and ideas if you are educating them on the problems in the industry your innovations help to solve?  Who will they desire to watch, grow to trust, and potentially invest in?  The scientist/business owner with another study at the trade show, or the thought leader with a study at the trade show, who’s guides they’ve received education on pressing industry problems and solutions?

They will choose the latter because this group will have earned thought leadership above and beyond the competition.  There is nothing more powerful than thought leadership.  Earn it!

Attract Investors to Your On-line Hub

If you are confident and can demonstrate who you are and where you are going, you will attract the market.  Establishing a powerful online presence where you can serve as a resource and as an educator in your industry will attract capital funding.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have investors signing up to receive updates on your progress and achievements and contacting YOU for a meeting?

Demonstrate Organizational Effectiveness

Being able to demonstrate organizational effectiveness means that you can show you’re able to consistently achieve company goals/milestones.  How would you rate your company’s ability to consistently achieve organizational goals?  What would it mean to the growth of your company to exceed investor expectations with your ability in this area?

I notice this article is getting somewhat lengthy!  I have much to say about these last two points, and I want them be digestible and useful!    That said, I will break them into two additional articles for my next two subsequent posts in this series:

How to Attract Investors with an On-line Hub and Exceeding Investor Expectations: How to Demonstrate Organizational Effectiveness

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Time is the substance I am made of.
Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river;
Time is a tiger that can rip me apart, but I am the tiger;
Time is a fire that can consume me, but I am the fire.
~Jorge Luis Borges

I don’t believe there is any one secret system for everyone to effectively manage all the activities that make up our day.  But I do believe if there is one “secret” to effectively managing our time, it’s the fact that we are time itself.  What we choose to do every minute of the day is a product of ourselves, and hence, a direct reflection of our person and performance.

The quote above serves as an excellent reminder that it is ourselves who can overwhelm our “self” with activities, or streamline production.  In essence, Time Management is Self Management. 

To be successful, we need to get a lot of things done, fast.  Furthermore, the things that we “do” need to be done right (the first time)!  That’s why we need time/self management!  No one is exempt.

Here are a few suggestions to begin developing your unique system to effectively manage yourself:

• Make a list of your biggest dreams:

Seriously, what do you want to do in your lifetime personally and professionally?  Think in terms of life categories: social, physical, mental, career/financial, and spiritual.  Prioritize these “wants” and set S.M.A.R.T (specific, measurable, attainable, realistically high, and trackable) goals to track and measure your progress toward achieving your dreams.

If we don’t spend the time in our life reaching for our dreams, we will be unhappy, guaranteed.  To manage yourself and your time around your goals and dreams is step 1 in effectively managing your time.  To not do so, limits your potential for results.  What is your opportunity cost if you ignore your dreams?

Remember, someone is always willing to tell you what to do with your time.  Make your time yours; helping others with your unique skills and abilities in alignment with your passions and dreams is your time well spent, while serving those around you.

• Include your goal-oriented activities in your daily task list:

First, start using a daily task list.  If you think you’re too busy or important to keep a task list, you are probably feeling overwhelmed, disorganized or are oblivious to the inconvenience you cause others with your mismanagement of time and resources.  Good luck to you!

If you are one of those who is using a daily task list, save a line item for a task that will help you achieve a personal and professional goal everyday.  Do this, and you will undoubtedly achieve your goals.

Take a glance at your task list right now.  Is there anything on there today that serves you and your company in aspiring towards greatness?

• Spend most of your time in production (creating or providing your product/service), sales, and marketing:

I actually had a business owner tell me, “I have plans for marketing, but I’m just too busy to deal with that right now”.  Hold the phone!  None of us should ever be too busy to market our businesses, products and services or ideas on a daily basis!

A valuable insight I learned during a teleseminar hosted by Stephanie Frank, author of “The Accidental Millionaire”, is that 7-figure companies spend most of their time in sales & marketing-related activities, while 6-figure companies spend most of their time in production-related activities.  Those companies earning less than 6 figures were consumed with administration. This logic makes a lot of practical sense.

Take another look at your task list.  Which of your activities are indicative of someone operating or working for a 6- or 7-figure organization?  What is your Sales/Marketing : Production : Administration ratio?  What will your new ratio be?  Start your new activity ratio ASAP and reap improved results!

• When you fall off schedule or task, start over:

The beauty of creating a personalized self/time management system is that it is a “system”.  Systems can be modified, obliterated, and recreated according to need and circumstance.  And a good system can always be resorted to, even if you have a bad day.

I’ve fallen off schedule many times in a week as a result of a distraction or an emergency.  What saved me every time is having a system to go back to, and then picking up where I left off.  Without a system, an interruption or crisis can disrupt your productivity and results for weeks!

A good system consists of key categories according to days of the week, times of the day, etc.  Depending on your job functions, determine the appropriate categories for you, and segment your activities accordingly.  Don’t forget sales, marketing, and production should be integrated throughout!  Even if your role is administrative, you have ideas to sell and personalized products to create and produce.

What is at least one way you can improve your self-management today?

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“We must learn to balance the material wonders of technology with the spiritual demands of our human race.”       ~ John Naisbitt

Management over the last few years has changed dramatically.  The impact of downsizing, M&As and advanced technology take huge tolls on our human capital.  And although technology improves effectiveness, efficiency and success, we cannot allow it to hoard our focus altogether.

Contemporary managers must be proficient in interpersonal skills and human development – applying their people knowledge to catch up with their technical knowledge. As technology improves, change accelerates, and people increasingly need talented managers who can help lead them through this business environment toward improved results.

Today’s workforce demands more from their managers and company. 

The reality is that people desire fulfillment, recognition and appreciation for their achievements at work (as in life).  We want to feel valued and like we are having an impact.  We need to know and understand we are appreciated and respected.  When we do, we perform at our best and generate results – first for ourselves, and then for our manager and company.  Being consumed by technology and change, managers are at risk of forgetting these basic human truths!

Managers need to make for an environment where motivation and inspiration prosper! Here are a few suggestions for managers to apply “people knowledge” and create a prosperous environment alongside technology:

Champion a corporate or team culture. 

A strong culture creates a sense of pride, identity and belonging.  Because most people desire to achieve and accomplish, a company culture fosters positive attitudes and personal performance.  If your company doesn’t have a culture, consider creating a “team culture” for you and your reports to uphold.  Together with your team, identify your core values and your purpose for why you come to work everyday.  This is a great opportunity to demonstrate your leadership to the company and genuinely lead your team.

Understand, support, and discuss your people’s personal and professional goals.

Try as we may to keep our business and personal life separate, we will fail time and again.  Having a job is very personal!  Furthermore, we bring our ‘person’ to work with us everyday. To ignore our personal goals, needs, and desires at work (or pretend to) is absolutely ridiculous.  It works the other way around as well.  If we are unhappy at work, we harbor those feelings and carry them home with us to our friends and families.  Life, in general, does not feel so good.  As human beings our performance at home and at work are lack-luster.

Here is yet another opportunity for effective managers to apply their people knowledge.  Show your people you care about all of their goals as they pertain to their personal and business life.  This will show that you care about them as a person – with unique skills and abilities- and that you value what they uniquely offer the company.  Discuss their progress and learn how you can be of service for helping them achieve their goals.

Provide random, non-monetary rewards for performance

Think about a system you would enjoy implementing to ensure you regularily recognize someone on your team. Be as creative as you like, but simply scheduling a phone call one day per month to recognize one of the people you mange and directly tell them what you valued most about their performance that month will prove a highly effective people strategy.  It will also improve the habit of doing so, and you will do it more often.  Why stop?

There’s nothing like the performance of a happy employee.  If managers don’t have people knowledge or show personal leadership to apply it, they simply aren’t going to be effective at getting results for the company.  They are not managers at all.

Technology aside, don’t forget the people!

What mechanisms have you put into place to apply people knowledge for improved results in your company?

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1. Everybody possesses the ability to lead.  This means that every member of your workforce can develop his/her unique leadership skills and abilities to achieve improved results. It’s a common myth that a select number of us are “born” leaders.
2. Leadership is a journey.  Leadership characteristics are developed and improved over time. Consciously and consistently developing our leadership skills will accelerate our results.  Compare the skill sets you possess now to those of five years ago.  How are you doing?
3. Leadership is a personal choice.  If we don’t take the initiative to grow our leadership potential, we will achieve limited success.  We create our future, our companies and the world when we take responsibility for developing our leadership potential and the potential of our workforce.  On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your initiative for developing your leadership potential?  How about that of your workforce?
4. People get results, not titles. We must first be effective leaders personally, before we can be effective leaders formally. Both formal and personal leadership require personal power – we get results from people because our behaviors are those that earn people’s trust and respect, thus people are eager to follow our lead.
5. Leaders face failure head-on.  When mistakes happen leaders act on courage and adhere to their values to keep leading.  Remember, it’s who we are in times of intense challenge that define our character. Which of your leadership characteristics are shining through at work and at home during this challenging time in our economy?  Are you a lighthouse or a weather-vane?
6. Leaders set goals.  Goals act as a compass for success.  If we don’t set written goals we are at high risk for losing sight of where we are going personally and professionally.  Leadership requires pointing everyone in the same direction.  Are you setting written goals?

What might you add to this list?

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Do you sometimes wish the world would just slow down for a minute?  Just one delicious minute!  But the reality is our world is moving at breakneck speeds of change, teasing us to keep up with new rules, customer demands and technology.

It’s no wonder big pharma and large biotech’s see an advantage in adopting smaller business models, operating many smaller, independent units and outsourcing every non-core operation possible. Businesses today need to be quick on their feet to swiftly adapt and keep an edge on their competition!

But as surely as there is constant change, many executives will face much difficulty with adjusting to- and managing it.  After all, change is disruptive, and it’s natural to prefer a state of equilibrium. Yet this is the leadership challenge: to grow a prosperous enterprise in the face of constant, lightning-speed change.

YES or NO?  Consider the following statements as they pertain to the leadership in your company:

• My organization quickly responds to opportunities

• My organization has a challenging, innovative culture

• Everyone in my organization is inspired to improve operations and methodologies

• There is excellent communication between departments in my company

• There are step-by-step processes for every operation in my organization

• There is a strong sense of teamwork and collaboration amongst my workforce

• My organization is not ‘stuck in the past’

• My workforce positively adapts to change

• My workforce knows and personally implements the company’s vision for success

You truly want to be able to answer YES to all of the above.  As executive leaders, we must strive to create an organizational culture that has our people positive and fired up to carry out the company’s next big goal.  They should be champions of change and producers of results!

This is LEADERSHIP.  Are you up for the challenge?

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Over the course of my career in biopharmaceutical sales, I’ve learned much about people, leadership, success, failure, sales, management, problem solving, teams, and growth!

To kick off my first post on the Roxx Consulting blog, I’d like to share a few of the many lessons I’ve learned about my passion, organizational effectiveness, during my tenure in the biotechnology industry. 

Business lessons I will not forget:

1.  Customer Loyalty: Customer loyalty is to your business what vitamin D is to your body: you have to go out of your way to get it, and without it you cannot survive.

The pivotal words here are “go out of your way”.  Maybe it’s just me, but I’m easily dazzled when a business goes out of their way for my convenience.  I tell everyone in my circle about the fantastic experience I had as I complement the management there. 

Many business owners will nod their heads in agreement regarding “focusing on the customer” and, “improving the customer experience”; yet, they take minimal to no action! This is a far cry from going out of their way. Think of the missed opportunity for free advertising and gaining an edge on your competition!

Sadly, I know too many companies right now that are slowly dying because of their inability to implement effective customer management
systems. They are aware of the problem (poor customer service), they say they must do something (how about a new marketing campaign?), and then they do nothing to address the real issue. Big mistake. Eventually, their organizational ineffectiveness will consume them from the inside out (although it appears to be from the outside in).

2.  Time Strategies: Time strategies are the ultimate litmus test for top talent.

Time management is always a hot topic for discussion, as well as popular measure for performance. For as much attention as it gets, why is it not the star interview question or the first category on a performance appraisal?  It really should be. 

Effective time management reflects one’s ability for hardcore problem solving.  Because, as enjoyable as life is, each day presents it’s fair share of creative problem solving for our enhanced enjoyment. By now, we’ve all had the opportunity to “show our stuff” in this key area.           

So take a close look (and I mean a really close look; spend some time on this one) at that interviewee’s time strategies, or your
employees’ level of performance as it relates to navigating through daily problems.  I bet you’ll find that your top talent (you know, those who always seem to get results come hell or high-water) is a master time strategist aka problem solver.

If a position requires lifting heavy problems, hire a master time strategist!

3.  Sales and Marketing: It’s an entirely new ecosystem.  Adapt!

I come from the land of Sales Force Oz where big marketing budgets reign supreme and the sales force is treated like bronze (platinum in the earlier days) and handed expensive, yet typically ineffective, tools for sales conversion (although every now and then we would get a “winner” tool my teammates and I would jokingly ask, “Where’s the magic wand?  Can we expect that in our next quarterly shipment?)

It’s very different now. An expansive (and expensive!) sales force with elaborate brochures and a fancy pitch is no longer as effective as it once was more than a decade ago. Marketing and sales have officially converged online where information marketing – on the customer’s terms – is a basic requirement.

Here’s the good news: you can save sales and marketing dollars AND successfully grow your business!

4.  Team Leadership: Create many specialized “organelles” within your organization.

I think of teams much like the specialized organelles within a cell. Their job is to carry out advanced functions for the optimized performance of the whole (the organization and the cell, respectively).

What’s important to your organization?  Innovation?  Customer management? Fresh marketing content?  Put together a specialized team for each goal category verses suffering through organization-wide communication problems due to a lack of accountability. 

Create each team to function as an independent whole with a qualified leader, manager, and roles and responsibilities for each member as it pertains to that unit.  Measure performance and reap targeted results!

5.  Management:  Practice superior quality control by obliterating ineffective management early!

I’ve witnessed in awe how bad management slows results.  Awe because little-to-nothing is often done about it – bad managers are allowed to run rampant!  This is way too costly for an organization to tolerate.  Only the best people shouldbe managers.  “Best” meaning healthy-minded individuals with superior leadership ability.

If you know someone has an obnoxious ego or presents with a personality disorder, don’t promote him/her into management!  It will only get worse. You’ll reduce organizational effectiveness for achieving goals. 

Bad management is an insidious disease.  Cynicism is the side effect to look for in your people.  Identify and obliterate. The growth of your company depends on it!

6.  Leadership:  If leadership is results, then by all means…culture it!

Highly effective organizations ooze leadership.  It is developed from the top-down on an ongoing basis so that no matter what a person’s position or function, they can be depended upon as a leader in their unique role for producing results.

Some organizations take leadership development lightly or not at all.  Another mistake.  The truth is, leadership begins with the founding culture of the organization. That culture needs to be infused throughout the company through strategic development and used as a filter for hiring and retaining the right talent.

Continuously develop your people’s potential for leadership and you will optimize results and organizational growth!

7.  Executive Leadership: The marketplace has an affinity for effective organizations.

The more effective your company is at all the various business management functions, the more attractive you will be to the market. 

A top scientist seeking employment will experience an aversion to organizations known for high employee turnover.  Investors will be leery to invest in an organization with no real vision and true purpose to guide its people toward achieving critical milestones.  And no one will want to partner with a company that has bad managers chronically debilitating performance and results.

A word to the wise: your best marketing will not attract the market if your management is less than stellar.  Bad management will show up in you measure of customer loyalty and your slow demise will begin.

Improve effectiveness; increase attractiveness!

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