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How to get the most from a strategic planning framework

How do you know which framework you should use for your business? There are many frameworks and systems that claim to have the tools to help entrepreneurs get what they want from their business. 

In this episode, Kevin and Brad discuss the six things to consider when evaluating which strategic planning framework is best for you.

The 7 common strategy mistakes from Michael Porter

How do you know your strategy will be effective? This week Kevin and Brad discuss the Seven Strategy Mistakes from Michael Porter and how leadership teams regularly make these common strategy mistakes. 

Michael Porter is one of the greatest strategy thinkers from the last century and developed a simple checklist we can all use to ensure our strategy won't be a mistake.

Why strategy should focus on producing more profit - not market share

When setting your strategy there is a big trap that you can fall into. By focussing your strategy to build a bigger business, to chase market share, you may end up with the problem that the larger business isn't more profitable. In fact, you can chase yourself into the commodity business, with a bigger, larger, busier, and weaker business. 

Instead, your business should focus on producing more profit - not market share. Because the job of a leadership team is to develop and execute a strategy that produces a higher return on capital. Or put another way the business produces a higher profit than the industry average. This week Kevin and Brad talk about the importance of a strategy being focused on profit, and not market share.

Profit = Intelligence x Discipline

This week on The Growth Whisperers Brad and Kevin talk about the two critical variables that impact your profit. Intelligence and Discipline. If you have the intelligence to create a profitable strategy but don't have the discipline, it will negatively impact your profit. If you have the discipline to run an effective and efficient business but don't have the intelligence to build a strategy that grows your margin, it will negatively impact your profit.

The show helps listeners to zoom out and perhaps understand why they might not be making the profit that they want. Then discover ways to look at your discipline, your intelligence and your profit through a different perspective that could have a large impact on your profit, and the enjoyment you get from your business. 

The dangerous thing about focusing on your competition

Many leaders spend way too much time thinking about and talking about their competition. And sometimes this can lead to me-too type reactions, that can lead you to commoditization. 

Instead of spending too much time thinking about the competition, instead, leaders should think about the customer, what the customer needs are, and how to meet those needs in a unique and valuable way. 

Brad and Kevin talk about the problems with client focus, and why you should spend more time focussing on customers. 

How to retain your top talent

With a war for talent being experienced worldwide at the moment, employers are not only finding it hard to find new people, but it can be difficult to retain existing people.

This week Kevin and Brad discuss the 7 key things you can do to give you the best chance of retaining your A players.

Eliminate your emotionally taxing issues - lick your toads

This week we're talking about all the small non-strategic things that weigh you down and create mental clutter.

If you aren't able to eliminate all these issues you can't do the best work possible and be clear in your thinking.

We discuss the rule of 5 D's - the five things to help you declutter and lick your toads.

4Q The 4 questions leadership team members need to ask customers

Some of the best data for leadership team members comes from customers, and some of the best customer data becomes available when leaders talk with customers directly. In fact leaders could be missing out on 70% to 80% of the most valuable information that they could have.

This week we discuss the simple system of 4 questions that every leadership team should ask, we discuss why it's important, and how to implement it in your business. 

The curse of being in a great leadership team

This week we're talking about the curse of being on a great leadership team.

And the curse is that if you leave and you go back to a normal team it can be quite confronting to realise all the small things that added up to make the team great, simply aren't at the new team.

We discuss what you can do if you find yourself in this position, how you can be a positive catalyst, using your past experiences to help a not so great team most towards greatness.

Why you can’t save your way to success

Sometimes either personally, or in your business, you can focus on saving money rather than making money. Also, sometimes this means that you can be so focused on being efficient, that you can lose the opportunity for growth.

Spending a few hours a week saving money might make you feel better about the waste reduction, but instead spending that time making money, could in fact produce ten or one-hundred times the impact.

This week Brad and Kevin talk about the true cost of people who try to save their way to success.

Genius of the AND from Jim Collins

Many times we get stuck in what's called the "Tyranny of the OR". This means that we are stuck thinking that we can only solve a problem thinking binary. For example, we can't pursue profit and a purpose is an example of "Tyranny of the OR". Instead, we might think we can pursue a profit AND a purpose. 

Another example might we someone saying we can't grow both customers and margins. It is the genius of the AND when applied to certain circumstances that can make a remarkable difference in your team. 

We explain the Genius of the AND concept, we provide several examples, and explain how you can use the Genius of the AND concept with your team. 

The Power and Struggle of saying no

Saying yes comes at a cost. Understanding the cost of yes and the challenge to say no, along with the cost can help you become more effective. 

The price of no includes time, money and busyness, leading to less effectiveness. Also, saying no the mediocre things, means you can keep room for greatness. 

This week we talk about the price of yes and provide some tools and techniques to help you to say no.

How the best leaders hold people accountable (part 2 of 2)

Many leaders want to know how to hold a team accountable. Often they will look at team members and wonder why they aren't accountable. In order to build accountability in a team, you need two things, the tools and the environment. In last weeks first episode we reviewed the tools required to build accountability in your team.

In this part two of two, we discuss the elements and the environment required to build accountability in your team.

How the best leaders hold people accountable (part 1of 2)

Many leaders want to know how to hold a team accountable. Often they will look at team members and wonder why they aren't accountable. In order to build accountability in a team, you need two things, the tools and the environment. 

In this part one of two, we discuss the tools required to build accountability in your team.

What's the difference between an operational CEO and a strategic CEO?

Operational CEOs focus on the short term horizon such as 1 week to 1 year and look at tactical items such as margin, sales and people performance.

Strategic CEOs focus on the long term horizon of 3 years plus and look at innovation, sales relationship health and people development.

In this episode, we talk about the difference between an operational and strategic CEO, and how to become a more strategic CEO.

What is a Topgrading virtual bench, and why you need one

This week on The Growth Whisperers, we talk about the virtual bench, a recruiting tactic for executives who need a better way to find additional leaders or key team members.

The Topgrading virtual bench is important because it builds a list of vetted, pre-qualified candidates for a job opening that you can draw upon when you need to. 

In the episode, we explain why it's important and provide a simple role-play on how you can cold call potential candidates to put them onto your virtual bench.

How Profit per X uniquely drives profit

Profit per X is a concept from Jim Collins where companies gain a piercing insight into how to most effectively generate sustained and robust cash flow and profitability. In particular, they discover the single denominator—Profit per X—that has the greatest impact on their economics. 

In this episode, we discuss why Profit per X is a strategic metric, and not an execution metric, what makes a good Profit per X, and how to align your Profit per X with your hedgehog, as well as providing Profit per X examples.  

Why should anyone come and work for you at the same salary as your competitors?

Employers often complain that it's difficult to find staff and yet pay the same amount as the competition. However, if you consider the situation from the employees perspective, you can appreciate that if the pay is approximately the same, then many things you might not consider are actually quite important to a candidate.

For example, the purpose of the organisation, the role flexibility, career growth opportunity, the manager or the organisation's prestige all become critical considerations if the pay rate is similar.