Advancing Passed the Gain Line

In this Issue

1. How to Change the Numbers
2. Role Playing and Lima Beans
3. The?New Boom
4. Civics Lesson: Keys to Predicting the Winner
5. A Business?Six Pack
6. Econ Recon

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In rugby, advancing across the gain line represents a gain in territory. This issue offers ideas to increase the value and operational efficiency of your business. Ideas to increase the efficiency of your sales people. Read on to think of areas where you can advance beyond the gain line.

Advancing your business beyond the gain line: There are still seats available to join Chicago business leaders at The Road to Growth:? Accelerating Your Legacy. This afternoon workshop (on Tuesday, October 1) will help you accelerate your business’ fundamental drivers of value creation. Creating a more valuable company helps generate a more predictable, healthy cash flow. It makes employees, customers and any lenders/investors happier. Explore your options for increasing valuation by joining trusted experts from the Vistage community. Register Today!

How to Change the Numbers

Vistage speaker and sales trainer Colleen Stanley, one of the country’s leading experts on the intersection of selling and emotional intelligence warns that sales leaders often confuse “deal review” with “deal coaching.”

Take a few minutes for a three minute video with Ms. Stanley to find out if?you’re confusing “deal review” with “deal coaching.” Use deal review to analyze the numbers. Use deal coaching to change the numbers.

Role Playing and Lima Beans

Legendary Vistage Speakers?Jack Daly and Morne’ Smit tell Vistage groups around the world?that sports teams are run better than most businesses. Why? Because of the emphasis on practice and preparation before the game. That said, it’s a paradox that more businesspeople, who are among the most avid fans and urge teamwork and winning, don’t demand the same thing from their teams before sending them out in the field to practice instead on their customers. If you really want to improve your sale game. Morne Smit gives a great video tutorial for sales leaders for making role practice an integral part of your sales management process.

Daly and Smit are not alone in their belief of the importance of role play. Vistage speakers Casey Brown and Doug Butdorf of Boost Pricing?have helped hundreds of Vistage members develop new pricing strategies to drive profitability. In a short blog post they write that “role play is one of the most effective tools to prepare your sales team for real-life customer conversations.”

No one wants to do it, but leaders need to make their teams “eat their veggies.” Brown and Butdorf make a compelling case of why your team needs to “Role Play and Eat Your Lima Beans.”

The New Boom

The bad news?? Due to demographic factors, many believe the War for Talent will be with us for some time. Some sectors are struggling more than others such as retail or manufacturing. This situation makes a focus on productivity mandatory.

The good news? Productivity and prosperity may be right around the corner according to Phillip Powell, an Indiana University economist. In a brief article from Chief Executive magazine, Powell’s read on economic data, especially in the manufacturing sector, has him convinced that “we’re in the early innings of a prosperity supercycle driven by the largest surge in corporate productivity since the 1990s. He thinks this is the hidden force that’s driving numbers like the eye-popping 10.1% Q1 growth in corporate profits, even as the Fed raised interest rates.”

Powell identifies four areas of focus for C-Level executives to capitalize on this opportunity. Find out what they are so you can answer these questions:? The New Productivity Boom is Here:? Is your Company Ready? Are you?

?Civics Lesson:? Keys to Predicting the Winner

Note: ?As with last week’s issue, between now and November 5, I will be sharing articles that I hope will be of interest to any C-Level executive about the election, and I do so without any intention to support any party or candidate but to share some aspects of the race that I hope you will find informative or at least entertaining regardless of party or preferences.

In an election year it’s difficult to get through the day without hearing about a new poll indicating who’s ahead in the presidential race and this year.

However, polls are not the only prediction tool available. One presidential historian has taken a different approach. He doesn’t look at polls, he relies on a very different methodology (one that might applicable to your business). Professor Alan Lichtman of American University has made the right call in every election, regardless of party, since 1984 with the exception of the 2000 George W. Bush/Al Gore race.?

Lichtman looks at what he calls “keys,” looking at 13 of them to be exact, with a minimum of 8 being required to call a winner. He explains that “The keys are not polls that reflect personality of a candidate or a policy position, but a list of conditions pertaining to social unrest, scandal, incumbency, the economy, and others. The keys are statements that favor the reelection of the incumbent party. When five or fewer statements are false, the incumbent party wins. When six or more are false, the challenging party wins.”

A recent two-minute CNN interview shares his prediction for this cycle . I also suggest this?one page executive summary of Professor Lichtman’s model from CNBC that offers more details about each of the keys ?.?

Henry Ford hated polls and surveys. He once said that if he polled people about cars, they would say they wanted a faster horse. Are there aspects of this method that could help you predict your business outcomes better than customer surveys or polls?

A Business Six Pack

Looking backward can help us to understand the present and forecast the future. But looking at history also has a value in itself. It can strengthen our understanding of our human nature and help us tackle the challenges we face today with greater insight and wisdom.

I think you’ll find these Six Very Short Stories about Business History from the American History Business offer great ideas and insights reinforcing that while business is about change, there is also much about business that doesn’t change.

Econ Recon

“Slower Fast”: ?Despite slowing inflation, booming stock market and recently upwardly revised GDP, economic Brian Wesbury is less sanguine that these metrics might suggest. Check out why he thinks the US economy may be slowing down faster than most investors think.

“There’s a lot going on” according to ITR Economics’ Brian Beaulieu and he’ll explain it to you if you’ve got six minutes and thirty seconds in his?latest “Fedwatch” video.

Thanks for continuing to read the Make A Difference (MAD) newsletter. I appreciate you and wish you a productive week.

Sue Tinnish, PhD,?Vistage Chair, Facilitator, & Executive Coach

Find me easily at: 847.404.7325, [email protected] , Twitter:?@STinnish, LinkedIn: www.dhirubhai.net/in/suetinnish , Website: https://vistage.com/chairs/sue.tinnish

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