Ten Questions to Ask to Determine if Your Customers and Employees Really Understand Your Company

Business owners live and breathe their company missions. Often, their business identity plays a significant role in their personal identity. Naturally, they can effortlessly explain what their company does, why it exists, what it stands for, and where it is going.

This is not often the case with employees or customers.

Here are two sets of questions to help you determine if your two most important stakeholder groups – your employees and your customers – really understand your company.

Four Steps to a Successful 360-Degree Hiring Process

A client asked me, “Marissa, should I involve my other employees in the interviewing process?” My answer was an enthusiastic YES. From the intern to the executive, the CEO should never unilaterally own a hiring decision.

Six Strategies For Managing Toxic People

Can we be honest with each other? As much as we love our work, we don’t always love the people we work with. What happens when you encounter someone in the course of your workday that can potentially suck the life out of you while you are trying to succeed in the workplace?

In my coaching with dozens of CEOs, this issue presents itself over and over. Potentially toxic situations manifest with customers, vendors, employees, or other industry colleagues every day, in virtually every environment.

Driving an Intrapreneurial Spirit and Mindset

I’m working with a great company who’s committed to moving to the next level of growth. The owner/founder has done a very good job of establishing himself as a highly dependable and reputable subcontractor, but wants to triple the company size, and evolve into a prime contractor over the next 3 years. We have a lot of work to do. To make this pivot, we have to build his infrastructure, implement required processes, and align with the right people.

One of our most immediate tasks is to evaluate and shift the mindset and commitment of his current team. Growth can’t happen alone. It takes a village to build a business.

Avoiding SP-RH Syndrome

It’s all coming back to me….the early days of building a business, and laying a solid foundation to support healthy growth. I find myself with lengthy to-do lists that require many sets of helping hands. It’s tempting to simply throw new tasks over the fence to those that have already proven to be experts as I grow Successful Culture.

But wait. I’ve been down this road before with Information Experts. I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, and then tossed the overflow to a team mate. Eager to please, they say yes, even though my new request is outside of their core expertise… setting us both up for disappointment.

The Three Things Companies Need to Thrive

I’ve had a slew of podcast interviews over the last few weeks, and virtually all of the hosts have asked me what I think is the necessary ingredient for continued business growth. I speak from a place of making mistakes, and from getting things right over the last 20 years.

The three things I believe companies need to survive are a market niche, relevancy, and a mindset of greatness. I’ve named them in order of difficulty.

It’s Not Personal; It’s Our Values

Values dictate every major decision and action in an organization – from the clients that a company engages, to the people that a company hires, to seemingly simple behaviors such as leaving a door open or closed. Values determine our behavior when others are not around to watch us. They are the core of integrity – which manifests when values are integrated with our actions. Personally and professionally, they frame the most important aspects of who we are, and what matters to us.

Who Is the Best Sales Person in Your Company?

One of my coaching clients called me this week, asking for advice on where to find a great sales rep. She’s launching a start-up that has been in the works for months, and is obviously anxious to get her product to the market. My advice to her was to look in the mirror. That’s where she would find her best sales rep.

Increasing Productivity by Taming the Daily Calendar

When Sunday arrives and you take a peek at the work-week ahead, what physical reactions occur in your body? Does your heart race a bit faster from anxiety? Does your stomach tighten? Do you feel stress in your neck and shoulders? Have you ever thought about these reactions?

Personal Development IS The Goal

Personal development is not a tool for reaching a bigger goal. Instead, becoming a “complete human being is already the biggest and most noble goal you can aspire to.” Most of us are on a quest of continuous self-improvement, with the goal of attaining greater success. “If I attend this school, if I obtain this certification, if I achieve this milestone, then I will be able to attain another level of achievement.” The personal development is often tied to a desired outcome that moves us from one level to another.