So you want to enter a new market but to have the courage of your talent to jump in you need the evidence to support your investment? I have news for you. In a great many situations for example corroborating a fraud case, the police need to act in order to find the evidence. I’d urge you to think again about what action, a lightning diagnosis, will lead to the conviction to enter / not enter a new market. That’s the starting point. What critical and highly important must you assemble? What do you already possess and what do you need to acquire? Where does it in all likelihood reside? What can you unearth yourself and what external help must you invest in? Knowledge, speed and prudent decision-making.
In a world where social media has promulgated millions of so-called “experts”, it is time now as the smartest linguist I know, Alan Weiss, stated this week, to raise the bar. If you are in professional services, financials services, business services and are not seeking to be known as, quoted and cited as, and seen as, “The Authority” in your field, you are not trying hard enough. You need a new Personal Strategy.
With due attribution:
Who do you want to be in a year? Known as the Authority to……
What do you want to be doing in support of you want to be? (referrals, networking, speaking, publishing, hosting private events, Board or Charitable leadership roles etc)
What do you need to move from where you are to what you’ve described? (what must you maintain/contine to support, what must you improve, what must you jettison, what must you acquire. Pick a small list, schedule in calendars, and start immediately).
I meet a number of rich ex C-Suite execs in Fortune 500 companies reinventing themselves in various Board roles today. Few possess the combination of skills, expertise and behaviours to also get rich advising entrepreneurs. One trait stands out in the small pool of those who do, they are exceptional in putting something in front of the entrepreneur that is demonstrably in their self-interest to accept. Most former CEOs default to “pitching” their viewpoint and expecting acceptance, as they would in their former role. They repeat that process when seeking to attract others to that business, yet no one wants to be “pitched” to, not least by a highly assertive individual who for a large part of their career expected their demands to be met or exceeded.
There were many impressive improvements in Carlos Alcaraz’s game throughout the four tennis majors this year culminating in a dominant victory over his superb nemesis Jannik Simmer in New York. One area that stands out, is his elite ability once he has momentum to be utterly ruthless and unrelenting in capitalising upon it behind a rock-solid first serve and deep returns of serve or shorter returns that pushed Sinner out wide, opening up the court. It separates those who might play an impressive set and a half of tennis but lack the routine discipline, organisation and focus to maintain their advantage. The margins in elite tennis, as in golf, are incredibly fine between the elite player and a Top 30 player.
Most crossover observations in sport and entertainment and applied to business lack scientific credibility. However the leadership trait of capitalising on momentum and not gifting it away, is a very common distinction between superior and so-so entrepreneurs and executives.
The latter become distracted by a shiny new product or service launch, technology, an M&A or re-financing process, or worse, they convince themselves that they got lucky or they don’t exploit new and referral business when they are winning. “We’ll get to it” or “we don’t have the bandwidth right now”.
They voluntarily cede power, control and influence over future events within their control to others, and boom, they have gone from 6-3 and 3-0 to suddenly 6-3 4-6 3-6. The competition capitalise fast on their own increasing momentum, and their momentum acts a gravity effect on large numbers of ideal capital, ideal talent, ideal business and distribution partners banging at the competition’s door, who now see them as the “winner” or “hot partner” in the sector. Calls and emails are responded to slower or not at all by previously “warm” leads, delays occur and candidly, interest wanes. They are increasingly seen as, known as, and quoted and cited as “yesterday’s market leader”.
Don’t believe me look around you in your sectors, and the fortunes of former market-leading brands such as Gucci, Sotheby’s, Ritz Carlton, Coutts Private Bank and the Dallas Cowboys. Momentum hard earned, momentum easily gifted away and a long time, if ever, to return.
A great many entrepreneurs with mid-sized businesses of ten reach a stage of growth where I observe that they and their Board make a huge mistake. They obsess over their competitors latest founding round or valuation. They constantly draw comparisons with their market share and revenue growth. They make decisions to enter new markets largely on what their competitor is doing now or might do next. Their competitor lives “rent free” in the minds of senior management and the Board, to the extent executive meetings and risk-taking decisions are dominated by responses to competitor moves.
I’d argue the competition is holding them back. Stuck preserving a “status quo” where all the signs are that their current market position is eroding or stagnating. Preserving business models and approaches that are increasingly not keeping pace with the needs of their ideal customers.
They would be far better served ignoring the competition and setting new standards. Formulating a mission to their ideal destination, and implementation plans that are not dependent on their competition rather a newer, bolder and far more successful iteration of their business today. Where they have maximal power, control and influence over events that are most obviously in their control. Time, energy and money is not frittered away on issues that they cannot control. The focus is exclusively on raising performance levels to new heights in their business, and innovating their way to future success.
In the small Leicestershire recreational cricket club I help out as a Committee Member, there are clear and obvious decisions that need taking but the consequences are often personal and complex to manage. The same is true in many businesses, large and small, who hire me to advise them on profitable growth decisions. “Courage” is often an overlooked and misunderstood attribute. Not so much in taking a decision but leading and managing the consequences through to a safer and more sustainable future.
There is a fine line between “recklessness”, on one end of the risk-taking spectrum, and “inertia” on the other. That is why I observe it is essential anyone involved in effective risk-taking decisions must have “skin in the game” (time, money, energy, repute etc), and the appropriate level of courage alongside talent and judgement.
If that is not evident then they should be nowhere near the decision-making process, irrespective of their status.
There are times in my family life where you see a sequence of events unfolding where you can influence but not control the situation. My wife will admonish me if I interrupt our conversation, to warn of imminent danger in reversing the car into a shiny barrier yards away, or my daughter for not looking left and right as Deliveroo scooters run a red light. You can take it as a personal afront (self-worth) or pass it off as a caring thing to do. Safe or sorry? Is it better to speak up than to wish you had said or done something? I know where I sit on that spectrum.
When I see an automated “Out of Office” reply notice, which then says I have “no access to email” I really wish that to be true but seriously, why not be honest? “You are not my priority right now, I will not reply to you until XX/MM. Please contact Angela for an urgent response”.
If you need employees back in the office on a full-time or substantial amount of the week to sustain your client business, how hard is it to first present something that is demonstrably in their self-interest to accept? Judging by headlines in the New York Times, The Times and Globe and Mail that is proving to be very hard for a number of corporate executives in large employers in New York, London and Toronto. Perhaps the Boards of those businesses should accept the reality, those leaders lack the skills, behaviour and expertise to sustain their workforce. It is time for a change at the top!
