Thought Leaders

The coming of a new year is the best time to re-think the past year’s professional and personal goals and start cultivating new goals for the weeks and months ahead. Of necessity, this means tearing yourself away from day-to-day operations and thinking more in terms of long-range strategy. Why is this important? Aligning your personal goals with those of your organization “bolsters employee morale, demonstrating that their leader shares the company’s aspirations,” notes Success Consciousness. This can build trust and bolster employee engagement. At the same time, it’s vital that business

There has been a lot of talk lately about Artificial Intelligence and how it is poised to change how nearly every business owner runs and grows their company. And it’s happening. The introduction of ChatGPT has expanded curiosity into artificial intelligence and ignited interest in how to best leverage the tool in everyday business operations. It is by all accounts pretty impressive stuff. Even the big dogs like Google and Microsoft are adding the technology to their platforms and browsers. While AI is expected to quickly impact nearly everything we

Deciding to “stay in place” is not a viable option for most businesses. Marketplace conditions are always in flux, and customer needs and preferences frequently change over time, so business leaders need to engage in effective and realistic strategic planning. While a full-fledged strategic plan can take many shapes, certain key elements should always be included. This helps ensure the plan occupies a meaningful place within the organization, rather than ending up as yet another document left forgotten on a shelf. As you put together your strategic plan, don’t try

Any hard-working salesperson can tell you closing a sale is their ultimate goal. Short-term sale strategies emphasize the value of a clean, efficient transaction with a customer, particularly those that come to a successful (and profitable) conclusion. But since virtually all organizations depend upon sales for their livelihood, it’s crucial to come up with a sales strategy that takes the “long view”—not just what happens in sales today and tomorrow, but one year, two years, even five years from now. Does your company have a viable long-term sales strategy? If

In case there’s any doubt, some statistics on the state of remote work in the U.S. should clear things up. According to the Upwork Future Workforce Pulse Report, “The number of remote workers in the next five years is expected to be double what it was before COVID-19.” What’s more, the report states, more than 36 million Americans will work remotely by the year 2025. Clearly, remote work is here to stay. But what does the future of remote work look like? A different approach to recruitment While hiring remote workers is