Better Business Focus – November 2020

You can now download November issue of Better Business Focus. Please feel free to e-mail Better Business Focus to your friends or colleagues.

Below is a selection of articles from this month’s issue, and we hope you enjoy the read!

Better Business Focus: Expert Inspiration for a Better Business.

Better Business Focus is the essential key for business owners and managers. It achieves that by focusing on the way in which successful businesses compete and manage their organisations.  It focuses on how people are recruited, coached and developed; on how marketing and selling is undertaken in professional markets as well as in markets with intense competition; on how technology and the Internet is reshaping the face of domestic and home business; and on how people are being equipped with new skills and techniques. In short, it offers expert inspiration for a better business.

This Month’s articles include:

  • Amy VetterA new era of client relationships: It’s not hyperbole to say that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected every aspect of the way we do business, and many of the changes are far from temporary. Everything from the way we use tech to the nature of leadership has had to adapt to this year’s unprecedented circumstances. The approach we take to client relationships is no different.
  • Adi GaskellInvesting in people builds resilience against the covid recession: It’s widely accepted that the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic will be substantial.  Indeed, the World Bank predict that we’re facing up to the worst global recession since the 2nd World War.  Already we’ve seen retail demand falling to unprecedented levels, with reduced mobility also causing demand for oil to plummet.
  • Debra Murphy5 tips for managing your online reputation: “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” This children’s rhyme does not apply in today’s highly connected world where a few negative words can cost your company a lot of business. Now everything from quality reviews and recommendations, legitimate issues and reputation damaging complaints are there for the entire world to see.
  • Dimis Michaelides – Unexpected foes – weak links in Innovation roadmaps: Imagine you are implementing a transformation program in your organization. You have it all spelt out with the fashionable jargon of our times. A new vision for a new business model which came from heaps of Out-of-the-Box design thinking. With entirely customer-centric systems using state-of-the-art digital technology (and of course chatbots, actionable analytics, big data, internet of things). A lean and agile operation with plenty of scrum will implement this model which will empower everybody to think smarter and act faster. You might even celebrate a few failures.
  • Braden Kelley – Eat, Sleep, Innovate: How to make creativity an everyday habit inside your organization [Interview]: I had the opportunity recently to interview fellow author Scott D. Anthony of consulting firm Innosight to talk with him about his new book Eat, Sleep, Innovate: How to Make Creativity an Everyday Habit Inside Your Organization, which is his eighth book with his co-authors Paul Cobban, Natalie Painchaud, and Andy Parker. Congratulations Scott!
  • Bob Apollo – The status quo isn’t what it used to be…:  Whenever a purchase is inevitable (the customer must act) your competition tends to be predictable – and it will often be another vendor like you. But – as is so often the case in complex B2B sales – the purchase is discretionary (the customer may or may not decide to act) – your fiercest competitor is often the status quo.
  • Paul Sloane – The Accidental Innovation: Thomas Sullivan was a tea merchant in New York.  In 1908 he despatched to customers samples of tea leaves in small silken sachets for them to try. Some people thought that the sachets were to be used like metal infusers. Customers were supposed to empty out the contents but instead they put the whole bag into the teapot and then added hot water.
  • Soren Kaplan – 6 ways to create a culture of Innovation in a virtual world: Culture is a key success factor for every team and organization. Shape it to get more innovation, even from your remote workforce.
  • Sunil Bali – Wet wisdom…..: Over 70% of our body is made of it, we can’t survive a week without it, and we can also learn a few lessons from it.
  • Dr Lynda Shaw – Working from home or the office – How to do it best: For many of us Coronavirus has turned the way we work upside down. With more of us negotiating how to safely go back to work versus working from home, office workers and business leaders have never needed to be so flexible. But should we go back to the office or continue to work from home where possible?  Here are some of the things employers and employees need to consider.
  • Thom Dennis – Bullying is systemic in the workplace despite working from home: Whilst we may not all be facing each other across our desks at the moment as we circumnavigate our way through Covid-19, bullying is still rife and systemic in the workplace, with cyber bullying in particular being driven higher by the pandemic, according to leaders in change management.
  • Urko Wood – Focus: the Key to Success: Knowing where to focus is the key to success at innovation.
  • Jeff Haden – If you can answer yes to any of these 5 questions, you’re (still) wealthier than you think: One problem with comparisons is that no matter how successful you feel as an entrepreneur, there is someone who seems more successful. Or smarter. Or more accomplished. Or more talented.
  • Barry Shamis – Choosing leaders in the new economy: The demands of leadership change based on the environment and circumstances a leader faces.  There can be no doubt that the current economic climate is unique.  Businesses are facing more competition, a greater pace of change and more uncertainty than ever.
  • Peter Thomson – “Here are 3 MORE powerful marketing words you can use this very day”: Isn’t it strange, how the smallest changes can make such a difference to success of our marketing messages?
  • Barry Urquhart – “It’s a war out there”: Media headlines declaring war, relating to battles, and referring to the need to fight are inflaming emotions.
  • Janet SernackLeading and managing transitional change: In our last blog “Leading and managing human transitions through disruption and adversity,” we described the importance of leaders and managers becoming more generous, tolerant, caring, empathic not only with themselves, and also with others they interact with. Describing how many leaders and managers have been emotionally hijacked by the often-dire consequences of their own particular series of downturns and stresses, causing them to unconsciously resist, or react against the current Covid-19 range of crises.

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