HOW TO LEAD IN TIMES OF CHANGES
The way of leadership has changed drastically over the last years.
When looking back leaders had to be strong personalities with a certain way on how to approach team members as well as higher structures and customers. In some company cultures I even experienced leadership by fear or superiority. This has totally changed. In times of digitalization and easy knowledge transfer the way leadership needs to change towards more social and emotional skills to keep a decentralized team together and to guarantee transfer of knowledge to the right person. I still remember the times of "knowledge is key" and also times where people where laughing about me when giving my "power" away sharing it with my teams or hiring a person because "he/she was way better than me in certain things".
Today, diversity is more important than ever, trying to put teams together which perfectly fit but cannot be more different in terms of knowledge, character or workplace. Leading these teams with success is a challenge I can support leadership on how to best fill this new role.
But not only leadership will need structure and support when changing the way of leadership, also teams have to understand personal strengths and best fits for the teams they work with. This process is key for successful growth and stable teams.
WHAT MARKETING REALLY MEANS
Most of my worklife I spent in commercial marketing roles. Whether Startup or large organizations I am familiar with both organizational challenges. Strategic planning, new tool implementation, affiliate marketing such as search engine optimization (SEO) or online advertising and sales options, Branding, Messaging or even creating a brand or "investor paper" for startups is part of my support portfolio. Some of my customers fully outsourced their strategic marketing and branding activities. Close cooperation with company commercial functions whether it is upstream or downstream marketing or sales is key to fill the role to a full satisfaction. "Personality driven approach" is one of the key drivers leading to a second layer after solution driven marketing and can make the key difference towards competition.
But also classic marketing tools such as PR campaigns, brochure design, website creation including content and all other forms or template development are part of the portfolio I offer to my customers.
SALES NEEDS TO ELEVATE TO THE NEXT LEVEL
Whenever you try to change your sales persons way to sell you already lost. You will not be able to change their character, nor their general way of approach, but what you can do is strengthen their understanding of their communication partner and how to best communicate knowing more about psychological fit and sales techniques.
My personal view is that you can cell every product, service or solution to every customer when knowing the key factors which count for your communication partner. In this case psychological theories meet practical approaches and when implementing them in the right way will lead to strong success. Certified in DISC and SPIN I combined both theories to a third one which leads to a strong customer related dynamic approach. When adding additional psychological approaches your sales team will not have to change their character but will be more successful approaching the customers in the best way.
Working in different sales positions my experience has been only positive implementing such an approach not only with direct organizations but also selling via sales partners. For independent partners such an approach can help to gain more interest in your portfolio than in others.
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF KNOWLEDGE
All customers would agree that training and education is an essential need and that employees would need the best education and training. But why is this topic so difficult when it comes to execution? I have experienced various reasons for not implementing training as wanted. In small companies the bottleneck is often manpower, time and the specific knowledge to implement training platforms for the specific needs. In bigger organizations Training und Education is often not the most important topic compared to other strategic imperatives. Outsourcing training strategies and platform can help to bundle forces to guarantee the best knowledge transfer. In times of digitalization and change training and education is getting even more important to ensure that all team members have the same access and background. Being experienced with implementation of training plans and platforms for all budgets training and education I can offer a well designed approach with a perfect fit for your business.
FAST TIME TO MARKET MEANS FAST DECISIONS
When fast reaction to market is needed, manpower and / or experience often limits strategy and execution. Most of my customers simply do not have the possibility to hire additional strategic or execution partners in the middle of either financial year or prior to the next financial round when funding is still a big part of companies strategy.
Interim Management or project based strategies can be a fast and effective solution in this case. By experience project based management really helps to "push the needle" and creates the momentum needed to meet or exceed expectations or to manage "first to market" in various scenarios.
POWER OF WORDS
In all keynote sessions I have been part of, I have experienced the amazing power of words once speakers really believe in what they talk about. I am a great believer in the power of words. When being heavily involved into psychology I have seen the change starting with words, how talking and understanding can change employees mindset and motivation. Whether talking to management or to teams almost all topics can be covered in motivational and positive speeches to kick off, summarize or reinforce strategies, changes and visions.
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