Leading your company through a recession.

If you put 15 CEOs in a room and ask them to focus on one important question you get some very practical answers. The following list was compiled by the members of two Vistage CEO groups in the Bay Area chaired by Sterling Lanier.

CEO Driven Activities
- surround yourself with good advisors and seek their help
- focus on sales and staying close to customers
- continue spending on sales related activities
- focus on activities that increase cash flow
- use zero base budgeting and forecast on rolling 12 month basis
- make a cash forecast and action plan for sales down 30%

Get the entire checklist here.

Economic crystal ball.

The Institute for Trend Research will conduct an analysis of your company’s sales data to determine where it is in the business cycle, which indicators actually lead your business, and where you can expect to be in the next 12 months.

Bold claim, interesting business model. Instead of targeting Fortune 500 companies, their services are priced for midsize companies. Their chief marketing tool seems to be presentations and seminars for business owners, company presidents and CEOs. I stumbled upon this article which reported on a presentation at Baylor University thanks to a Google Alert for the CEO organization Vistage.

If it sounds too good to be true, you’ve got to love a company that backs up their offer with a money-back guarantee. “For 97% of companies we find relevant leading indicators and market trends that can be used to outperform the competition. For those 3% we can’t, we waive our fees.”

Does advertising really work?

This morning, Karen Renzi blogged about a discovery she made last week in the sketches of her 5-year-old daughter. In her words, “In the top is a “house” on blue, next a “fan” on pink, and last but not least, on the orange: Verizon. Ahh, the power of the brand: inspiring young minds everywhere.”

Ha! By the mid-80s, I’d been in the ad agency biz for several years. I was cynical about the effectiveness of my own snappy copy and “stunning” visuals. I figured I knew all the “tricks” so I couldn’t be tricked myself. Then, I found myself in a Home Depot one Saturday morning. A guy asked what I thought of the lawn mower we were both looking at. I didn’t have a clue, had never owned this kind of mower, didn’t even have a lawn. But there I was, telling this guy all about it… selling the thing like I was gonna get some huge commission if he took one home.

Yes, it’s a little scary that Karen’s little one is drawing Verizon’s logo on a Post-It note, but it’s harmless enough. At least she’s not selling lawn mowers at Home Depot based on deeply engrained subliminal messages from the advertising team at Toro… yet. :-)

Stop selling, start listening.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that this is a natural law: Everybody wants to buy, nobody wants to be sold. Some of us like to shop, others don’t. But let’s face it, buying stuff feels good. New car, new shirt, tasty Napa cabernet, whatever. I used to coach the president of a moving company whose eyes lit up like Christmas morning when he talked about buying a couple of new trucks.

Maybe it’s just me, but I am annoyed by uninvited sales people (telemarketers, retail clerks, pushy sales reps of all shapes, sizes and descriptions) and the daily onslaught of sales messages (email, banner ads, radio and TV commercials, direct mail, billboards). To me, it’s all spam… unless it talks to me about something I want to buy. Then it’s right place, right time… thanks for making my life much easier! How can you put this “natural law” to work?

Stop selling, start listening. You’ll sell more if you do.

Balance who you are and what your customers need.

In a recent post, I talked about the importance of seeing your products/company the way your customers see them. This morning, I stumbled across an article written by Tom Zahniser, a former colleague at Vistage International. He adds a second, equally important dimension to the mix. Speaking to entrepreneurial leaders, Tom said that the surest way to grow a business is to understand who you are and how your customers see you.