Pull Your Business Forward

You’ve been successful as a tech B2B CEO, partly because of the force of your will, you haven’t accepted no for an answer and you’ve pushed forward and won against the odds. I want to recommend that you consider a shift in your energy and your approach as you scale your business, as you bring team members in, as you approach your prospects and try to grow your business rather than pushing. You want to pull your business forward, you want to choose your finish line, you want to decide where you’re going, and you want to draw yourself, your customers, and your team towards that vision. Attract them to it. Here’s three things to help you think about, to help you do that. 

Begin with the end in mind
Start with a very clear picture of why you’re doing this. What is the destination? What is the finish line? What does the end look like for you, for your business, for your team members, for your customers too? When you have this clear vision for where you’re going, it’s going to make everything easier in terms of bringing everyone along because you can point to the destination and have everybody have a clear common view of why you’re doing this and what’s the reason to work hard and, and push and get it done. This is much better than telling people they should or demanding support

Respond instead of reacting
Secondly, as you make decisions about your business and as you work with your clients and you move things forward, focus on that vision and respond to whatever happens because it won’t be what you expect. Obviously, respond and step forward into the thing that takes you towards that destination rather than reacting to what happened and being, and being negative and unorganized and stressing everybody out. You’re much better off if you step out of the moment, think about where you’re going and move, what’s the next best step to move you towards that destination?

Pursue instead of running away
Similarly, you want to be leaning forward and pursuing versus fearfully running away from competitors or crises, or whatever it might be. Help the team from modeling it yourself. Be on the offensive and go after what it is you want rather than being chased by something that’s in your way. So I encourage you to reorient yourself as you engage with your team, your vendors, your prospects and your customers to be focused on where you’re going. Have a clear vision for what that is, and that will make it so much easier and so much more fun for everybody involved.