The Step Change Blog

What is the one thing you can do to really connect your strategy to your workforce, the ones who will help you execute it?

Oftentimes, leaders and executives of service-based businesses get fewer opportunities to engage with their clients. So how can you ensure that your team are really building high-value relationships with them?

In two minutes, Step Change Founding Partner, Jeff Cooper, shares this and more.

Leadership isn’t just about IQ or technical skill — in fact, these are the entry-level requirements for executive positions. When 58% of all success in jobs are accounted for by emotional intelligence, it’s a clear sign that it has a vital role in the workplace. Moreover, people with a high degree of emotional intelligence make an average of $29,000 more per year than people with lower degrees of emotional intelligence.

Many businesses succeed because they have leaders who are eloquent visionaries. They inspire their people with their brilliant strategy to reach their goal. And most importantly, they know that strategy alone is not enough to win. Execution — and how well their people understand this — is the key. So when it comes to people, which is more important — strategy or execution?

There are many ways to generate leads for your business. Advertising, referrals, cold calling, buying names — you’ve probably done some of these to sell your product or service. But there’s one tool marketers miss to use to its full potential to generate more leads.

Is being a leader in a highly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world driving you to the edge? Tough situations require you to be on top of your game, to make sound decisions for your team. But just when you need the very best version of yourself to run the show, the undesirable version shows up and makes a mess out of you.

Is there a way to be a better leader in the VUCA world?

Are people in your organisation your most important asset? Or are they your biggest liability? Find out how people can be your most valuable asset in Jeff Cooper’s interview with the founder and managing director of Checkside, Chris Bates.

Step Change among the top 10 most valuable consultant companies, Sleeping Duck's Sandman, and a look at the Step Change culture — all in today's Step Change News.

We’ve been building bespoke customer journeys in B2B and consultative sales across all industries the government recognises. And this is what we found: it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, the same seven fundamental areas keep coming up time and time again as foundations for optimising your sale.

VUCA is a military expression coined in the 90s to describe the tumultuous conditions of the battlefield. It stands for “volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.” And now more than ever, leaders are experiencing such times in the business context.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, pointed out that obsessing over your customers is key. And rightfully so — they are the lifeblood of any business. So having a high-value engagement with them is extremely important for every business.

There’s a growing complexity of how businesses operate, what with the major technological disruptions at work. And executives who are serious about their businesses need to look beyond their own organisations and experiences for new ways to work smart, stay current, and improve.

Trying to be everything to everyone is not the best way to grow your business. If you want growth, one of the most tried-and-tested ways is through referral partnerships. 

Referrals from reliable third-party sources are one of the best ways to bring new and repeat leads for the business. But it takes more than just signing a referral agreement to have a successful referral relationship.

The professional services industry relies greatly on referral relationships for new business. It’s the most tried-and-true source of leads. In fact, in a professional services survey by PSM, 70% of new business is from referrals. That’s why it’s extremely important for businesses to get referral relationships right.

Referrals trump all other forms of business leads.

Business leaders will agree that the path to business growth is never easy. Growth means managing the day-to-day — while at the same time thinking about implementing your strategy and making effective decisions that affect the entire organisation. And sometimes, things don’t work out the way you envisioned it. When things go rough, to whom do you turn for wisdom?

FinTech is a unique industry. It is the merging of the two areas that require the most credibility in any given industry — finance and technology. It requires trust from the customer and a certain degree of transparency from the company.

An organisation’s success depends on getting the right people. But hiring the right people has been proven to be a challenge among leaders and managers. In fact, in a report by Randstad, 79% of HR managers agree that it’s a struggle to search for people whose capabilities match job requirements.

With disruption inevitably changing how businesses operate, you can’t afford to be complacent; else you risk being displaced by more agile players in your category.

In 2025, 40% of the Fortune 500 companies will no longer exist. In the age of disruption, complacency has no place in great leadership.

It doesn’t matter if you have a winning strategy in place — if your company culture is sloppy, you will not win.

Fill out the form to get your own copy of the Step Change Culture Book.

Most businesses talk about the same things and forget to mention the things that make them truly different. If you’re competing with a giant in your category and talk about the same things as they do, you’ll lose.

Picture this. A magnificent 160,000-dollar Audi R8, with the ocean and the sky as its backdrop and a cloud of sand rising around it as if it has just drifted to a stop. This was how the execs at Audi envisioned it when they asked a photographer to take a photo of the car. But perhaps more remarkable than the output itself was how he did it.

Content marketing increases a business’s bottom line. 88% of all consumers consult the internet to compare businesses before they decide whether or not they want to buy. Their deciding factor? The content readily available for them on the internet.

Make your business stand out from the competition in 2017 with these three digital marketing hacks. The rise in digital technology means most people can usually be found carrying a mobile device or laptop. The landscape of marketing online is very different from the traditional approach of brochures and television ads. These three tips will no doubt be fuelling the way businesses should market in the next few years.

Are you the kind of business that goes, “Let’s get our brand out there and appeal to everyone!“? The truth is, appealing to everyone is actually appealing to no one.

Another one of Step Change’s clients, The Invoice Market (tim), is making the headlines in this week’s business news. The financier reports that unpaid customer invoices are costing the Australian economy $76 billion, and it’s hindering SMEs to grow.