The Step Change Blog

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.

Video content is not an option for businesses anymore. If you want to succeed in your marketing efforts, video marketing is the answer.

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.

The number one fear leaders have is being ‘found out’ and having their incompetence uncovered. It’s called the impostor syndrome. If you are experiencing this, you are not alone.

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.

Increasing business productivity is synonymous with increasing business growth. By unlocking and addressing the challenges affecting your employees, you can improve productivity, lower operational costs, and increase business performance.

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.

As key decision makers in your business, you are expected to make rational, sound decisions every day. However, that is not always the case. You encounter several blind spots, or decision biases, that hinder you from making optimum decisions.

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

Most people measure loyalty by how many clients leave. But it’s unfortunate to be measuring loyalty once it’s too late to keep a client.

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.

IMPORTANT!!!

1. Watch my video first until I tell you to pause 

2. Then click: Lockitron 

3. Followed by: August 

4. Then return to my video. 

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.

Huge congratulations and job well done to the team at ToBeMe, Australia’s first high-end university-inspired centre for children and our client at Step Change, on their Burwood campus kickoff yesterday! The launch had sparked a debate on Sunrise, which posed the question: “Is it ridiculous, or is it offering our kids the best start in life?”