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Some Thoughts on Leadership Going into 2016

Both Sides of the Table

It’s a new year – 2016. I’ve spent hours this week reading about the firing of the head coach and personnel manager of the football team I support – The Philadelphia Eagles. His name was Chip Kelly and he came off of a very successful stint as the coach of the collegiate Oregon Ducks. Team Building.

Startup 150
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8 Initiatives To Make Your Customers Loyal Advocates

Startup Professionals Musings

If you can’t provide a memorable customer experience, your startup won’t survive very long these days. You now need more than loyalty from your customers -- they need to be your best advocates. The days of pushing new and marginal performers into customer service are gone. Every job on your team drives your customer experience.

Custom 55
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7 Key Principles of Question-Based Leadership To Win

Startup Professionals Musings

No matter how strong your business and technology insights are, you can benefit from input at all levels of the organization, as well as outside experts and customers. Use questions to coach and develop team members. The best leaders focus on coaching and mentoring people on decision making, rather than giving orders.

Coach 64
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Fuel50: Helping Employees Figure Out Their Career Path, With Anne Fulton

socalTECH

You can find a mentor, a coach, a project, or experience, to help you prepare for the role you are looking for. We were originally operating as a coaching company, and we built out this assessment technology for our own clients. How is it your first customer was in Australia? It's very much matching pieces into a puzzle.

Help 100
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How Boards Need to Evolve Over Time

Both Sides of the Table

The functions of an early-stage board are pretty obvious and well understood: Providing introductions to customers, biz dev partners, recruits, the press, other investors, etc. Over time you start to figure out who you customers are and how to sell to them or how to get them to adopt your products if you’re a consumer-oriented startup.

Startup 325
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7 Good Entrepreneurial Habits That Turn Bad

Startup Professionals Musings

Most begin by doing the product development, marketing and sales alone, but struggle making the transition to hiring and coaching others, defining repeatable processes and focusing on future strategy. Now you have real customers who can quickly turn off hundreds of potential customers if you ignore their feedback.

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9 Steps To Increasing Your Street Smarts In Business

Startup Professionals Musings

If you want to improve your strength in this area, or need to coach your team along these lines, I recommend the following steps: Approach every problem as a positive business opportunity. At worst, it’s a learning opportunity for you and your team, which can lead to providing a better customer solution or experience. Initiate action.

Metrics 58