Welcome to 2021! We’re rested, recharged, and ready for a fresh start. While last year didn’t go quite as planned, as we look back, by and large, clients we work with met or outperformed their targets. We can’t help but notice some standout successes. Let’s take a closer look at how some of our clients managed to thrive despite less-than-ideal conditions.

Well, 2020 didn’t go quite as planned. Even for those in essential businesses with products and services in high demand, some basic assumptions changed. WHAT you do may be a constant, but consider if the HOW, WHO, WHERE and WHY are now new variables.

For a company who hires for ability to deal with ambiguity, 2020 has really put us to the test. I am incredibly grateful to work with clients and colleagues who put people first and move forward despite such unusual times.

Now that we’ve entered the second half of a challenging and unpredictable year, it’s time to re-look at 2020 goals, and begin the planning and budget cycles for 2021. But how? Maybe it’s the unknowns, maybe it’s concern for the impact goals can have on your team’s morale and motivation—this feels particularly hard this time.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), is a $2.2 trillion package to address the coronavirus crisis. There are many programs available to help small and medium sized businesses (SMB) adjust and survive during this time. The U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship has put together a guide to the CARES act, which you can download here. Some of the resources available for small businesses include:

This February, I was honored to present at SPIE Photonics West with other photonics industry experts. With business development (BD) and marketing tied up on the exhibition floor, sessions like our AR/VR Market Outlook, Photonics Outlook, and LFW’s Laser Marketplace, tended to attract C-level thinkers. Their strategies, experiences, and questions revealed some trends:

In our planning and strategy sessions we always center the conversation around data-driven decision making. So, we decided to dig up 20 sales stats to help you build your sales plan in 2020. Want to talk to an expert about hitting your sales goals in the new year? Contact us for a free consultation.

Talk of a full-scale trade war between the US and China may sound dramatic, but the latest tariff applied to Chinese goods will have a major impact on the costs of materials coming to the US. The full list of affected goods, available here, includes fresh food and dry goods, consumer goods like hats and handbags, as well as a large list of manufacturing materials such as glass, aluminum, gold, electrical parts, and machinery.

Whether virtual or in person, we’re spending our work lives in meetings that aren’t working. Research shows that 67% of meetings are ‘failures’, and have lost their primary reason–getting things done.

Where have our meetings gone wrong? Over time, the amount of time spent in meetings and number of meetings held has increased significantly. Daily, upwards of 11 million meetings are held in American businesses, averaging a time frame of 31-60 minutes. These longer meetings have led to a 10% increase in the time employees spend in meetings since 2000.

You kicked off 2019 with a well-developed and detailed marketing plan, but now that Q1 is over and revenue numbers are in, it's time to take a look at performance. Your first quarter marketing metrics are essential to answering the questions that will help you have a successful Q2. Key questions to ask include:

Corporate positioning is one of the most important ingredients in establishing a company’s position in the marketplace. However, it’s often overlooked because most organizations believe they know what their target audience needs and wants. Strong positioning starts from the beginning and creates a clear path highlighting your product or service in the market.

Your company is small but growing. When should your team consider implementing a Customer Relationship Management system (CRM)? A better question may be, how far do you want to go?