The best CEO advice I received throughout my career:
• customer service is not a department
• sales is the hardest job in any company
• our job is to educate and inspire
• customer focus > competitor focus
• always try to add value and be helpful
• own it and never point fingers
• learn and use people’s names
• show up when it matters most to your customers
• earn a seat next to your customer, not across from her
• we are all in sales
• stay accessible, curious and humble
• people do business with people they trust, respect and like
• if you are waiting for a title to lead, you are not ready to lead
• the language of business is finance
• there are no IT projects, only business projects
• pay your best people the very best you can
• hire people based on their good judgment and high rate of learning
• in a celebration lead from the back, in a crisis lead from the front
• you are not a team because you work together - you are a team because you trust, respect and care for each other
• to improve the customer experience, start with the employee experience
• you are not taller by making others look smaller
• revenue growth ahead of expenses
• remove bad apples quickly
• leave your desk and spend time with customers
• culture is what happens when the managers leave the room
• tactics drive strategy
• there is nothing more important than our customers
• if you are waiting for a better title to lead, you are not ready to lead
• business is personal - you can be decisive and also be kind, graceful and empathetic
• recognize effort but reward outcomes
• your company is only as good as the company you keep
Women founders have been reaching out to me over the past 24 hours about how they don’t have permission to run their companies in Founder Mode the same way men can. This needs to change