Why Great Executives Avoid Shiny Objects Mark Suster www.bothsidesofthetable.com
The modern world is filled with
And then there are investors who
ment conversation, a first customer
constant distractions. Only those with
want updates, calls, reports,
meeting, the first candidate in a
maniacal focus on results and a
check-ins.
recruiting process, the first time you
willingness not to engage in every activity achieve extraordinary results.
talk with a journalist or the first The modern world is daunting. Many
meeting to consider your business
leaders fall into the trap of doing too
strategy.
As executives we’re all seemingly
many things but not accomplishing
accessible at any moment to anybody
enough.
via email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
Having interesting and frequent opportunities at the top of your funnel
or Text. We are over-intro’d and at the
I have written about this before and
is important, of course, but the
same time under-resourced in terms
often recommend to executives that
ultimate score is only measured on
of staff to handle the barrage of
they do less, but complete more by
the bottom end of the funnel.
in-bound requests.
avoiding the shiny objects and
And every leader also has teams with
distractions stop us from living up to
Meeting with 12 biz dev targets
our true potential.
makes for great conversations with
constant priorities where they need:
your board but doesn’t matter for shit
Input, feedback, decisions or
I think of activities as a funnel. Every
if none of them close in the end or if
meetings. We’re expected to be at
new opportunity and every door
you don’t get the right deals done.
conferences, events, sales meetings
opened is at the “top end of your
and be publicly visible. People expect
funnel” meaning that may or may not
Meeting a lot of candidates to find
blog posts, Tweets, panels, speeches.
come to fruition: A business develop-
your head of marketing is all well and
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MBE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FEBRUARY / MARCH 2020
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