Fractionals Unplugged with Jay Kingley

"We live in an opportunity rich but resource constrained world", observes Joe Mosher of The Mosher Consulting Group . Joe admonishes that the strategic planning process needs to adapt by integrating an honest assessment of internal capabilities to match the identification of external opportunities. Executives undermine the effectiveness of their strategic planning process by placing too much empha...

The biggest social impact a business has is who do you employ and how do you treat them, advocates Samuel Rubin of Yea! Impact . Samuel argues that the social impact strategy for a business shouldn't be reacting to every event and cause in the world and ensuring every response must be "politically correct". Your social impact activities shouldn't be performative but community-driven and designed f...

Taryn Abrahams of Empower Behavioral Services observes that people don't leave their jobs for pay, benefits, and working conditions, they leave because of weak leadership, negative culture, and a lack of belonging. When most leaders say, "we're all in this together", most employees aren't buying it. Few manager are meeting the 4 core needs of every employee: 1) feeling respected; 2) getting/giving...

James Blake of Next Generation Risk Management cautions against adopting the ostrich strategy of burying your head in the hot sand and hoping someone else will take care of climate change. In a world with almost everything is politicized, James stresses that you have to separate fact from fiction and accept that climate change is real and is impacting all businesses on a global basis. It's getting...

Thomas Bertels of Purpose Works Consulting is on a mission to help businesses design work to be fit for humans. By that, he means you have to design work intentionally to make it intrinsically interesting. He observes that too many job descriptions are just copy-pasted from one to the other. Thomas provides the four factors that make work motivating: 1) is the work meaningful? 2) are we responsibl...

Ben Kandora of Ben Kandora Design points out that your logo is the face of your company and first impressions do count. A professional logo makes your business look established and trustworthy. Ben observes that most small and mid-market sized companies create a logo that resonates with the business owner. But, as he points out, your logo isn't for you, it's the tool that connects your business to...

Alex Lloro of All Marketing Services cautions not to get overwhelmed by Google Analytics when looking at your website performance. Start with your goals, typically revenue, and define your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that you need to focus on. Then set up Google Analytics to feed you that data. You also need to go beyond the quantitative data provided by Google Analytics and augment with wit...

Marc Pickard from CBTech Support warns that all small businesses are at risk from cybercriminals for two key reasons. First, they're low hanging fruit and easy targets. Most don't have the technical and procedural protections in place to make getting hacked difficult. Second, they're stepping stones to larger, juicer targets which could be a client or supplier. Small business owners often don't ha...

Nabeel Ahmad of Changeforce. AI believes that "Empathy, or lack thereof, is the big reason why organizations fail to change or be successful at it." Companies are often very good at defining what needs to change but are far less accomplished about how to do it. Nabeel observes that there is a lot more information, emphasis and even success on personal change than on larger organizational efforts....

Robyn Bolton of MileZero states, "Innovation is a leadership problem and that is a very uncomfortable truth to recognize." Most leaders recognize the importance of innovation but they are dragged back by their compensation to focus on the next quarter or at best fiscal year. Innovation must be looked at like an investment rather than a one-off event. Most organizations are not set up to innovate e...

Toi B. James of RedInk Enterprises argues persuasively that without Belonging, DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) programs will miss the mark on impact. "Culture is not what you say it is. Culture is dictated by the collective.", Toi explains. Employees must feel valued. You want your staff to say "I like what I do and I like working here". It is only with this attitude that you will get the most...

Hugh Gallagher of the Gallagher Search Group advocates businesses should structure and manage their recruiting function like they would a sales team. Staff recruiting with go getters who are high performers, incentivize them like you would your sales people, and watch the talent roll in. Hugh looks at recruiting as a production function not a support role. He makes a compelling case for changing h...

Caleb Sinn of Social Bloom talks about how many high volume (needs hundreds to thousands and beyond of clients) businesses are getting their outbound marketing totally wrong. They've been fed a line from so many lead gen firms that you should only expect a 0.5% conversion rate while Caleb believes the bar should be 8 times that or 4%. Too many high volume businesses are using low ROI spray and pra...

Lisa Perry of Perry Consulting starts by asking what makes a company want to choose you? It all comes down to your brand and what is going to make a customer choose your brand over a competitor's. Lisa is emphatic that doing a lot of marketing activity not connected by a well thought out strategy will lead to a brand that will fail to resonate. She states that 90% of consumers don't feel a strong...

When you're everything to everybody, you're nothing to nobody. Dr. Tracey Jones of Tremendous Leadership sings the praises of focus in your business and in your life. Citing many authors and motivational speakers throughout our interview, Tracey lays out the case that being successful requires focus. Focus is what puts fire in your belly and gives you resilience. She provides 3 key things you need...

Will Dukes of Sales Partners Florida argues that bringing in revenues requires you look at your marketing and sales activities like a campaign. Answer the questions, "What am I trying to sell" and "Whom am I trying to sell it to" and then develop a campaign targeted to do that. Will advises that you have to act with intention not randomly in coordinating all your sales and marketing activities. He...

Laura Templeton of 30 Second Success shares the underutilized concept of Workforce Marketing. Laura recommends arming your employees with the right message so they can represent you to all of the stakeholders they come in contact with - on and off the job. In addition to new customers, your current employees can play a key role in attracting new talent to your organization. Laura explains why so m...

Mac McKeon of MacguyverTech emphasizes that protecting your business from cyber criminals and hackers is a continuous ongoing activity not a one-time or annual task. Hackers are getting more sophisticated all the time, including using Artificial Intelligence. Mac states that it's not uncommon to get 500 - 600 hack attempts per day! This is an ongoing war with no detente in sight. Small businesses...

Andrea Featherston of Featherston Strategies admonishes that perfectionism kills opportunity particularly when it comes to launching a new product. She advises to look at product launch as an ongoing process rather than a one-time event. You need to collect a lot of data during launch so you know what you need to improve on a go forward basis. Andrea provides the 4 key steps you need to follow to...

Guy Powell of ProRelevant is famous for winning a large bet with an airline executive that every aspect of the effectiveness of marketing could be measured quantitatively. Guy won his $5 because he never claimed it could be measured for free. But he makes a critical point that the return on investment of allocating some of your marketing budget to measuring its effectiveness is astronomical. In th...

Joshua Goldberg of Nath, Goldberg & Myers enlightens us on why it takes so long to get a patent improved and on a little known secret that can cut the decision time from 2-4 years to 1 year. The cost to take advantage of this program by the USPTO is only a few thousands of dollars and you have to fill out the expedited application by the book and perfectly execute the process or it will get to...

John Christie of Tab Eastern Kansas makes a persuasive argument that the customer experience must be at the center of your Business DNA. You have to start with knowing what your clients want before you can deliver an experience and service that will keep them around. John warns you can't guess what your clients want and there is no substitute for one-to-one conversations with your customers. John...

Lee Barnathan of LB Communications is fed up with all the poor copy on websites. His research indicates that 95% of all website copy is focused on features, functions, and here's what we do. But Lee succinctly points out that if you want to get business from your website you got to talk in the language of your target market's pain points and what you do to get rid of that pain and get them the res...

Brandon Rollins , founder of the Pangea Marketing Agency , is adamant that marketing is there to generate revenue and not masquerade as a cost of doing business. You've got to measure your metrics and critically evaluate marketing efforts that aren't generating a sufficiently high Return On Investment. Brandon likes using the cost of client conversion as his go to metric. He recommends at least a...

Wesleyne Greer of Transformed Sales argues that hiring the person with the best sales skills will always win out over the sales person who has the most industry experience. It's easier to learn a new product than it is to learn how to sell. Wesleyne observes that a great salesperson can't overcome a poor product but you can't save a poor salesperson with a great product either. Wesleyne offers a 3...