C-suite

4 posts



You've certainly heard that using a powerful personal brand message will make your executive resume a compelling read—and help you gain traction in your job search. But how do you go about defining and capturing your brand?

Intensive processes, such as the 360 Reach Personal Branding exercise, can often help pinpoint your brand elements and strengths. However, you can conduct your own research and analysis to create a compelling message suitable for your executive resume.

While pinpointing your own personal brand (and writing a compelling executive resume from it) may seem daunting, you can break the process into these manageable steps:

1. Reflect On Your Leadership Value-Add


One of the easiest ways to encapsulate your message of ROI is by taking stock of how you solve problems and deal with obstacles at an executive level. If you're having difficulty expressing your value proposition, try creating a list of your top 10 career achievements—the ones that have become your signature accomplishments over the years. (Think of it as your top 10 hits—the ones you've always thought of as defining your career and its trajectory.)

Any of the following can make your top 10 hits:

  • Turnarounds (at a team, division, or company level)
  • New sources of revenue
  • Cost-cutting methods
  • Additional sales and distribution channels
  • New products or markets
  • Speed and agility in delivering results

Next, write STAR (Situation or Task, Action, Result) stories for each top achievement, remembering to set the stage for each story by looking at the situation first, then your actions, and lastly, the outcome. J.T. O'Donnell, founder and CEO of Work It DAILY, also recommends the "Experience + Learn + Grow" model to formulate stories for employers. While tedious work, you'll benefit from having this collection of powerful anecdotes in your job search.

2. Analyze And Leverage Feedback From Throughout Your Executive Career


Executive leveraging feedback from coworkers for resume and personal brand

Consider your reputation at work, influence on others, and leadership style (all critical components of an effective executive resume). Are you known as the go-to leader who builds consensus when negotiations are at a standstill? Have you become a turnaround leader capable of righting the ship? Chances are that you've carved out a unique niche—and prospective employers need to know this about you!

Take the time to gather information from those affected by your work:

  • Analyze your impact on subordinates. Do you often mentor your teams into company or industry leaders?
  • Look at those you've influenced, such as vendors or colleagues. Have they adopted your methods or commended you on your effectiveness?
  • Assess your impact on the executive team and board. Do you build the business case and buy-in that lead your CEO to issue changes in strategy?

Now, assemble testimonials and feedback from credible sources, such as performance reviews, LinkedIn recommendations, letters of reference, or other kudos (even informal email messages). Create STAR stories from this data, and consider including a snippet or quote in your executive resume for additional reinforcement.

3. Include Tactical Details And Scope


Job seeker on laptop creating a detailed executive resume

Executive resumes aren't just high-level lists of achievements. To be truly compelling, the scope and reference points from your work need to be included as supporting details.

Consider pulling in specifics from among the following components of each job:

  • Size of budgets managed—both department and project-level
  • Cost-saving figures that show the result of new processes or negotiations
  • Numbers of employees managed, both directly and in matrixed organizations
  • Comparisons that show progression (such as year-over-year increases in market share)

What these details will do for your executive resume is help round out your story, showing how your authority and impact have increased at each progressive step of your career. It's all about the numbers!

4. Look To Others For Comparison


Woman talks to her coworker for help with building her personal brand on her resume

You may have started to look at the data for your executive resume with a critical eye. What if it isn't good enough to vault you to the next level in your career? How will employers know you've led significant change if there are minimal cost or profit results to report?

One of the best ways to distinguish yourself from the competition is to look precisely at them and gauge the difference based on context.

Here's how to weigh your competitive differentiators:

  • Analyze what would have happened at previous employers if you hadn't worked there. Would the company or division have floundered? Is it possible employees stayed only because of your influence?
  • Look at what took place against the backdrop of the economy or industry challenges. For example, did your efforts keep the company afloat—even if they didn't realize the same level of profits—because of actions that counteracted the downturn?
  • Take note of what occurred at competing companies. Were you maintaining operations while your competitors went out of business?

These sure signs of effectiveness will help add a twist to your STAR stories—emphasizing your ability to take on and overcome challenges that others failed to achieve.

5. Build Brand And Achievement Statements To Use Throughout Your Resume


Hiring manager on laptop reads an executive resume

Now that you've collected all this data, what's the next step? Pulling it together into a cohesive story, of course.

Here's where the stories you've built will serve as key components of your brand message and can be used in various places within your executive resume:

  • Ensure your STAR stories are in manageable form, using bullet points that take up two lines or less for use on your executive resume.
  • Distill your most prominent STAR stories into a simple message. As an example, an EVP of marketing who launched new products could note "carving a profitable new industry niche" as a statement of brand value.
  • Look at executive resume examples for inspiration.
Undertaking these steps is, of course, a time-consuming exercise in exploring your achievements and examining your brand. However, it will pay off in a cohesive message of value to employers—and help them see the value in bringing you in for a choice executive role.

Need more help with your job search?

Become a member to learn how to land a job and UNLEASH your true potential to get what you want from work!

This article was originally published at an earlier date.

Acquiring Job Advance Your Career Career Changing Careers and Employment Education Internship

5 Steps To A Powerful Personal Brand …



As CEOs ascend to the top of their organizations, many find themselves grappling with a paradoxical challenge: isolation. Despite being surrounded by teams and board members, a CEO can often feel remarkably alone in their decision-making process. This solitude, while not always apparent on the surface, carries significant risks that extend beyond the individual to the entire company.

In this article, Work It Daily experts from Vistage delve into the risks and negative business impact of CEO isolation. Read on to discover how CEOs can avoid isolation and implement practical strategies for fostering greater engagement, communication, and inclusivity within their organization.

Mike Thorne


“Mike, the team just doesn’t get it. They cannot see the big picture. I just need them to be accountable.”

How many times do you hear this or say it if you are a CEO? It's worth asking yourself, "What role am I playing in this story?" You may not like the answer but I am confident it will unlock you, your organization, and, ultimately, your happiness at home, work, and in your community.

So often business owners and CEOs self-isolate themselves without even realizing it. Their heavy workload and ultimate belief that they are wholly responsible for everything is too much burden for one person. There is no doubt they feel without them the stability and overall sustainability of the business won’t work.

This leads to two main outcomes: (1) lack of time to truly reflect, invest time in connecting with peers, and socialize, and (2) fear of delegation. The common issue as a CEO/business owner (fear of delegation) gets overwhelming the longer they fail to ask for help. Employees end up complying but are not committed because they wait for the “boss” to decide. It is a vicious cycle.

A few quick ideas to help:

1. Set boundaries at work. Allocate time for relaxation, exercise, or a hobby. Try one hour a week and grow from there. CEOs need to pay ATTENTION to where their time is spent.

2. Outsource non-core functions. Start to look at your leadership team as competent vs. only you can do it. Find a few things you would love to get off your plate and test a key leader with the work. You will build confidence and it will expand your capacity AND the organization's when you do.

3. Join peer groups. It is crucial to have people who are not involved directly with the business. They can provide a perspective you don’t have but they also “understand” what you are up against.

We often think we need to revolutionize how we operate when a few quick wins will give us the courage and confidence to take action.

Remember reality always wins, always.

Mike Thorne is a former CEO and current Vistage Chair. He leads and facilitates a group of trusted advisor entrepreneurs and a CEO peer group in New Hampshire and Maine.

Kirsten Yurich


CEO leads a team meeting about company culture

To be a leader is to be isolated.

Leaders are constantly surrounded by people—yet don’t “BELONG” anywhere, truly.

Yet, an isolated leader is a dangerous leader.

Leaders can be isolated in many different ways. Each way has unique and negative consequences both for the leader and for the business and its employees.

For example, a leader could be isolated from their employees. In this case, they are unaware of the real issues and experiences happening within their company. These leaders think the company culture is great and struggle to understand why they have such a big turnover issue! Or perhaps they are so out of touch with employee needs and preferences that they are making decisions that actually hurt productivity and morale.

A leader could be isolated from reality. They could spend so much time IN the business (working on minutia or micromanaging their team) that they are not looking around corners for the business or paying attention to the market shifts and trends. The business becomes outdated and irrelevant.

A leader could be isolated socially. They are lonely. Leaders don’t have a true group to belong to at the office. Relationships are always clouded by the authority imbalance. You may have to fire a "friend." That will always put a damper on a relationship. This can create some moderate if not extreme depression.

A leader could be isolated intellectually. The pressure to perform and to be "always on" often results in leaders placing their own professional development needs last. This can isolate them from growing in areas both inside their industries as well as professionals and leaders in general. Leaders with limited learning are stunting their effectiveness. They MUST find peers outside their company to learn from. Peer advisory groups are a place to validate their thinking, have their decisions and actions questioned in safe ways (without risking their job, reputation, etc.), and gain the perspective and collective wisdom of other leaders outside their industry.

Will it always be this way?

How can leaders overcome the inevitability of isolation? It’s possible. But it starts in your head.

Clarifying the vision or version of the leader YOU want to be is the place to start. What do you value, specifically? List it out! Your mindset and beliefs about what a leader IS (what she/he creates) will always drive your behaviors and choices.

If you believe a leader never shows weakness or vulnerability, then me suggesting a strategy of creating psychological safety through shared vulnerability with your team will fail because deep down inside you don’t believe that’s how leaders should behave. You won’t be able to do it. So don’t even try.

The strategies you select must align with the leadership values you hold (or those you aspire to hold).

  • Be present with your employees in organic and authentic ways. Show up at events, meetings, and celebrations just to see and be seen.
  • Spend time doing the work that only YOU can do. Evaluate your current contributions to the company—realign as necessary. Delegate those that can be accomplished by others. For top leaders, spend 50% of your time outside the company building relationships.
  • Build a strong social network with people who do not work at the company. Have a hobby, creative if possible.
  • Be active. Exercise and sleep for executives are extremely important. The more cognitively challenging the job, the more important these disciplines are for your performance.
  • Regularly be part of peer-to-peer experiences where you are able to have your thinking challenged and wrestle with important issues with other leaders. Exposure to other ways of thinking enhances your analytical and problem-solving skills.

Isolation is inevitable in leadership. But its negative effects can be mitigated and managed with a proactive approach across the several domains listed above.

Kirsten Yurich is a former CEO and current Vistage Chair. As a clinician, professor, author, and executive, she leverages this unique blend and creates learning environments for executives to become better leaders, spouses, and parents.

Mark Fackler


Leader dealing with CEO isolation thinks about his business

For me, the problem of isolation started in an instant.

One day I was an employee, the next I was an isolated CEO. I quit a job to voluntarily go down a path all alone and was not sure what was in front of me. My personality, like most founders, has curiosity and risk-taking. There was probably a bit of courage, but naiveté can alleviate the need for courage. What’s the worst that can happen, I lose my house? Who cares.

But as you go down this founder’s path, isolation builds. Alongside the growing isolation are growing problems. The funny, or not-so-funny, thing about the problems is that they grow in number and grow in consequence. The always impending failure has a larger and larger impact not on just your life, but the lives of your employees, clients, and vendors. What goes from "What’s the worst that can happen, I lose my house?" becomes the same problem for others who count on you. The isolation builds and hampers CEO productivity.

Solving the isolation problem for those of us willing to admit that isolation is real was actually quite simple for me. I joined a Vistage CEO peer group. After attending a few monthly meetings, I learned how to be open, honest, and vulnerable. I don’t want to trivialize the act of becoming open, honest, and vulnerable, but when I did, the isolation relief came bit by bit. Yes, it is just a bit of relief, but doing so month after month, for me 12 years, provided enough cumulative relief to ride that scary wave, that isolating scary wave, that felt like it was going to crash down on me at any moment.

With that sense of relief and with the peer group, I learned what was necessary to grow the company and to take care of everyone that was counting on me.

Mark Fackler is a retired CEO and currently leads the Vistage CEO group that he was a member of from 1991 to 2002. He is passionate about creating great ROI for his member CEOs.

What's your experience with CEO isolation and its negative business impact? Join the conversation inside Work It Daily's Executive Program.



Acquiring Job Advance Your Career Career Changing Careers and Employment Education Internship

The Negative Business Impact Of CEO Isolation



In your career, you might climb the ladder and reach a point where it's time for you to present updates to C-suite members. This is a big opportunity—one you don't want to mess up. Presenting to the C-suite can be nerve-wracking, but, thankfully, there are many tips that can help you prepare for this opportunity.

We recently asked our leading executives how to present updates to C-suite members.

Here are their responses...

Melodie Turk, Learning Experience Executive


Presenting updates to the C-suite is a wonderful opportunity to showcase your project, demonstrate your own executive presence, and share valuable information. Here are three steps to presenting successfully (and a fourth if you've already done this):

  1. Know Your Audience. Whether it's one C-suite member or a group of them, make sure you understand their priorities. Also, try to find out their personal information-receiving style. Every piece of information you share will be assessed against their priorities and delivering it in a way they like to receive it will be an added bonus.
  2. Organize Your Information. Once you understand the audience a little better, organize your information—this might mean a formal PPT presentation or a detailed report, or something in between. As you put together your update, make clear correlations on how it may (or may not) impact their priorities and include any critical points they may need to make decisions in the future. You may also highlight a special achievement during the update but do relate it back to their priorities or help them understand the significance.
  3. Practice Your Delivery. You want to be able to deliver your update with confidence, which means you need to practice the delivery. You also need to practice giving answers to questions they may never ask. And you need to practice giving them a response when you don't have the answer or need more time to provide a more complete answer. In my experience, this is where I have seen the biggest failures—not being prepared.
  4. Delegate Your Delivery. I only recommend this fourth step if you have already given multiple updates to the C-suite. This could be a prime opportunity for you to delegate this delivery and give another person a development opportunity. If you do this, make sure to provide a personal introduction that shares just enough accolades of why you are allowing another to deliver your update.

My last tips:

  • Be succinct. This doesn’t mean brief (although it could be); it means making each piece of information valuable.
  • Be prepared and don’t make answers up on the fly. Practice what you know and be prepared to be upfront about what you don’t.

Melodie Turk is a learning experience executive with a unique background in the learning and development arena as well as change management. She is passionate about bringing change to the workplace—change that is meaningful and change that will last.

Lynn Holland, VP Sales & Business Development


Woman presents updates to executives/C-suite members

Presenting can be stressful, especially when presenting to the C-suite, but with a little effort to cater to this audience, it will set you up for success.

What’s that look like?

Part 1 – Right Thinking

Whether you are interviewing with, pitching, or in this case, presenting updates to the C-suite, think intently about this vision, strategy-driven vs. tactical executive-level audience that you’re going to address. Start with these questions:

  • What are their roles and what is important to them about this subject matter?
  • What is the data they need and how will they look to act on this data

Next, if possible, reach out to your key executives beforehand to float the agenda to see if there is anything they’d like to add or if there are particular data points they’re looking for, and give an opportunity for them to uncover any new details or concerns to guide your preparations.

Part 2 – Right Message

Now outline the main points and key data, tying them to a framework that is easy to convey and memorable. Something like “The 3 KPIs that we exceeded this quarter” and relate your points to big picture items like:

  • Making money
  • Saving money
  • Mitigating risk
  • Beating competitors
  • Improving the customer or employee journey

Part 3 – Right Execution

In light of your executive-level audience, use these (5) tips to deliver a message that holds their attention and is actionable:

  • Spare the big intro with context
  • Give the major conclusions up front
  • Use 1/3 of your allotted time to present with the balance for questions
  • Always give a handout for key info
  • If you use slides, no more than 10 with a clean design, heavy on images vs. text, and use a 30pt font

Lynn Holland is a business development executive with 18+ years of experience taking operational, IoT & retail technologies, products, & consumer engagement to market with a focus in petroleum & convenience retail.

Ana Smith, Talent Architect & Global Learning Strategist


Executive takes notes during an employee presentation to the C-suite

Presenting updates to C-level executives can be a daunting task for many professionals, especially if they lack experience or confidence in their presentation skills. However, with careful planning, preparation, and execution, anyone can effectively communicate updates to C-level executives in a clear and concise manner. Here are some tips on how to present updates to C-level executives:

  1. Know your audience: It is important to research and understand the background, interests, and priorities of the C-level executives you will be presenting to. This information can help you tailor your message to their specific needs and interests. For example, if you are presenting to a CEO who is primarily interested in revenue growth, you may want to focus your presentation on the financial metrics that demonstrate progress in that area.
  2. Define your objectives: Before you start preparing your presentation, it is important to clearly define your objectives. This could be to provide updates on a project, share key performance metrics, or propose a new strategy. Whatever your objectives are, make sure they are clear, measurable, and aligned with the overall goals of the organization.
  3. Keep it simple: C-level executives are often busy and may have limited time to review your presentation, so it is important to keep your message simple and to the point. Avoid using technical jargon or complex language that could confuse or bore your audience. Instead, use clear and concise language that is easy to understand.
  4. Use visuals: Visual aids such as graphs, charts, and infographics can help convey complex information in a clear and concise way. Make sure your visuals are easy to read and understand and use them strategically to highlight key points and support your message. For example, if you are presenting financial data, you may want to use a graph to show trends over time.
  5. Practice your delivery: Practicing your delivery can help you build confidence and ensure that you are able to deliver your message effectively. Practice in front of a mirror, record yourself, or ask a colleague to provide feedback on your delivery. This can help you identify areas for improvement and refine your message.
  6. Anticipate questions: C-level executives may have questions or concerns about the information you are presenting, so it is important to anticipate these and be prepared to respond. Take the time to research and address potential objections or questions ahead of time. This can help you demonstrate your knowledge and expertise and build credibility with your audience.
  7. Follow up: After your presentation, follow up with the C-level executives to ensure that they have all the information they need and to answer any additional questions they may have. This can help build trust and credibility and demonstrate your commitment to delivering value to the organization.

Overall, presenting updates to C-level executives requires careful planning, preparation, and execution. By understanding your audience, defining your objectives, keeping your message simple, using visuals, practicing your delivery, anticipating questions, and following up, you can effectively communicate your message and achieve your objectives in a clear and impactful way.

Ana Smith helps people & organizations achieve their full talent potential by developing and co-creating people strategies and customized solutions, and turning them into impactful outcomes and collaborative relationships, using coaching as the "red thread."

Michael Willis, Sports Business Operations Executive


Professional woman presents updates to executives/C-suite members

High-level executives—CEOs, CFOs, and CTOs—can be a difficult audience because of their limited time and high demand for their time. They are demanding and might interrupt the presentation whenever needed.

I might even go as far as to ask other colleagues who have already made a presentation to these C-suite executives. There could be some tangible takeaways from knowing what another group experienced.

You must prepare thoroughly with these three points to keep in mind:

1. Know Your Audience

You must prepare your presentation knowing how your audience will use the information you’re putting out. The information must be directly linked to their ability to do their job. These executives don’t deal with the nitty-gritty details. They deal with “big picture” issues.

2. Start at the End

Consider the main point you are here to prove with your presentation and state it first. A clearly stated objective works to retain the interest of the executives. This is the time for your hook.

Remember, these types of executives think strategically. They don’t think about day-to-day operations. Structure the presentation around the big picture.

3. Manage the Presentation

The presenter will be the central part of the executive’s attention. It’s okay to use visuals but don’t dwell on them.

Difficult questions are to be expected when presenting to a C-level audience. It isn’t unacceptable to admit that you don’t know the answer to a question. Don’t try to bluff a C-level crowd.

Don’t go into overtime. End the meeting on time!

Michael Willis has 18+ years of experience working with accounting & sports organizations and has managed P&Ls of $10M - $125M+ with budgets of $3M-$50M+. He worked for the NFL for 22 1/2 years, mainly with the game officials working on the financial/accounting side of the business.

Kathryn Marshburn, Music Program Manager


Professional man presents updates to executives/C-suite members

​While many teams find communicating with executives to be intimidating, I have found that it's an opportunity to showcase projects, develop visibility within organizations, and provide a roadmap for driving revenue.

Three tips for preparing for C-suite meetings should include:

  1. Know your audience and invite strategically, where not only decision makers are present but lateral team leaders who report to decision makers are present. This allows for consensus building before the meeting, where you can network for feedback prior to the meeting to get a sense of potential buy-in and prepare for any potential objections ahead of time.
  2. Prepare PowerPoint slides for support, to provide context, and to move into data and analysis quickly. Most executives are busy and require little information to make a decision, so keep providing talking points and revenue reports for the best time effectiveness. Allow space for questions during the presentation. If at all possible, share projected revenue results and/or expense for topic being presented.
  3. Preparation, preparation, and more preparation. Be natural and observe others. It's always tempting to just read reports and use notes, yet I find I am most impressed when a speaker can tell the story without looking at notes or the presentation and interacts with attendees. To me, this skill comes from true well-thought-out prep and practice. No one is a good speaker right from the start, but working and reviewing the data in a calm setting and investing time to feel prepared is SUPER valuable and should not be underestimated.

Finally, remember to have a meeting buddy that ahead of time can listen to your presentation and ask questions that pertain to your deal points. If you follow these suggestions you are bound to have an amazing C-suite meeting!

Kathryn Marshburn has spent 12+ years in the music and gaming industries guiding teams on identifying targeted goals with an agile approach resulting in driving revenue and reducing risk.

Mark Taylor, Product & Operations Executive


Employee presents updates to executives/C-suite members

A companion to last week’s discussion about effective presentations. Some complementary thoughts:

  • No surprises. Make sure negative news is pre-communicated.
  • The answer is yes. Now, what’s the question? But...
  • ...tell the truth. (Note the difference between “the truth” and “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”)
  • DYDWYSYWGTD? “Did you do what you said you were going to do?” If in the last meeting you said X, Y, and Z would be completed within the week, make sure that they were killed off 100%. (Tasks can be like cockroaches...)
  • Be concise. Use minimal decks. (There was feedback last week about how difficult it is to create a short deck. Understand that that’s what they pay you the big bucks for! Your grasp and oversight of what you own should be such that you can condense the complex into a simple short story.)
Mark Taylor has 20+ years of risk, technology, and product management experience working in global and regional financial services firms in the UK and the U.S. He's managed teams of 40+, successfully addressed 100+ regulatory issues, and has saved companies $15M+.

Lisa Perry, Global Marketing Executive


Woman presents updates to the C-suite/executives

​Presenting updates to C-suite is an extraordinary opportunity to showcase your skills, strategic thinking, and organizational contributions. Every time this opportunity arises, seize it enthusiastically and prepare to make a lasting impression. Here are 10 strategies and tips for presenting updates to C-suite members to propel your career to new heights:

1. Determine Your Purpose: Clarify your purpose, aligning your objectives with their strategic priorities. What do you want the C-suite members to do, think, or feel due to your presentation?

2. Understand Their Perspective: Executives focus on high-level strategic goals, financial performance, and organizational success. Tailor your presentation to their priorities, needs, and concerns. Frame your updates in a way that highlights the impact on the company’s bottom line, growth potential, or competitive advantage.

3. Craft A Compelling Narrative: Tell a story that engages the C-suite’s attention and resonates with their aspirations for the company. Connect your updates to the company’s mission, vision, and values. Weave a narrative that demonstrates the significance of your work and the positive impact it has on the organization’s trajectory.

4. Highlight Key Metrics & Results: Clearly articulate key metrics and outcomes in your update. Whether it’s financial performance, customer acquisition, or market share growth, provide tangible evidence of progress. Utilize charts, graphs, or visual aids to make the information more digestible and impactful.

5. Be Confident & Concise: Project an aura of self-assurance and professionalism. Deliver your updates with clarity and brevity, focusing on the most critical points. Avoid overwhelming them with excessive information or unnecessary details. Ensure your presentation is concise and visually appealing, allowing the C-suite to grasp key takeaways quickly.

6. Communicate Risks & Mitigation Strategies: Acknowledge potential risks or challenges related to your update and present well-thought-out mitigation strategies. Addressing potential roadblocks and demonstrating your ability to navigate them effectively shows your preparedness and commitment to success.

7. Provide Strategic Recommendations: Offer strategic recommendations aligned with the C-suite’s goals. Leverage your expertise to suggest innovative solutions, growth opportunities, or operational improvements. Presenting actionable recommendations demonstrates your proactive thinking and ability to contribute to the company’s success.

8. Anticipate Questions & Prepare Responses: The C-suite has probing questions or seeks additional clarification. Anticipate potential inquiries based on the information you present and prepare thoughtful responses in advance.

9. Engage In Active Dialogue: Presenting updates to the C-suite should be viewed as a two-way communication opportunity. Encourage engagement and invite questions, feedback, and discussion. Actively listen to their insights and perspectives.

10. Follow Up & Follow Through: Take the initiative to follow up with the C-suite members. Address any unanswered questions or concerns they may have raised. Provide additional information or data as necessary.

Presenting updates to C-suite members is an invaluable opportunity to demonstrate your skills, strategic thinking, and contributions to the organization. By embracing the opportunity and delivering a compelling presentation, you can establish yourself as a trusted advisor and elevate your career.

Lisa Perry helps companies build leadership brands, driving loyal customers & delivering profitability. She does this through a process that builds brands consumers love. Her goal is to help companies develop, monetize, and grow their brands.

What are your best tips for presenting updates to C-suite members? Join the conversation inside Work It Daily's Executive Program.

Acquiring Job Advance Your Career Career Changing Careers and Employment Education Internship

Executive Spotlight: How To Present Updates To …

10 Questions Successful Enterprise Tech Buyers Ask



When COVID-19 hit in 2020, I didn’t hear any accounts of C-level or enterprise operations executives jumping out of windows, but I did hear their stories about real frustrations and sudden challenges with execution. Many openly admitted a new risk to operations and ultimately financial performance as they battled through low-value manual processes, disparate platforms, and the absence of a remote ecosystem or “hub” where department, division, or enterprise teams could come together to communicate, execute, and manage end-to-end workflows and data to transcend unforeseen events, factors, or constraints for employees.

Enterprise Companies’ Love-Hate Relationship With New Technology (Even When Needed), Their Vendors, & Making Decisions


Love hate keys on a keyboard

Faced with acute business risk and operational difficulty, why didn’t more enterprise companies move to outsource an infrastructure-less SaaS operations or logistics software solution along with its support?

For companies in verticals that were still in growth mode or mostly business as usual after the onset of COVID-19, three obstacles may have impeded a tech/SaaS path to continuity, efficiency, and reduced business risk—two having to do with buyer psyche and the other about the options (or lack thereof) for tech/SaaS and its providers.

Obstacle #1

We all HATE discomfort. Human nature clings to the familiarity of the status quo and skillfully tricks the subconscious into downplaying, avoiding, or outright denying the existence of unpleasant or ineffective circumstances. This saves us the discomfort of reasoning the cause of a problem, its scope, or the inconvenience of having to do something about it.

Obstacle #2

We all LOVE control. Modern enterprise buying happens when a majority of 10-14 cross-functional stakeholders, that may or may not also engage the board of directors, decide to say “YES!” to change as they are helped past their individual risk aversion that is influenced by their performance metrics, professional goals, challenges, underlying biases and motivations to either support or block the decision.

As such, even when presented with a clear, distinct solution that demands change from the status quo, if stakeholders are left to themselves without an objective, insightful, empathetic guide with a strong understanding of their current processes, data requirements, and the technology—teamed up with an internal champion as a collaborative partner to help instill new insights, influence, clear obstacles, and gain consensus—one of two things is most likely to happen for these folks:

  • Stakeholders will lose sight of the fundamentals of real value achieved with the solution and instead commoditize options and the decision down to the smallest, least cost, and least exposure option. Whereby producing a lowest risk decision for the stakeholders, but not necessarily the best overall decision for the organization.
  • Subconsciously, underlying biases and fear of losing autonomy causes stakeholders to defend a personal status quo which culminates in creative efforts to block a decision. This presents itself in a variety of excuses or objections to the change, efforts to frustrate the investigation and decision progress wherever possible, or a gleeful vote to “do nothing.” Again, this may stave off change, but may not be in the best interest of the organization.

And the third obstacle that may have prevented enterprise companies from creating a needed communication and operations execution superhighway for their teams:

Obstacle #3

We need confidence in our partners. Lots of it. When the vulnerability of continuity became obvious in 2020, enterprise technology options were still pretty clunky. Choices included older platforms still on-prem, partial, or rigid workflows that required daisy-chaining disparate platforms together or retraining, they offered limited reporting, low data mining and analytics, no advanced predictive capabilities, few simple integrations with other major business systems, and long backlogs when custom dev was necessary. This meant vendors and their platforms were of limited use, painful to deal with, and the ratio of bad reviews to good reviews was high when measuring the rate of adoption, realized value, and the overall customer experience during implementation, when using the platform, and when support was needed.

Ditch Old School, Rigid, And Unresponsive Tech Options For The Modern Virtual Work “Place"


Woman uses virtual reality technology at work

What’s different today? There is good news for enterprise SaaS buying holdouts! A new generation of “Service as a Solution” (SaaS) enterprise software designers have emerged with intuitive, adaptive, integrated, perpetually evolving solutions. This has jettisoned adoption with stakeholders and users alike as solutions are now blending into the business with flexibility to resemble comfortable, native workflows, simply integrate with most business systems, and deliver sizeable benefits relative to op-ex fees.

This new virtual work “place” brings employees, external partners, and various business systems together via simple integrations into a community to accomplish major workflows with simplicity and agility. Some of the benefits:

  • Naturally compile & archive internal and external correspondence, quotes, documents, invoices, BOLs, validations, authorizations, and receivings by project, customer, or vendor
  • Collaborate
  • Plan and assemble projects
  • Mirror and execute existing daily operation workflows
  • Operate with 360-degree visibility

With artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) now in production, in development, and in dev roadmaps, SaaS developers are also infusing deep insights, visibility, and predictive decision making into their functionality with advanced:

  • Data mining
  • Trend and predictive intelligence
  • Highly trained observation, inference, and conclusion capabilities

As such, enterprise SaaS software spend is up 14% in 2021 per Gartner’s reporting, with an estimated $700 billion on the way for 2022. Another 11% increase.

10 Questions To Set Your Buying Team Up For A Successful Tech Buying Journey


Enterprise buying team works together

Buying technology is complicated! For enterprise executives who are ready to appoint a buying committee to select your next tech solution, this article will help you:

  • Quickly strip options down to a short list of solutions and vendors for deeper evaluation
  • Clear obstacles that can prevent your buying committee from reaching a value-rich buying decision
  • Reduce the chances of your buying committee spending valuable hours, only to get stuck in the evaluation process or cling to the status quo and do nothing (believe it or not, this happens in at least 5/10 complex buying decisions)
  • Avoid solutions that exclude new observatory, predictive, conclusionary analytics that exponentially elevate business decisions and bottom-line outcomes

To set the stage for your buying journey, make sure you have a qualified guide to lead your buying team through organizational requirements, vetting and qualifying, and the complex behavioral science maze of the numerous stakeholders chosen for your buying committee.

Next, here are (10) initial questions to strip down your vendor list and clear away common obstacles for stakeholder personas throughout the organization:

1. Does the software provide a full end-to-end solution to execute and manage the entire workflow process for the departmental / division / organizational application?

2. Will the software have long-term application for your operations, despite workplace and technology advancements, and what is the partner’s roadmap for ongoing development and investment?

3. Does the software enable users the flexibility to mirror familiar workflows already intuitive to your operations without forcing a new workflow and retraining?

4. Does the potential SaaS partner provide a simulation of the platform’s operation with your workflow or application or environment to validate its efficacy for your company’s specific needs?

5. Do they have case studies that demonstrate a great buyer and user experience with the product, implementation, training for each level of user, and support?

6. Is the platform available in a SaaS model without a cap-ex spend or on-prem hardware?

7. Are ready integrations available for your major systems and apps to offer a low-coding, low development & engineering implementation, especially if you don’t have unlimited internal technology resources?

8. Is data import and configuration relatively simple?

9. Does the simplicity of the solution and the tech partner’s support mitigate the need for IT to acquire additional skillsets to implement or support?

10. Do they publish ample ungated content about their solution to research and evaluate before contacting their sales rep?

For additional insights and help with navigating the enterprise technology buying journey, please reach out to me on LinkedIn or at [email protected].

Acquiring Job Advance Your Career Career Changing Careers and Employment Education Internship

10 Questions Successful Enterprise Tech Buyers Ask