“Howard was AWESOME! And right on point!” “The workshop and the message were outstanding, informative, and very pertinent. And I enjoyed meeting the CEO Think Tank® community too!”  “I really enjoyed listening to Howard and only wish I had known him years ago…he could have saved me millions!”

Howard Shore delivered an insightful and amazing keynote to a sold out crowd for our 12th Annual Growth Strategies Breakfast last week at the Union League in Philadelphia. Dynamic story-telling, thought-provoking and pointed questions to audience members, and fantastic quote-able quotes that I’ll be using for a long time to motivate, engage, and stimulate my clients to think more deeply and critically.

Check out his new book, Your Business is a Leaky Bucket” but in the meantime, here are 12 of my favorite quotes to get you started on the path to finding your $1Million :

 

  1. Most of what’s important in a business for success doesn’t show up on the Income Statement. Where’s the line item for when you:

  2. If your strategy is solid, it should be easy to hire salespeople because anyone can sell your product or service. Lead generation becomes so easy that salespeople become order takers!

    • HINT: You might not even need a Salesforce.

  3. Did you have greater Cash Flow last year than the year before?

    • Do you even know if you generated positive cash flow from operations?

  4. Cash and Debt are the Critical Numbers on the Balance sheet.

    • Everything else is just an estimate.

  5. Working Capital is critical to Sustained Growth.

    • How you manage yours will determine how much and how quickly you can grow.

  6. Can you predict next month, next quarter, next year?

    • How solid is your business model, how predictable is your revenue and how well do you know your market?

  7. Look at your business as an investor would.

    • Are you getting a 20% Return or Better?

  8. One of the biggest errors in finance: EBITDA doesn’t equal CASH FLOW

  9. Do you know the 7 Levers to improve your Cash Flow?

    • Price Increases
    • Volume Increases
    • COG’s reductions
    • Overhead reductions
    • Improving A/R
    • Increasing A/P
    • Increasing Inventory Turns

    BRILLANT IDEA: Have an initiative on your plan to improve each one.

  10. If you can’t find a way to create value, you don’t know your Industry or don’t understand “the job to be done”.

  11. There are 3 types of vacancies:

    • The seat is not filled
    • The wrong person is in the seat
    • You have a not created a position that you should have created for business success.

    This last one is the killer opportunity because when you create it, that person adds at least 2.5 times their salary to the company’s bottom line.

  12. The most under-utilized fixes in business:

    • Eliminating mistakes
    • Tolerating a vacancy
    • Lack of innovation and automation

And if you’re interested in learning more about our 12th Growth Strategies survey of CEO’s, check out our findings for 2018 here.

CEO Think Tank’s 12th Annual Growth Strategies Breakfast

Tags: , , , , , , ,