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Advancing from mid-level to senior management and leadership can be challenging, even for talented and ambitious professionals. External factors like limited organisational needs, budget constraints, or long-standing incumbents in desired positions can slow progress and this applies to all industries from the automotive industry to health. These challenges were recently discussed in the Harvard Business Review Podcast, Women at work, hosted by Amy Bernstein.

The insightful conversation explored ways to overcome mid-career stagnation, especially for women. Despite some factors beyond your control such as limited higher-level positions available, being seen as the person you were when you started, not who you’ve become, and lack of opportunities to gain the required experience for higher roles, there are still some aspects you have full control over as rightly pointed out by Lauren Reyes and Megan Bock.

Some of the takeaways from the podcast are,

1. To move up, it’s important to:
   • Clearly articulate your desire for advancement to leadership.
   • Make a business case for your promotion or a new senior role.
   • Build relationships and visibility with influential people inside and outside your organisation.
2. Be willing to take calculated risks:
   • Apply for roles you may not feel 100% qualified for
   • Consider moving to a new organisation that sees your potential.
   • Relocate if necessary for the right opportunity.
3. Strategies for advancement include:
   • Hiring an executive coach.
   • Completing leadership development programmes such as Help to Grow Management at Kingston University.
   • Proposing new roles or projects that showcase senior leadership skills.
   • Building a network across your industry.
4. To change perceptions:
   • Take on high-visibility projects outside your usual role.
   • Identify and solve organisational problems proactively.
   • Build relationships with leaders outside your direct chain of command.
   • Showcase your expertise through speaking, writing, or social media.
5. Be strategic about career moves:
   • Create a long-term career map to guide decisions.
   • Ensure each move aligns with your ultimate goals.
   • Consider both short-term opportunities and long-term fit.

Moving up requires leaving you comfort zone but untapped opportunities both internal and external may value your potential more than what you are receiving now. By following these strategies and being willing to take smart risks, middle managers can position themselves for advancement into senior leadership roles.

 

In business world, finding new customers can be tough and expensive. Yet, one of the most effective strategies is often right in front of us: customer referrals.

Recently a Harvard Business Review (HBR) article ‘Research: Customer Referrals Are Contagious by Rachel Gershon, Zhenling Jiang, Will Fraser and Jitendra Gupta enfolded some compelling reasons why customer referrals are so important, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and those focusing on growth leadership within limited resources.

Referral Contagion

The magic of customer referrals lies in trust. According to the authors, when a potential customer hears about your product or service from someone they know and trust, it carries much more weight than any advertisement. For SMEs, which often rely on word-of-mouth to build their brand, this trust can be a game-changer. Referred customers are not just more likely to trust your brand—they’re also more likely to make a purchase.

But this goes beyond one purchase according to the authors. Backed by the data from over 4 million customers, they discovered that those who join through referral make more purchases than those customers who purchased using other methods. They also found out that a whopping 30% – 57% of new customers get in through those who joined through referrals. The authors coined the term “referral contagion — the tendency for referred customers to bring in more referrals.”

They investigated it from the lens of homophily, a concept that describes the tendency of individuals to build social networks with those who are similar to them. It leads to the phenomenon that if a customer likes a brand, they may have friends who would also like it.

Furthermore, the authors also discovered another key driving factor of referral contagion using controlled experiments. They found out that referred customers are more likely to refer to others as compared to non-referred customers.

If you would like to read more on this, go to the original article:

https://hbr.org/2024/06/research-customer-referrals-are-contagious

Businesses are still struggling to create an impact and establish strong connections with their customers despite the available help from emerging AI-powered digital tools such as ChatGPT, copy.ai etc. So what is missing?

Recently, Jude Faultless has delivered a session on impactful communication at Kingston Business School. The session was part of the Future of Work Summit, organised by Kingston Chambers of Commerce.

The overall session was insightful, but it particularly brought forward some interesting perspectives on how communication could create a far greater impact if the needs of a buyer are kept at the heart of a business. Yet some of us fixate on what we want to sell instead of what needs there might be of a person who is going to buy. We can change that and do the opposite instead – find where our customers are and know what problems they are facing. With this reversing, we can create a value in our product that our customers need.

Some of the other takeaways from Jude Faultless’ session are, assessing what communication strategies, tools and frameworks are working and also realising what needs to go. One of the ways to test is by checking, Who stops scrolling when we want to speak to them? We can invest hundreds of pounds targeting larger sections and bring our marketing content in front of the queue but if a user still scrolls past our call for action post, what value does the reach have? Measuring reach and regularly assessing organic and paid socials are important in understanding fast-moving and disruptive trends and the implications for a business.

Another interesting factor discussed in the session was to create a bigger impact requires staying relevant. Relevance is a bridge between a business and its customer. If a business is not relevant to its customers’ needs, there is no quantifiable success; no matter how exceptionally great a product or service is.  This applies to all aspects and stages of a business. From content creation to the delivery channels, choosing what problem is a product solving for its user is the key. Find out why they need it, where they need it, and where they might need it. If a customer is watching Tiktok, don’t use email marketing. Jude Faultless emphasised on staying relevant.

Lastly, nearly all products and services have an emotional value even if it may not look like there is. What problem is your business solving and what strings of emotion is it touching?

As a small business owner, launching a new business product or service, you’ll face plenty of challenges – especially when you’re introducing something entirely novel without existing competition. It takes considerable time and resources to build a superior offering from the ground up. But one critical piece that can help fuel your initial growth is securing those first few customers.

While acquiring any customers is difficult at first, those pioneers provide value far beyond just revenue. Here are three key reasons why cultivating strong relationships with your early adopters is so vital:

Word-of-Mouth Multiplier

Your first customers may not have other options, which makes them more likely to try your new solution. But even better, if they have a positive experience, they’ll naturally discuss it with their friends, colleagues and networks. This is how hugely successful startups like Etsy and Uber gained traction – through organic sharing from satisfied early users. Don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth referrals during your bootstrapped days.

Insightful User Feedback

There’s a reason these initial users were drawn to an unproven product – they likely weren’t fully satisfied with existing alternatives. Rather than just taking their money, work closely with these early adopters to understand their pain points, goals and perspectives. Support them, listen to their needs, and help them get maximum value from your offering. Why? They’ll reciprocate by providing invaluable feedback on what’s working well, areas for improvement, and ideas for new features. This kind of user research would normally require paying for focus groups and consultants.

Free Product Support & Training

Some SMEs creatively employ their first customers for tasks you’d traditionally hire staff for, like product support and training.  Your earliest fans are usually enthusiastic evangelists who happily wear multiple hats to contribute to your success.

The investment to nurture your first customers is well worth the effort. Not only do they provide critical early revenue, but their word-of-mouth reach, user insights, and hands-on assistance can push your start-up forward faster with limited resources. If you play your cards right, it’s like getting free marketing, R&D, and customer service all rolled into one. Embrace the power of your pioneering patrons.

To learn more about how to grow your business with our Help to Grow Management Programme: https://kingstonuniversitybusinesstraining.com/

Help to Grow Management course is a 90% government-funded leadership growth programme for SME leaders, delivered by industry experts at Kingston University Business School.

On 27^th March, as the sun sat on another year of business growth, it was time for us to gather and celebrate the remarkable achievements of our graduating cohorts of Year 3 Help to Grow: Management Course. This completion ceremony wasn’t just a symbolic gesture; it’s a testament to the commitment, hard work, and growth each SME leader has exhibited throughout their journey.

Following the musical welcome by Yao and Mihkel, Dr. Bahare Afrahi, Director Help to Grow Management at Kingston University and founder of Innovation Playground Kingston University Business Training, welcomed everyone. Dr. Afrahi gave a moving speech acknowledging the commitment of each SME leader and reiterated the importance of a strategic and innovative approach to growth. She also shared her views on innovative thinking and reminded of life as a pie to measure the quality of a life – if one section gets bigger, the others shrink.

Soon after the welcome speech, Help to Grow Speakers, Glenn Bowering and Juan L Soon joined Dr. Afrahi and handed out certificates to graduating SME leaders from a diverse background.

Among the graduating SME leaders, were Jennifer Walker, who is the Head of Growth at Bandstand and Tamsyn Jefferson-Harvey who runs a Business Accountancy Business joined by Jess Guard, Steve Bushill, Saša Gostić, Natalja Petkune, Conor Bath and many others. Graduating participants commented how the Alumni network, 1.2.1 business mentoring and networking opportunities make Help to Grow Management a unique knowledge exchange programme and bring invaluable support to SME leaders to last a lifetime.

Paula Middleton, Executive Consultant at Centre for Political & Diplomatic Studies Ltd, and Help to Grow Alumni, also attended and received a certificate on behalf of her colleague Marketta Brennan. Paula shared how this leadership management course has transformed her business growth. She highlighted how the applied learning of strategic innovation from Help to Grow has driven the success of CPDS.

Ahead of the networking event, Andrei Ceteras, our Help to Grow Alumni, founder and director of Medukcare spoke about the impact of Help to Grow Management on his domiciliary care business and shared a valuable insight on his business growth journey. He commended how the valuable knowledge of Kingston University speakers that helped transform his business post-covid and increased it revenue by 250% in 1 year.

To register for May cohort:

 

Kingston Business School, Kingston University | Small Business Charter

Billy Beane, a baseball executive, who found remarkable success by bringing an unusual approach to winning baseball games. Wondered how he came up with his unconventional strategy to baseball team management that transformed the way baseball game world traditionally worked?

By paying attention to data analytics that others ignored.

To be able to lead a business using innovative approach requires one to become a ‘first-class noticer” as what Saul Bellow calls one – someone who disrupts the maddening circulation of business affair. Noticing is a vital skill for a business leader not to be consumed by the workings of running a business or leading a team. It is then, you experience what is already in front of you. It is then you are able to notice which previously seemed invisible and therefore a great possibility unattained.

So how can a business leader or a manager inculcate this art of noticing in their everyday business practices?

1- Listen deeply. You have an idea that you are sure of its success? Looking and listening is perhaps a first way forward. Listen to what others have to say, listen to what others have said about it before, listen to what hasn’t been said. Are you listening?

2- Be ready to fail. It is understandable to protect one’s business and one’s own credibility as a leader, but it is also a way to never succeed in areas you possibly could. Make allowances for innovation in your processes. Ideas you thought might not work, give them a chance.

3- Empathise. A problem that is not yours, put yourself at the front of it. How would you resolve it? A problem that is yours, how do you think others will resolve it? Remove your biases that come in the way to approach any problem.

Inculcating a habit of noticing, will connect you with unmatched possibilities, with right people who would become your rock and with a business that has an ability to navigate in difficult times.

To get more support on how to grow a business that is both stronger and sustainable, find out here:  (kingstonuniversitybusinesstraining.com)

Have you ever wondered why an old-school, power-driven, leadership style is no longer effective in an AI-focused, complex, and cross-functional business world? And why something that has previously sustained business leadership and management for centuries has no relevance in the current and ever-changing economic climate?

Because it deters innovation.

It creates one-dimensional vision in a multi-facetted complex world.

It takes the power away from people to co-create the business with you.

The top business and management experts who understand the critical nature of innovation in business has named 3 specific roles required to lead innovatively referred in a Podcast on Harvard Business Review. If you miss applying these 3 roles towards leading your team or a project through and through, it can be detrimental for your organisation to innovate or to bring the agility that your
project needs.

The three roles known to be climacteric in leading a business requires innovating – Innovating the ways a business is strategised, innovating the ways it understands and positions its customer value proposition and innovating the ways a business inculcate its culture for the people who work for the business as well as the people the business works for.

First of them is to be an Architect – building a culture and capabilities for people who would be able to collaborate, experiment and grow in-line with your mission and vision, says Linda A Hill, an American ethnographer and business leadership expert.

She then goes on to introduce Bridger as a second leadership role a business leader needs to take on. What she means by Bridger is to get out of your organisation to create partnerships with external talents, tools, and resources. This will enable you to outsource specialised resources to deliver your project beyond your limited capacity. This in result will bridge the gap between you and unlimited business opportunities you may have missed by staying in your box and build multitudes of business communities.

Lastly yet unequivocally important is to become a Catalyst. And what it means to be catalyst as a business leader is to then really reap the benefits of designing the culture and capabilities and bridging the gap by co-creating the business capabilities on a larger canvas of eco-system. What this says is to use the trust and influence we have built to accelerate new organisation units without having a formal authority but mutual empathy, growth and real connections.

To lead your business innovatively, the Help to Grow Management course at Kingston University is a great way to develop an in-depth understanding of Strategy and Innovation.

I’m hearing manifesting increasingly often in small business terms. While I’m not convinced by the law of attraction, the idea of having a positive and repetitive belief about your vision and actions is something that could be of great value to you and your business.

I follow Mel Robbins and her podcasts and in one she discusses exactly this type of manifesting, she describes it as training your brain to believe in something that hasn’t happened yet. It’s a technique I’ve seen used in athletes – think back to try conversions in rugby and the kicker visualising the ball going through the posts before actually kicking it. You are literally training your brain to believe it’s happening and to take the action. David Hamilton in his book “Why Woo-Woo Works” also discusses this brain training and how visualisation impacts brain networks and shapes them to match this vision.

This vision should be realistic and align to your core values and with continued affirmative repetition helps that brain training to make positives actions and behaviours towards the vision. If you’ve taken one of our courses, you will be well aware that vision and values are central to our business training. So can you harness the power of manifesting personally and with your team to realise your business success?

Both Mel and David talk about the importance of repetition. Can you continually visualise the behaviours, steps and actions you need to take to realise your business vision? Mel also talks about how this prepares you for change and ultimately achieve your goals. Can you communicate your vision with your team, get them to visualise the steps they need to take, to bring them along on that journey? Socialising the vision and actions needed in a positive way so you all can visualise and so brain train to believe it will happen.

I know it won’t be for everyone, but if this is one way to build a positive mindset, self-belief and motivation for action it’s worth sharing.

2023 has been another year of uncertainty and change for SME’s with rising costs, interest rates and the cost of living crisis to name just a few of the challenges faced into.

We are proud here at Kingston to have supported 5 intakes of our Help to Grow Management SME leaders and decision makers through the year.  Providing a safe and open environment for discussing challenges, sharing best practice and supporting new strategies across multiple industries and business types.

It’s been great to continue to support our alumni with our regular lunchtime masterclasses and in person workshops and see our cohorts mix covering topics including HR hints and tips, web design strategy, the British Library on IP and an alumni led workshop on selling.

We held our annual completion ceremony in February 2023 – welcoming back previous completers from Help to Grow Management for an evening of music, food and a glass or two while networking.  A real celebration of their achievements and to collect their certificate from our programme director and the head of the business school.

Many thanks to our alumni who support us in providing case studies to bring the course to life for other participants.  We had a new series of static and video case studies this year that have gone down a storm!  It’s also been great to share our participants success stories beyond us here at Kingston, with our alumni featured in business events, press releases and the Small Business Charter website.  We love to see your progress and achievements on social!

We are so much more than just a course.  Many thanks to our participants, alumni, expert speakers and programme team for all their work, open mind approach and continually seeking to improve and support.  Wishing you a super start to 2024!