One of the most popular financial metrics used in businesses is EBITDA. EBITDA stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, and Depreciation. For most managers, they understand it as a metric that measures profit and provides insights into the “controllables” of a business or business unit.

Marshawn Lynch is one of my favorite people.  The term “Beast Mode” was invented for him as it perfectly describes his rugged approach of being a 6-foot tall, 220-pound NFL running back for the Seattle Seahawks. His style is to power around, over, and through defenders punishing anyone who gets in his way of achieving the ultimate goal of scoring touchdowns. Watching him perform is extremely entertaining and reminds me of the good old days of tough, grind-it-out (American) football before passing made up 80% of the offensive plays.

It’s human nature and business nature to want to over-deliver and exceed your customers’ expectations in terms of product value and service value.  In many instances, it’s the survival instinct kicking in where you are fearful that if you don’t over-deliver you could lose the customer to a competitor and then you’ll go out of business, go on unemployment, become homeless, and wither away into obscurity.  Obviously, that’s a little drastic and as radical as that sounds, I’ve seen many sales professionals and many businesses behave this way.

And of course, we behave this way because “smart” customers know which buttons to push to increase our anxiety and make us do whatever it takes to “make them happy.” And then there are the customers who aren’t really trying to manipulate the system or take advantage of vendors, but simply wake up every day with filet mignon tastes but only have Filet O’Fish budgets (nothing against delicious Filet O’Fish sandwiches or our dear clients at #McDonalds)!

Every year around this time, thousands of so-called experts publish their predictions about the upcoming year.  Since I have yet to meet anyone with mystical powers nor visitors from the future (well at least I don’t think I have), the ideas and predictions of my annual blog predicting trends for the upcoming year are as valid as anyone else’s. Except, I’d like to think the 235,000+ miles traveled, the 42 difference global clients I’ve worked with, the research I’ve conducted, and the observations I’ve made working with thousands of business leaders and sales professionals provides a practical perspective that others can’t match. But who knows?  Let’s revisit this next December.

Starting today, millions of us in the global workforce will begin a well-deserved holiday break.  Because Christmas and New Years both fall on Wednesday this year, many people are going to be able to take two weeks off returning the second week of January, 2020.  While this may be a great time to catch up with family, go on holiday, or binge watch that TV show you’ve been putting off for the last few months, your Business Acumen can get flabby and lazy very quickly.