The major holidays of the year – Winter Break, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving – are wonderful times to pause from the daily grind of work, get caught up on some sleep, spend time with family, cook something fun, and reflect on where things are, where things are going, and how we are going to get there.

Courtney Meggs was having another tough day.  As the founder and owner of Brew Squared, a new neighborhood shop that brews homemade coffees for customers in the morning and handcrafted beers in the evenings, Courtney was dealing with the usual list of daily challenges. Employees calling out sick, a coffee bean delivery that didn’t show up, a call from the bank asking where the latest credit card payment was, several irate customers complaining about the service, and a video call from her mother (a major investor of Brew Squared) contemplating moving to Arizona and asking for her money back.

Just another day in the world of a small business owner in Advantexe’s new business simulation Brew Squared.

One of the most important and basic pillars of having a strong business acumen competency is understanding how to make the best decisions that align to your chosen value proposition to your customers.  Unfortunately, one of the biggest mistakes business leaders make is thinking that they have to be the best at every element of their value proposition instead of focusing on the right balance and the right value proposition to their selected customers.  For example, I was recently conducting a Business Acumen learning engagement for a group of mid-career leaders and asked a group of 36 professionals the following; “Who thinks the most important thing that you do as a leader is to get all your people to make the best product, deliver it with the best service, and go to market with the lowest price to win the business?”  31 out of the 36 participants raised their hands.  All 31 were incorrect and are leading the execution of decisions and strategies that can’t exist in 2017 and beyond.