Boy, it’s been a while since I’ve blogged! That’s probably because my team and I have been busy closing out 2008 and planning for 2009 and beyond. Speaking of 2008, you may have noticed that StrongMail signed a record number of customers this past year. I am so proud of our team. Without a doubt, they are passionate and committed to making StrongMail a very special company.

Beginning last November, I hit the road to meet with as many customers and prospects as I could. I wanted to see and hear, first hand, what they were thinking about the economy, how that would affect their business and what they planned on doing to bridge the gap. Every company had specific goals and requirements, so I found it interesting to get a cross-section of perspectives.

I was (and still am) particularly interested in how senior executives are managing differently during these times. Obviously, changes need to be made, expenses need to be reduced and strategies may need to shift to better reflect today’s realities. Between my conversations with prospects and customers, coupled with my current reading log, I found the following ideas to be most thought provoking:

Bad times could mean new opportunities.
Companies that are the most agile and make bold moves will have the upper hand. We’ve all heard about Carnegie Steel and Hewlett Packard, both being launched during very troubling economic times. Cutting costs is important, but being in a position to invest on the cheap presents a great opportunity to start something from nothing or to double down on your current solution/offering. I’ve spoken to a number of my colleagues (fellow venture-backed CEO’s), prospects and customers about this and there is general consensus on this thought. What new opportunities can you envision in today’s “new reality?”

Play to your strengths.
This is a good time to reinforce your sales channel, harden your product line and simplify your offerings (and messaging too!). Here at StrongMail, we talk about this every day, so we can be laser- focused on our strengths. This is a purposeful (and useful) dialog that helps us in the decision-making process. For example, as we developed our Operating Plan for 2009, we continually reminded ourselves of what we wanted to accomplish in our solution to meet the ever-growing demands of our prospects and customers. We’ve received good feedback from current customers about ways to further evolve our platform. Our strength has always been the underlying infrastructure of our solution—therein lies the gem: Harden the platform, ensure scalability, make it easier to use and make the solution as flawless as software can be.

We’re focused on investing in our sales channel, our solution and our people. I believe that if we remain focused, take action, stick to our strengths and continue to add value to our customers, we will come out of these uncertain times stronger, better positioned and with a lot more customers.

I’m going to try a little experiment and would like your help.

I’ve often looked at successful leaders and have tried to pinpoint what sets them apart. What things do they (or in some cases, don’t do) that make them so successful? Is it management style? Leadership skills? Unique abilities? What do they do differently than the rest of the pack?

What's the secret behind Steve Jobs' incredible accomplishments? Or how about Carol Bartz? John Chambers? Dianne Green? What do each one of these successful leaders do that is so unique? Why have they been able to rise to the top?

I had an interesting thought last week while thumbing through the book Simplexity, Why Simple Things Become Complex (and How Complex Things Can be Made Simple), by Jeffrey Kluger. The book is thought-provoking and intellectually stimulating. When I first put the book down, I sat there for a moment and tried to apply what I’d read to my leadership role at StrongMail. And then, BAM! I realized that maybe I was looking at this all wrong. Instead of trying to identify unique traits, I'm going to reverse my approach and start looking at the commonalities of successful leaders for insight.

One clear common attribute of successful leaders is their team. Every successful leader has a great team—they’re leaders in their own right. Steve Job of Apple has a great team. Carol Bartz of Autodesk had a great team. John Chambers of Cisco, again, has a great team. A great team attracts great people. Great people execute.

Over the next month or so, I’m going to take note of more commonalities during my interaction with people: internal meetings, prospect and customer meetings, reading the business press and my news sources. I’d like for you to do the same.

Let’s try to assemble the top 10 common attributes of successful leaders to share with this audience.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts, observations and personal experience on this topic.

While I was getting caught up on my business reading during a recent flight, I came across a very interesting article in the June 9, 2008 issue of Fortune Magazine called “Lessons of the Fall,” by Patricia Sellers.

It was fascinating to read the back-story to some of these high-profile CEO ousters and the dynamics of the CEO and their respective Board members. The article covers three well-known CEO’s who lost their jobs involuntarily: David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue, Jim Donald, former CEO of Starbucks and Ed Zander, former CEO of Motorola. First, kudos to Fortune Magazine and writer Patricia Sellers for pulling together this story. How lucky are we to be able to read about these men and learn from their mistakes?

What I found most interesting about this article was the honesty that all three executives displayed when discussing what is surely a highly personal, pivotal and emotional period in their careers. All three executives were at one point “high-fliers”—so getting them into a room to talk about their toughest day and outline their lessons learned presents an amazing educational opportunity for management-types. And, of course, I was intrigued to read lessons from other graduates of the School of Hard Knocks.

Here is the free advice that I was able to extract from these three senior executives:

• Communications: Keep your key constituents updated. If you don’t, they will draw their own conclusions.
• Invest abroad to grow and hedge.
• Get inspired in the field. Prospects really do know what they need – and, they’ll tell you for free. Just ask them.
• Move fast on people, whether it’s hiring or firing. Great talent makes or breaks a company.
• Focus on building long-term value. Focus on the decisions that reinforce your long-term strategy.
• Admit your mistakes. Explain them and move on.
• Ideas are good. But execution is everything.

In addition to the information above, I found some other very nice pieces of free advice sprinkled throughout the article from the likes of Ted Turner, Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey:

• Keep taking risks.


• Don’t let doubters get you down.


• Seek a purpose.


• Visualize the next big win.


• Learn from your mistakes.


• Remember: Failure can be temporary.

I enjoyed the simplicity of the article and the nuggets provided by all three executives. There weren’t any new, ground-breaking management theories outlined in this article, just good-old fashioned, tried–and-true business tenets. Lessons learned from The School of Hard Knocks.