Time makes a mess out of good intentions, but new tools have arrived that collapse the time between what you want and what you get. Now, the rap on intentions is flipped: those who are clearest about their intentions go fastest, while the competition sorts through the mess that time makes.
For the last two technology cycles, I’ve helped software CEOs realize their intentions—to connect with new audiences, build brands and teams, and push for outsized outcomes—and I can help you go faster in this cycle.
The words we use to clarify your intentions will provide durable, accessible, reusable, and actionable direction for your teams:
Your company and your products need to claim space in the minds of busy people awash in a rapidly changing and distracting world, and your teams need to know what you see in them that is different and better
Your team needs to know how to think about and organize their work, while they progress toward the far-flung destination you see for the company
You’ve landed on product-led growth, product-led sales, customer-led growth, buyer-led growth, or some combination of those, and your teams need to know what changes for them, and what stays the same
Your business model appeals to people who have different jobs, from buyers to admins to developers, and your teams need to adjust their work to reach and satisfy them
With the words inside these deliverables in-hand, all kinds of work gets easier and faster—all-hands presentations, team memos, leadership team meetings, office signage, onboarding materials, and board decks. The words we use for these deliverables will even find their way to hard-working bits like recruiting materials and your web site.
You’ve certainly told your teams what you want. However, if your company is struggling with two or more of these issues, your teams probably need a clearer picture of your intentions for the entire company:
Undifferentiated Your company narrative is focused on features instead of your differentiation
Undisciplined Sales materials disagree with marketing materials and your web site
Unnecessary Your customers don’t describe your company as essential
Slowing sales cycles Buyers are taking longer to commit
Islanded Customers don’t know how to integrate your offering with other investments, including AI
Leaky Churn and trial abandonment rates are getting higher
Hard to love Onboarding requires expensive, hands-on customer support
Under pressure, but without clarity around the big picture, teams tend to move inward toward point solutions and away from each other, which is likely not what you want.
When you clarify your intentions, you help your teams go faster, together.
I’ve been fortunate to work with CEOs who saw the need to clarify their intentions, and took it. This work has contributed to all manner of positive outcomes, from happier and more productive teams, to new and disruptive offerings, to exits.
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Ed Boyajian, CEO, EDB (acquired by Bain Capital)
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Mike Miller, Founder, Cloudant (acquired by IBM)
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As we shape your intentions into clear direction, we’ll include key members of your teams, so that your intentions are resistant to organizational antibodies that otherwise fight change, protect the status quo, and slow down organizational progress.
In a world of bottom lines, measurable outcomes, and key results, the word intentions can seem abstract. It certainly doesn’t fit neatly into a chart.