No Smoke and Mirrors

Why Voice of Customer Should Be the First Step in Strategic Planning

Mark Allen Roberts — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 02:37:09 +0000

Most strategic planning processes start with a leadership meeting. The executive team gets together to review financial performance and transaction data, discuss growth opportunities, set goals, and identify priorities for the coming year. Everyone contributes ideas about where the business should go and what it needs to do to grow. The leadership team shares…

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Why Your AI for Sales Investment Isn’t Paying Off — And What to Do About It’t Paying Off — And What to Do About It

Mark Allen Roberts — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 13:58:34 +0000

Every week I hear some version of the same story. A CEO comes back from a conference energized about AI for sales. A sales leader watches a webinar. Someone reads an article about how artificial intelligence is transforming B2B sales. (How AI does what you have wanted your sales team to do for years)…

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Why Your AI for Sales Investment Isn’t Paying Off — And What to Do About It’t Paying Off — And What to Do About Its Not the Same Thing as a Strategy

Mark Allen Roberts — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 13:44:18 +0000

Most quarry owners have a solid handle on operations. Production targets, equipment schedules, maintenance calendars, staffing plans — the machinery of running the business day to day. That operational discipline is real, and it matters. But there’s a question worth asking honestly: do you have a true strategic plan, or a very detailed operating…

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Your Quarry Is Worth More Than You Think — But Only If You Strategically Build It That Way

Mark Allen Roberts — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:31:16 +0000

Most quarry owners, when they think about what their business is worth, think about what’s in the ground. Reserves, equipment, production volume, current revenue. Those things matter, and no serious buyer ignores them. But if you’re building a business with a long-term exit in mind — or simply trying to maximize what you’ve built…

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Flavor of the Month Leadership and the Death of Your Strategic Plan and Profits

Mark Allen Roberts — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 15:13:52 +0000

Entrepreneurs are visionaries. It’s one of the reasons they build successful businesses. They see opportunities before others do. They spot market trends early. They identify customer needs before competitors. They move fast while others hesitate. Ironically, these same strengths are often the reason their strategic plan fails to execute. Many business owners spend weeks…

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Strategic Business Growth: Why Focus Beats Doing More Every Time

Mark Allen Roberts — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 17:26:38 +0000

Strategic Business Growth Is About Focus, Not Doing More. Business Owners are some of the hardest-working people I know. They start early. Stay late. Answer emails at night. Take calls on vacation. And many are carrying the weight of their employees, customers, vendors, and families on their shoulders. Yet despite all that effort, many businesses…

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Strategic Planning for Small Businesses: A Step-by-Step Guide

Mark Allen Roberts — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 16:02:24 +0000

Why Do Most Small Businesses Never Reach Their Potential? From my experience over the last 40 years of helping B2B companies scale, less than 20% of companies have true strategic planning. Every January, business owners gather their leadership teams, review last year’s numbers, discuss goals for the coming year, and leave the meeting feeling…

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Execution: Where Most Strategic Business Plans Fail

Mark Allen Roberts — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 14:56:53 +0000

Most businesses do not fail because they have a bad strategy. They fail because they cannot execute a good one. Every year, leadership teams spend weeks or months developing strategic business plans. They have a 2-3-day off-site meeting and write their plan. They analyze markets, trends, competitors, opportunities, risks, transaction data, financial targets, and…

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The 7 Signs Your Business Needs a Strategic Business Plan

Mark Allen Roberts — Fri, 29 May 2026 15:31:14 +0000

Many businesses operate with goals but no real strategy. As I shared in my post A Goal is Not a Strategic Business Plan, a goal outlines where you want to grow, and a strategic business plan outlines how you plan to get there. Without a written strategic business plan, businesses eventually stall or start…

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A Goal Is Not a Strategic Business Plan: Why Most Businesses Confuse the Two

Mark Allen Roberts — Wed, 27 May 2026 10:17:47 +0000

“We want to grow 20% next year. “That’s a goal. It is not a strategic business plan. Sometimes the leaders show me an Excel spreadsheet with revenue, margin, and net income targets. In some cases, the spreadsheet has tabs for each sales territory and each key customer. This is all good work, but as…

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