Blog
How to Prepare Your Company for a Major Growth Spurt – Part I
This is Part I in a blog series called "How to Prepare Your Company for a Major Growth Spurt." I recently met with the CEO of a very successful company who told me that he wants his company to be even more successful. And that he is unsatisfied to just keep pace with...
Strategic Planning Myths and How to Deal with Them
How many jokes have you heard, and even made, about strategic planning being a waste of time, and not really working? Yes, it is difficult: statistics say 75% of companies are struggling to do it well. Below is a video from Harvard Business Review exploring 5...
Augmented reality for house plants? Really?
How is this for a complete game changer: house plants are being sold through an Augmented Reality app. Augmented Reality (AR) is quickly becoming more mainstream, especially after the recent introduction of AR functionalities in iPhones. A business owner I spoke to...
What Business Leaders can Learn from the Powerful All Blacks Rugby Team
My beloved Springboks have played against the mighty All Blacks for decades. I can testify to the hurt of those heartbreaking final scores going back to my early childhood. My father forced me to get up in the middle of the night to watch the games with him (there...
Leaders, Shame and Vulnerability
Quoted from Brene Brown's book Daring Greatly (p.15): "My corporate talks almost always focus on inspired leadership or creativity and innovation. The most significant problems that everyone from C-level executives to the front-line folks talk to me about stem from...
Weathering the Storm: 9 Tips for Leading in Tough Times
The three consecutive bands of low pressure areas in the Southern Ocean are called the Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties and Screaming Sixties, depending on where you are on latitude. The winds are incredibly strong, to the point where you can call it angry. The sea a...
Startup Marketing: Tips for Success
Here are some excellent lessons for start-ups and long-established companies. I like the following quotes: "If there's a guerilla in your space, what are you going to do that they can't do? You need to build something meaningfully different when going up against an...
How Blockchain Works
Here is a great summary of how blockchain works and how it may evolve. The video also explains why it will dramatically change how we act and transact. The technology is receiving lots of media attention and venture capital investors. This is driving new applications...
How to Communicate Your Business Vision to Your Employees
How does a leadership group best describe a desired end result to those they lead? And how can they provide team members across the organization with focus and priorities? And do it in such a way that the common purpose is so real you feel you can almost touch it?...
How to Put Out the Fires in Your Business
In the summer of 2016, the news in Vancouver, Canada was saturated with the story of a fire in Delta BC. The fire erupted in an ecologically sensitive area called Burns Bog. For many days, firefighting crews struggled to contain the fire and prevent it from spreading....
Hi, I'm Eben Louw. I'm the founder of Your Preferred Future and I help CEOs, business owners, and leaders achieve new levels of success in their business.