** WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ELEVATING YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL OR PERSONAL PERFORMANCE? LET'S CHAT**In early 2012, I surprised many of my friends, colleagues, and large strategic customers by announcing that I would be leaving my role as Chief Sales Officer for Minnesota-based Taylor Corporation, one of the largest privately-held companies in the U.S. to launch a coaching and consulting practice; CORNERSTONE 3. My career with the Taylor organization had spanned 20+ years and included such roles as President of a $50+ million Company, VP of Leadership, VP of Customer Loyalty, and ultimately Chief Sales Officer. With customer experience as the foundation, CORNERSTONE 3 (C3) supports companies and individual leaders in achieving breakthrough results through improved leadership skills, systems thinking, teamwork, and execution. Since launching 10 years ago, C3 has worked with companies in a variety of industries including Manufacturing, Food Service Equipment, Vehicle Upfitting, Consumer Products, Health Care, Professional Services, Office Products, and more. C3 clients routinely acknowledge how we've helped them improve their leadership practices, achieve greater financial results, and develop the organization systems needed for consistently delivering distinct value to their customers. If you or your sales organization are ready to elevate your sales performance and build value-based customer relationships, I'd love to chat. Regardless of whether we work together, I am confident that our conversation will provide you a fresh perspective and actionable steps that you can implement immediately.

Mindset Matters is a curriculum solutions company that designs and delivers products preparing kids to take positive leadership action in school, at home, and in their communities. Our products also offer graduating high school seniors and college students with the awareness and skills to protect themselves from harm in a variety of real life situations. We use a Navy SEAL-inspired mindset, skills, and knowledge to develop the leaders of tomorrow and prepare young adults to live safely when they move away from home for the first time. You can learn more about Mindset Matters at www.mymindsetmatters.org.

I proudly serve as a back up CEO Peer Group Leader and Faculty Member for the Executive Group Inc. (www.mnexecutivegroup.com). The purpose of the Executive Group is to help business owners dominate their niche market by becoming indispensable to their customers.

In my role as Chief Sales Officer, I focused on supporting many of Taylor's 90+ businesses in fostering strong customer relationships and growing sales. My priorities included overall direct sales execution throughout the organization, ensuring the "voice of the customer" was represented in key decision-making, and working with Taylor business leaders to develop key client relationships and high-performing sales teams.

I worked closely with the HR Team and Leaders throughout Taylor to developed the Taylor Leadership Model, which provided a specific set of leadership characteristics that became foundational for leadership assessment, selection, and development. In this role, I also led the filling of 50+ leadership positions over a 14-month period, helped develop and Introduce the "Leadership Selection Toolbox" to support leaders in effectively filling key leadership positions. We subsequently, launched a leadership development program entitled the Leadership Mirror, which encompassed 60 leaders from throughout the organization. In an effort to create a "grassroots" leadership development effort, I formed the "Building Leadership" Community of Practice with representatives from nearly all Taylor Business Units. As part of this COP, we supported the BUs in creating leadership development programs. In addition, I led the development of corporate leadership metrics for gauging leadership quality and depth, that would prove invaluable in assessing leadership readiness by Business Unit and the organization as a whole thereby leading to more effective Talent-related decisions. This led to the development of a practical framework for effectively discussing leadership readiness/succession during the annual business planning meetings. Business Unit leaders devoted a sizable portion of their business planning meetings to discussing leadership readiness.Lastly, I was charged with the development and execution of the annual Taylor Leadership Conference (G3) which included 125+ senior leaders from across the organization, and involved multi-day learning and development sessions geared toward furthering the Taylor strategy and culture..