Five Tips to Improve Your Leadership Gut Health

photo: Activia Yogurt by Dannon

If you follow @pitchwell on instagram (hint, hint) you know we’re advocates for gut health.

Not the kind boosted by kimchi or Jamie Lee Curtis.

Founder’s Gut Health. Make that Marketer’s Gut Health, too.

We’re talking about that grounded, inner voice that helps keep you on course, whether you’re reading the room in a pitch, making a leap in your business or choosing a marketing direction. And so on. 

The multi-platform, self-hype, trapped-at-home era can confuse our inner voice like never before. 

Here some tips to improve your Founder Gut

Cut all “junk food” comparison

Tracking every post on what competitors, customers, retailers, VCs - whatever - are doing, is counterproductive. Track a few valued sources and mostly stay out of the spaces that spiral you (Linkedin, Twitter, etc.). If someone on your team is constantly forwarding them all, direct them to a single Slack channel and disable your alerts. They’ll be there to skim or search if need be.

Replace opinions with data 

Metrics on customer behavior, quantifying feedback, macro trends from quality sources - good. A Zoom coffee with someone outside your category - less good. Instead….

Cultivate quality mentors in key functional areas.

Especially where you are weakest.

Focus your full attention when you get feedback on your pitch from true customers or prospects:

Write it down. Later evaluate the input, item by item. Don’t just react or move on.

- Schedule time to think about your biz in an open-ended way for least 30 minutes a week.

I recommend setting a topic, then doing something physical (a walk, a workout, straightening up). Let your brain work it out before you sit down to reflect. m