Strategy: off the ground, to blue sky and escape velocity…

Strategic retreats should foster focus, brainstorming and unfettered dreaming. Get your team out of their cubicles, off video conferencing and into design-thinking sessions.

The best strategy sessions help you see farther and wider. Strategic exercises should create greater peripheral and long-range vision.

Map your market. Analyze your audience. Study your competition. Find the wrinkles in your marketplace that afford the unique footholds to support an ascension to success.

Make your concept engaging, endearing and easy to pass on. Don’t fall into the trap of a name that’s clever but requires explanation or that infringes on trademarks of others.

In school, 9 of 10 correct answers gets an “A.” In business, it’s an “F” as the one answer you don’t get right is the one that your competition will hammer you on. All winning ideas, all the time.

Start new projects by prioritizing only what needs to happen to prove your point. Push “nice-to-have” features to later phases. In software, this is called called “MVP (Minimum Viable Product).

The bottomline of any business is a number. You’ve heard it on “Shark Tank” over and over: “Know your numbers.” We know numbers as we’re the author and publisher of SumoSum.com, the online financial forecasting software that makes generating budgets and forecasts fast and easy through visual modeling.

Take into account feedback from both inside and outside your organization. This includes seeking feedback from all levels, not just top-tier smarties. Often, the biggest, most iconic ideas come from the most matter-of-fact perspectives.

Our “Top Gun” recommendation for pitch deck formats: Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 rule (10 slides per every 20 minutes, 30 point text or greater).

“Paint pictures with words” to get to the point faster, with greater accuracy, and to light up your audience.

Assume the role of an orchestrator who conducts a team making beautiful music together.