In today’s volatile economic times, proactive pricing strategies are a crucial lever for CEOs of small and midsize businesses to achieve their business goals. The latest Vistage CEO Confidence Index survey revealed that 44% of CEOs have raised prices since the beginning of the year. Additionally, nearly 7 in 10 (69%) CEOs expect to be negatively impacted by changing tariff and trade policies, and as a result, over half (51%) plan to increase their prices in the next three months.
In light of these challenges, we asked Kirk Jackisch, president of Iris Pricing Solutions and a Vistage speaker, to share his insights into managing pricing amid inflation, tariffs and stagflation. His expertise provides a roadmap for CEOs to navigate these complexities effectively.
Proactive pricing strategies are a best practice emphasized by Jackisch, even in times of low inflation. But in today’s highly volatile environment with lots of uncertainty, it is even more important to have a “Pricing Playbook” that ensures the business stays ahead of rising costs, which can include labor, benefits, tariffs, foreign exchange and other operational expenses.
Outside of tariffs, the current situation is compounded by weakening demand, resulting in many companies experiencing “stagflation,” where demand decreases while costs continue to rise. This presents a unique challenge, Jackisch notes, “with the demand falling, business leaders get very nervous.” This scenario necessitates a nuanced approach to pricing, striking a balance between maintaining margins and adapting to a shifting market.
Introducing aggressive pricing strategies to maintain volume can result in competitors responding in kind, increasing the possibility of a protracted term price war. It is best to watch your market share if it is holding, then aggressive pricing actions should not be considered, Jackisch says, except in response to a competitor’s pricing actions.
Creating a plan is crucial for CEOs in uncertain times. Jackisch explains, “We call them playbooks, pricing playbooks, but it is really scenario planning.” These playbooks allow businesses to plan for possible cost, share and volume scenarios, planning on how they will adjust their pricing strategies in each situation accordingly.
In the current environment, understanding the net impact of tariffs and other cost changes enables companies to make informed decisions about pricing, in addition to other factors such as production locations and supply chain adjustments.
Each lever offers a different approach to managing pricing in response to cost changes. Most companies are using a combination of these levers.
Differentiation remains a key factor in developing pricing strategies. Jackisch advises CEOs to identify areas where their products or services have unique value. “If I’m differentiated, I can take bigger increases,” he explains, “without putting volume at risk.” This approach allows businesses to leverage their unique offerings to justify price adjustments and take smaller increases where the situation is more competitive
Jackisch warns against the temptation to discount to maintain volume, especially when market share is holding (or maybe even increasing). “If you promote through discounts to increase volume, you are increasing the risk of starting a price war, which is inherently difficult to recover from,” he cautions. Instead, CEOs should focus on monitoring their market share as a proxy for whether there is a pricing issue that needs to be addressed through a pricing action.
1. Develop a pricing playbook: Start scenario planning now to prepare for potential cost changes. This proactive approach will enable quick decision-making when market conditions shift.
2. Focus on differentiation: Identify and capitalize on areas where your business offers unique value. This differentiation can provide the pricing power needed to navigate challenging economic conditions.
3. Avoid price wars: Maintain market share without resorting to price cuts. Focus on value and differentiation to sustain profitability.
4. Monitor costs and adjust accordingly: Regularly review cost structures and adjust pricing strategies to reflect market changes.
By implementing these pricing strategies, CEOs of small and midsize businesses can effectively optimize their businesses during these uncertain times. As Jackisch emphasizes, “Get started yesterday.” Proactive planning and strategic pricing will position small and midsize businesses for success in today’s dynamic economic environment.
The CEO Pulse: Tariffs Resource Center
Handling tariff turbulence: Strategies for stability amid uncertainty
Sports Reference President Sean Forman joins the podcast to share how he turned a lifelong love of statistics into a business that fuels data and information for the world’s top sports leagues. Sean also takes Vistage CEO Sam Reese through his pivotal decisions to stay out of the sports betting market but double down on the Immaculate Grid acquisition that changed the game for the business.
➤ Forman’s “democratize sports data” mission gave his company clarity and direction.
→ Action: Revisit your company’s purpose. Is it clear, compelling, and lived out in daily decisions—or is it just a tagline? A well-defined mission builds internal alignment and external trust.
➤ Sports Reference’s growth came from continuously adding new features that customers requested, delivering long-term user value.
→ Action: Identify simple features, services, or processes you can automate or scale to deliver exponential value over time.
➤ Because of backend prep and team alignment, Forman could act quickly when the Immaculate Grid opportunity appeared.
→ Action: Assess whether your systems, processes, and people are primed to act when opportunity knocks. Speed often rewards the prepared.
➤ Generosity with education created alumni who now work in MLB and the NBA, extending Sports Reference’s influence.
→ Action: Design talent development with a mindset of abundance. Great cultures invest in people knowing that some of your best may outgrow you — and that’s okay.
➤ Forman actively encourages his executive team to challenge assumptions, believing that real commitment only follows honest debate.
→ Action: Normalize healthy conflict. Before your next strategy session, set the expectation that disagreement is a strength, not a threat.
Reflect: Are there any revenue streams we’ve accepted that might be eroding our brand, values or customer trust?
Sean Forman: We went from having like 4 million page views a day to 10 million page views a day, and it was just kind of a mind-boggling growth curve for us. And so, there were reports that the Yankees were playing it on the team bus, and the Minnesota Vikings quarterbacks were playing it after their quarterback meetings, and Fenway Park, they put it up on the jumbotron during a rain delay and stuff, and so-
Sam Reese: Oh, wow. Wow, that’s terrific.
Sean Forman: Just all these people were playing it on air during broadcasts and stuff, so it just really caught on. I’ll be very fortunate if we ever have a deal that goes as well as that one does again. It was phenomenal for us.
Sam Reese: Welcome everyone to another episode of A Life of Climb podcast. I’m your host, Sam Reese. With me today is Sean Forman, President of Sports Reference. Sean, thanks for joining us on the podcast.
Sean Forman: Sam, thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Sam Reese: I just want to start with your business just because it’s so cool, and I’m a huge sports fan. All of us have watched games or read articles, it’s filled with all these amazing stats, but I don’t think many of us think about where these stats come from. So the answer is your company. Tell me a little bit more about Sports Reference. Tell us a little bit about the business.
Sean Forman: We’re really just all about sports data. We run a series of seven sites, we call them the reference sites, Baseball Reference, Basketball Reference, Hockey Reference. I basically started out in 2000 and took data that was in the Baseball Encyclopedia and put it online as Baseball Reference in February of 2000. And it started just all the complete player stats, all the complete team stats, league stats, leaderboards, all that kind of stuff, and from there we’ve expanded dramatically. We also have every box score for every game back to 1901, excluding Negro League games. We have every NFL box score for every game ever played, every NBA box score, every NHL box score. We have a very complete record now of all these sports, and we’ve expanded into college sports, we’ve expanded into soccer.
Sean Forman: And so those are kind of the bones of the site. We’ve added a number of other things along the way. We have a game, Immaculate Grid, which hopefully some of the viewers like to play every day.
Sam Reese: I’ll ask you about that in a little while.
Sean Forman: Yes. And then we have a subscription product which is kind of allows you to get inside of our database and query. That’s been the basis of the business for the last 25 years, and we’ve been fortunate that there are a lot of sports fans out there who want to think about these things, answer these questions, and luckily they found us along the way.
Sam Reese: What a great passion that is. So data and numbers, those definitely have been your passion. And you got your Ph.D., and was your Ph.D. at University of Iowa?
Sean Forman: Yes, it was.
Sam Reese: You started as a math professor, and what made you take this leap and tie those analytical skills to sports? How’d you get here?
Sean Forman: I mean, to be honest with you, it was something that had been happening all along the way. My dad was a high school football coach, and every Friday night he’d bring the stat book home, and I was a fifth grader who was compiling the stats for him and helping add up how many rushing yards people had and things like that. Junior high, kept the tackle chart. In high school I played football, but I also was the sports reporter for the local newspaper. I grew up in a very small town in western Iowa, and so I did that as a job. And so it’s always something that’s been percolating in the background.
The ignition event for me was I was very into fantasy baseball and was in several leagues, I’d have to drive to Chicago for a draft. I had these very complicated, large spreadsheets that I had printed out and used and stuff. And so I started writing about minor league prospects and trying to predict who the best ones are, and that led to me writing for a book called The Big Bad Baseball Annual, and I thought, how could we promote this book? How could we get more sales on the book? And so I thought this idea of taking a sports encyclopedia, putting it online, would draw in a lot of users, sell a lot of books.
And it quickly, I launched it, like I said, in February of 2000, and within a couple months it was clear that this was kind of its own thing. And so we moved it, I got the name Baseball Reference, moved it off into that domain and kind of started it as its own thing there. So for the first six years I was doing it part-time, I was in graduate school at this time, started at Saint Joe’s here in Philly in fall of 2000. And so for six years I was doing this on the side. I probably could have stopped earlier, but I wanted to get… I felt like if this fails, if I do this before I get tenure, there’s no way I’m going to get a job coming back as a professor. And so I actually kind of stuck it out through the tenure process, got tenure, then took a leave, and then decided I was going to do the site full-time, and never looked back. So it’s been a very slow burn to kind of get to where we are at this point.
Sam Reese: One of the things I read about you, and maybe you could just add a little color to it, one of the passions that got you there is this goal that you called it democratizing data.
Sean Forman: Right.
Sam Reese: Tell me what you meant by that.
Sean Forman: We try to be very intentional about our purpose as a company. And our purpose is we democratize sports data so that our users enjoy, understand, and can share the sports they love.
For us, data democratization really has two major prongs. One is just making the data easy to use. There are tools on our site where you can download the tables you see into Excel, where you can in some cases purchase large data sets. I’d say every intern we’ve hired probably has demoed a project where they scraped site data from our site and used it in a class report or something like that. We don’t look down on that, we don’t discourage that. As long as you’re not impacting the performance of our site, we’re okay with that.
And so it’s really about making that data available so that everyone can have an opportunity to study it, to share it, and to enjoy it. The second piece of that is we really seek out data that for sports and for athletes that have been under-covered. We are the only site to have the complete history of women’s college basketball at the NCAA level. So back to ’82, ’83, when the NCAA finally recognized women’s basketball should be an NCAA sport, we have complete stats, season stats for all of the players who played in division one from that year to the present.
Sam Reese: Terrific.
Sean Forman: We have complete box scores for every women’s tourney basketball game as well back to ’82 to ’83. And so that’s an important thing to us. We’ve had full WNBA stats for over 10 years now. In 2020, there was a move to recognize the Negro Leagues as major leagues, several of the Negro Leagues as major leagues, and so we worked very hard on that. Within about six months, we got that up on the site, integrated those stats into the white major leagues of the time, and so now we’re showing Josh Gibson and Oscar Charleston alongside Stan Musial, and Whitey Ford, and players like that. So those are the types of things that we like to do.
Sam Reese: One of the things that we were talking about here internally that we’re fascinated is about the way you assign value to something like a sports statistic, and especially in those early days starting the company, and what did you learn about establishing yourself in the market and find a way to price and sell the service effectively? That’s what I think seems so hard is you see this incredible brain that knows how to put data together, but then to turn into a business, how did you figure all that out, and what’d you learn?
Sean Forman: I wish there was some master plan, but it’s really just kind of coming up against an obstacle and trying to overcome it at each step. So we are largely advertising supported, so it’s not like we don’t have a lot of pricing power over the people who come to our site and advertise. And a lot of it’s programmatic at this point, so we may not even know who the people are. So for us it’s really about demand generation, and so getting as many people onto the site.
And so a little bit of it was we moved very early, and so Google was very good to us, and we became very ingrained in our SEO, and did really well in terms of driving audience that way. But also even from the start, and we still do this, we answer every user email we get. So I think we’re very in tune with what our users are looking for and what our users want in the site, and it allows us to perhaps be a little more responsive.
I know early on when I was doing, when I was working on the site, I was doing a lot of the programming. We were a very small team at that point, 3, 4, 5 people. And so I was answering user emails as well. And so very often something would come in, I’m like, “Oh, that’s a great idea, we should just do that,” and then spend the afternoon on it and get something out there, kind of iterate on it a couple times.
And so that feature that we built in 2005 now has continuing value for us through 2025, and so I kind of view each of those features as kind of an annuity that’s paying off over time. And we’re making this upfront investment, but that feature as users come to it, it’s automated so it updates every day.
So it’s been kind of how I view the business as we’re kind of building all these little mini features and they accrue value over time, and are paying us off over the long haul. So far it’s worked, and we’re hoping to continue that model, and doing subscription features as well and things like that.
Sam Reese: Is there anything you would’ve done really differently or advice you might give another leader about bringing a new product to market that were lessons that you learned?
Sean Forman: It took me a long time to become confident in my decision-making abilities, and that the things that I was thinking we should do are worth doing. And I think that’s been the biggest benefit to me of Vistage and working with Vipon Kumar, the leader of our group, and just having somebody who holds me accountable for what I’ve planning to do, and having somebody who reinforces my intuition about how we should approach things has been really helpful. And I think that’s why we’ve gone from in 2019 we had 11 employees and now we have 43, and it’s really because of growing confidence and growing capabilities in that regard.
Sam Reese: So moving forward, in your timeline, one of your tenants, leadership tenants is, it says “Generosity to others.” And tell us a little bit about how that creates value for you in return as a leader.
Sean Forman: A little hard to put into words. I feel like the more generous we are with the users, the better long-term success we have. There are different places where I know that we’ve left money on the table, maybe we don’t have as many ad units as we could have on our page, or maybe there were partners, civic partners we could work with. But in terms of treating the users well, I always feel like that over the long term it’s going to pay off for us.
And there’s that, but I also think investing in our employees is part of that as well. We have a very generous continuing education benefit, and some people have used them for, one of our employees just finished a Masters of Fine Arts, he’s writing a novel.
Sam Reese: Wow.
Sean Forman: And I would be sad if he left the company, but if he becomes a famous novelist, I think that would accrue to our benefit going forward, and that would be a feather in our cap. And we also have a very, very elaborate internship program as well. We bring in industry experts, often former interns to come and speak to them over the summer, three, four times a year. It’s short term, it’s a cost, it also takes some time for us to manage that program, find things for them to do, things like that. But we’ve also hired three very excellent full-time employees out of that program as well. And so they’ve become long-term members.
We have former employees who are working for the Oklahoma City Thunder. We have one who’s becoming an assistant pitching coach for the Toronto Blue Jays this year, we have another who’s an assistant GM for the New York Mets, might be GM someday. So all those things I think accrue to our benefit over the long term, and I also think is something that we as a company take a lot of pride in.
Sam Reese: You made a big decision a few years ago to not get involved with legalized sports gambling, and this is just such a huge growing industry that I’m sure probably offered some pretty big immediate financial opportunities. So walk us through how you made that decision here, because it had to be tempting.
Sean Forman: We certainly considered it pretty strongly. We actually hired a banker to kind of go into the market and see what kind of opportunities might accrue to us if we did. This happened, I think 2019 is when PASPA maybe was ruled invalid by the Supreme Court. And so that kind of opened this tidal wave of legalized sports betting state by state in the United States. And so obviously we have users on our site who are coming because they want to get information for doing sports betting. We have users who love sports and would be prime targets for sports betting as well.
Sam Reese: Yeah.
Sean Forman: And so as we were going through this, I think we kind of had this feeling, oh, we’ll just kind of put the gambling stuff over there and then it won’t really spoil what we’re doing fully, and kind of became clear that we weren’t being serious in how we were engaging this. And so I kind of brought it to the team. If we do this, the expectation is that we’re going to put gambling everywhere, and that they’re going to have to… It’s going to be in your face, because they’re going to want a return on their investment that if they’re putting half a million dollars or something like that into the site over a year, they want get that return back.
And as we are looking at the revenue models and things like that, kind of what we landed upon is we didn’t want to win if our users were losing. And that’s really what it felt like because a lot of these deals involved us getting a cut of whatever your losses would be if you sign up through our site.
Sam Reese: I see.
Sean Forman: We’re not opposed to sports betting. I do a little bit of sports betting just for fun, but we’ll allow you to advertise your sports book on our site, we just don’t want to do any of these revenue share deals where we’re winning because you’re losing hundreds of dollars or thousands of dollars every other month. We set a decision, that’s what we’re going to do. We’ve stuck to it since then.
I think Ben Thompson talks a little bit about a strategy credit where maybe a decision you’re going to make anyway has some strategy value, and to us, I think the industry right now is just so inundated with gambling messaging, that we’re a little bit of an oasis in that way, and I think a little bit of a safe space for people who want to avoid gambling messaging. And so hopefully that’s been to our benefit. I certainly don’t feel like it’s hurt us financially. Maybe we’ve forgone some marginal revenue. We’re still doing well and still happy with where we’re at.
Sam Reese: Tell me about this other decision we mentioned a minute ago, but this decision that you made, the acquisition of that viral baseball game called Immaculate Grid, which has sort of been described as, I love the Wordle of baseball. How did you spot that opportunity? And it seems like a big shift, tell me how that all came together and how that’s helped your business, because you’ve got like 20 million people coming to your site now.
Sean Forman: So Immaculate Grid, it’s a 3X3 game, basic premise is across the top there’s a category, down the sides there are categories, and then you find a player that matches the two categories. So maybe it’s New York Yankees, 30 home runs, so maybe you put Aaron Judge in there. Or maybe it’s Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, and then you put Mike Stanley in there or somebody else. So this is one of those things where having this stage as a resource has really helped me, because I’m not sure we would’ve jumped on it as quickly as we had if I didn’t have that group to bounce things off of. But this was 2023, and the game launched, another gentleman, Brian Minter created it, and that game launched in April of 2023.
And I started noticing our baseball traffic numbers are actually rising substantially over what they were last year. So maybe we’re like 10, 15, 20%, which was kind of unexplained, because people were talking about baseball being kind of down a little bit in popularity and stuff, and pace of play, and the game, and stuff like that. And I think that had, when they just started doing the pace of play stuff. Well, I thought, maybe pace of play is fixed and people are back to baseball now.
Started doing more research and it became pretty apparent pretty quickly that what was happening is people were either cheating playing the game, coming to our site, or they were checking their answers afterwards and looking for other solutions to the game. And so it became very obvious very quickly that there was kind of this synergy between the game and our site, and that they were really kind of feeding off each other, and that there was an opportunity there.
So he had only launched it for baseball. We also had basketball, football, hockey, soccer. And so we really saw an opportunity there to take his game, it would work exactly the same for these other sports, and we’d always seen the opportunity there being a platform for all these sorts of things across all of the sports. And so we had done a lot of work to standardize things across the sports already. And so it really plugged in almost seamlessly. And to be honest, he actually approached us first, because I think he saw the opportunity as well. Part of the, like I said, having a good reputation is with your users, opens up some of these opportunities as well.
So I actually had a Vistage meeting maybe the day after he reached out to me. I prepared something quick, talked it over with Vipon, presented it to the team, and they’re like, “What are you waiting for? Why haven’t you jumped on this?” And I had an executive team meeting and everybody kind of reaffirmed that decision, and so quickly negotiated a deal with him. And I think it took us maybe two weeks from initial discussion to signing the deal, and then another week to get everything done for the baseball site, moving it over to our infrastructure, using our images, stuff like that, our logos. Thanks to all this standardization we had already done, it took us literally four weeks to get it out on basketball, football, hockey.
Sam Reese: Wow.
Sean Forman: And we went from having 4 million page views a day to 10 million page views a day, and it was just kind of a mind-boggling growth curve for us. And so there were reports of the Yankees were playing it on the team bus, and the Minnesota Vikings quarterbacks were playing it after their quarterback meetings, and Fenway Park, they put it up on the jumbotron during a rain delay and stuff.
Sam Reese: Wow, that’s terrific.
Sean Forman: And so yeah, just all these people were playing it on air during broadcasts and stuff, so it just really caught on. You know we’re… Branch Rickey I think, “Luck is the residue of design,” but we were fortunate to be in a position to do that. It kind of pulled on a number of things that we had been doing already, kind of planning for the standardization. I’ll be very fortunate if we ever have a deal that goes as well as that one does again, but it was phenomenal for us.
Sam Reese: Well, I can’t imagine you’ll, you’ll ever forget having at Fenway Park showing up on the board.
Sean Forman: Right.
Sam Reese: I mean, that’s something you dream about. What an incredible milestone for your business here.
Sean Forman: Right. Yeah, yeah.
Sam Reese: Well, I don’t usually do this, but I wanted to read a line from this Vistage Leadership Award nomination, because I think it just says a lot about you, and this is a quote from one of your employees talking about how you handled that acquisition. Says, “A good leader would have considered all the potential implications and effectively communicated why the path they had decided was the best path forward. A great leader welcomes the challenge to their assumptions.” So they talked about you. So where did that come from for you that you were open to those challenges, and wanting your people to question you on the assumptions?
Sean Forman: One of the management gurus that I really like is Patrick Lencioni, and he really talks about fostering a executive team situation where everybody’s free to say what they want, and they can be direct, and they can really surface their disagreement. Before our executive team retreats, before our strategy meetings, things like that, I tell our team, “Disagreement is good, don’t hold it in. If you disagree with what’s happening, you need to say so, because otherwise you’re not going to commit to the path forward.”
I try to really foster that, I try to draw that out, use some of the examples he has in his books about pointing out when good disagreement is happening in meetings to encourage more of it. And so, that’s something that I’ve actually had to work on. And I’m a bit of a conflict-averse person myself, and so been working really hard on more direct communication, thinking really about why am I feeling unsettled about this, and actually voicing it, and elaborating on it. So it’s taken work to get to that point.
Sam Reese: Well, you’re following a superstar. He’s a great friend to Vistage, and Lencioni’s just done a ton of work with us, and I think it’s like the standard book all leaders need to read is The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.
Sean Forman: Right.
Sam Reese: It all starts with trust. If you don’t have trust, then you’ll never entrust. You have to have those difficult conversations here. I know as I was listening to you, I know early on my days as a CEO, I definitely had some imposter syndrome. Has that ever crossed your desk as well?
Sean Forman: Of course.
Sam Reese: It does? Yeah.
Sean Forman: Absolutely. Yeah.
Sam Reese: Where does it come from from you? I want to… What is-
Sean Forman: I mean, I don’t have an MBA, I did not go to school for business at all. My parents, my dad was a teacher, my mom was a medical records administrator, so it’s not like I grew up working in a business, so it’s probably that lack of experience.
Even after I had been teaching for a number of years, I would still have nightmares the week before classes started that I had forgotten where the classroom was, and all that stuff. And I was speaking to my dad and he had taught high school for 30+ years and he said, “Oh yeah, I still got those, even after teaching for 30 years.” So I think it’s a natural thing. And I think if you’re… The people who don’t have the imposter syndrome are kind of the ones I worry about a little bit. I think having a little bit of that humility and feeling like you don’t have it all figured out can often be a good thing.
Sam Reese: I want to ask you about your experience with Vistage, you told a great story about how you found sharing some of those challenges with your group, both getting advice. It was interesting, I remember I had a similar situation on acquisition almost 20 years ago and everybody said, “Why do you not already own that company?” Can you just talk through a little bit more about the value you feel from the interaction of your specific group, just how that supports you as a leader?
Sean Forman: Yeah. I mean, I’ve been in the group now five years. I actually got my five-year little trophy yesterday, so-
Sam Reese: Congratulations.
Sean Forman: … thank you for that. So yeah, there were a group of about five of us who have been there for five years. So being the leader is sometimes a lonely job, and so having other people who are going through similar situations to you, or seeing other people have to deal with issues not necessarily of their own causing that are more significant than the ones I have to, also kind of puts my problems in perspective, and makes me feel like I can certainly manage this if they’re able to manage that. And also just getting people who will check in on me if something has been difficult or something like that, it’s really been helpful.
Sam Reese: Before I ask you about other advice you might give other leaders here, what’s the sport you’re most excited about? Because you’re a guy that digs into the numbers here. Is it baseball? What’s the one that you just get geeked out on?
Sean Forman: So historically it’s baseball. I grew up a huge baseball fan, played baseball, fantasy baseball. Kind of walked away a little bit from my baseball fandom. I still go to a number of games, still watch a few games. I’m really into soccer now, so I’ll be watching the US men’s national team tonight, I’ve been to a number of their matches, I’ve been to Europe several times to watch matches.
So I think for me it’s kind of the new thing, and it’s such a rich world, and there’s so much kind of cultural aspects to it, tied into it. So I really… And we launched our soccer site I think seven years ago now, so I really felt I had to immerse myself in it before I could create a site for it. And so that was probably a five to six-year process, because it was one of those cases where I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and I didn’t know a lot, and so took me a number of years to figure out how the soccer world worked, and what the stats looked like, and things like that. But I’ve really come to enjoy it, really come to love it, and I watch quite a bit of soccer now at this point.
Sam Reese: I’ll ask you one other question. Any other advice you’d have for other leaders out there that you’ve learned in your journey that might be helpful to them?
Sean Forman: I mean, for me it’s really just been a lifelong learning about it. There’s so much free information out there. There’s information, it’s not free, but I mean information that Vistage provides as part of your membership that I’ve gotten a lot out of, that you mentioned some of the speakers, and things like that. But also things on blogs, the newsletters, Harvard Business Review subscriptions. I mean, so many books, I’ve read probably hundreds of business books. And you mentioned Patrick, I think I own at least eight of his books, I’ve probably read them like 27 times if I count them all up. For me, it’s just that continuing to learn and continuing, as a new problem comes up, a new opportunity comes up, for me it’s really about reading, and learning, and thinking about how to approach that.
Sam Reese: Well, I’d say that’s definitely better than an MBA. That is much better than an MBA. So I think you’ve was surpassed it with your success, and staying with continuing learning, and plus you’re reading the right, those are the big names in it. But what a pleasure, Sean, spending time with you. What an incredible story. It’s so easy to see, just spending a few minutes with you, how passionate you are about what you do, and how important it is for you to lead a great company. I have to thank you for being a Vistage member, because that’s just what makes our company great is being able to serve people like you.
Sean Forman: Well, thank you Sam for having me, it’s been a pleasure.
Sam Reese: Thanks for joining us for this edition of A Life of Climb podcast. Friendly reminder to please subscribe or follow the podcast to get all the latest episodes. And please visit vistage.com/podcast for more resources to support you on your leadership journey.
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Dan Polsky
Managing Director, Equity Capital Markets
Daniel Polsky is a managing director for William Blair based in the firm’s New York office. He joined William Blair’s investment banking team in 2021. Prior to William Blair, he worked for Lehman Brothers, Barclays Capital and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Eugene Kim
Managing Director, M&A
Eugene Kim is a managing director in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group at William Blair, based in the firm’s New York office. He is a member of William Blair’s M&A leadership team and serves on the firm’s fairness opinion committee. Prior to joining William Blair in 2017, Eugene spent 11 years in the M&A group at UBS, where he advised clients across a variety of sectors and geographies.
Darren Bank
Managing Director, Leveraged Finance
Darren Bank is a managing director for William Blair, based in the firm’s Chicago office. He joined William Blair’s investment banking team in 2016. Prior to William Blair, he worked for Macquarie Capital and CDW Corporation.
Effective communication is the foundation of strong leadership, successful teams and organizational achievement. When individuals communicate well, companies thrive. And executive presence can provide the powerful communication skills you’ll need to foster meaningful connections.
But what is executive presence? Well, you know it when you see it — or rather when you feel it.
Say someone walks into the room — or logs into the virtual meeting — and something shifts. They don’t have to say a word, yet you and others lean in, feeling invited, connected and engaged.
That “something” is executive presence. It’s not how they look; it’s the energy they invite and create.
And yes, it can be developed. On purpose. Authentically. And it is different than being the loudest, smoothest or most charismatic person in the room. Could it be that person? Sure. But it could also be the quiet and awkward person. What’s important is that they openly connect and truly “see” you.
The trouble is that executive presence is often treated like this mysterious, elite quality you either have or don’t. People toss the term around in leadership conversations and employee assessments: “Do they have leadership potential? Do they have executive presence?” It’s become a “yes, they have it” or “no, they don’t” checkbox on a 360 evaluation
But ask five people to define it, and you’ll get five different answers. For some, it’s about confidence. For others, polish. For some, it’s charisma. And for too many, it’s reduced to how you “look the part.”
Here’s our ARTiculate: Real&Clear perspective on executive presence:
Executive presence isn’t something you put on. It’s how you connect to others.
Executive presence is not a performance; it’s a practice. And, like any solid practice, it starts with awareness.
And underneath all of that? It’s about relationships.
Executive presence isn’t just about how you show up — it’s about you seeing others. It is reciprocal. It’s the link between you and the people you lead, listen to and build with. It’s the bridge. The connection. The invitation to trust. To open up to others and be available.
The usual suspects — eye contact, posture, vocal tone, attire — don’t define executive presence. They’re the tools, the ingredients. The various communication elements support the connection when used intentionally to value and engage with others.
Because here’s the truth: Executive presence without connection isn’t presence. It’s performance. And when it comes to leadership, especially within high-trust, high-accountability spaces, we need to acknowledge the need to go deeper. We need executive presence with purpose. That allows you to connect and be in a relationship with others, whether it’s your team, your clients or your board.
When working with leaders, we all see this: brilliant thinkers, skilled communicators and seasoned executives who feel a gap between who they are and how they’re perceived. Maybe their voice gets tight in the boardroom. Maybe they ramble when they care too much. Maybe they’re told they need to “command the room” but aren’t sure how to do that without pretending to be someone they’re not.
That’s where being authentic comes in. Executive presence is the alignment of voice, body, mind, and values. When you’re clear on what you stand for — and when your words, tone and body all agree — you can show up, see others and be present. That’s when people trust you, follow you and want to hear more.
This isn’t about learning to sound like someone else. It’s about sounding like you. Remove the accumulated gunk and allow yourself to be clear and present.
Here’s what executive presence can look like:
In today’s workplace, executive presence isn’t a luxury — it’s an anchor.
Leaders are stretched thin. Communication is more complex. Trust can feel fragile. With hybrid teams, back-to-back meetings, and ever-shifting expectations, the ability to show up as grounded, aligned, and authentic isn’t just nice to have — it’s necessary.
So, if you’ve ever been told to “own the room” and aren’t sure what that means, you’re not alone.
If you’ve ever left a meeting wondering if you showed up as yourself, don’t worry — that’s just part of your journey of self-discovery and growth.
Embracing your authentic executive presence takes time and practice. With the right mindset, you can learn to show up in a way that truly reflects who you are.
Remember, it’s not just about commanding attention; it’s about connection. It’s about being genuine.
Want to learn more? Then check out Hilary’s discussion, Activate Your Executive Presence: The Power of Authentic Communication. The discussion includes a Q&A session with Vistage Master Chair David Spann.
3 priorities you need to be a high-performing leader
Since COVID-19, many previously office-based workers have either been fully home-based or split their time between the office and remote work.
Could this be set to change?
The results of our Q1 2025 Vistage CEO Confidence Index reveal that 34% of SME business leaders advocate the return of their workers to the office five days a week to reinforce team dynamics. 21% believe that this move would increase collaboration and productivity, while 34% state that it would boost team cohesion and company culture.
With CEO confidence and predictions for the UK’s economic conditions both declining, the full report (downloadable here) suggests that talent acquisition and management are the focus for many SMEs this quarter.
Challenging times ahead
Since Q2 2024, our CEO Confidence Index has revealed a consistent decline in overall economic confidence amongst CEO leaders. This decline continued in Q1, dropping from 91.4 to 87.5 in the last quarter.
53% believe that the UK’s overall economic conditions have worsened in the last year – a 9% increase since Q4 2024. Similarly, while 35% of our Q4 2024 respondents believed that the UK’s economic conditions would worsen over the coming 12 months, this percentage has jumped to 41% in 2025.
With the Chancellor’s Spring Budget featuring announcements likely to impact consumer spending – and little support for SMEs – these sentiments are, perhaps, unsurprising. Despite this, however, SME leaders are demonstrating resilience and tenacity in terms of their own business prospects.
Glimmers of hope
Despite declines in current and future confidence, over half of our respondents still expect their firms’ revenue to increase over the coming 12 months. This figure stands at 56% – similar to the 57% seen in Q4 2024 – and while this percentage has been falling since Q1 2024, our survey reveals other signs of optimism.
38% expect their businesses’ profitability to grow over the next year – up from 34% in Q4 – with just 23% (down from 31%) expecting it to fall. A further 38%, however, believe profitability will remain the same, suggesting that there is still an element of caution and uncertainty for the year ahead.
Despite this uncertainty, SME leaders are unlikely to reduce head counts. Just 18% say their total employee numbers will decrease in the next year (no change from Q4’s figure). However, while 46% stated in Q4 that their head count would rise, this figure has dropped to just 31% in Q1 2025.
Investing in innovation
The Spring Statement may have featured further budget cuts, resulting in further challenges for small businesses. Despite these challenges, though, many SMEs are continuing to invest in their future success.
The majority of SMEs are now embracing AI to improve business efficiency, with 70% of CEOs now actively engaging with AI-based tools.
With the use of new technologies comes the need for additional training and policies. 50% of SME business leaders state that they have invested in training sessions to enable their team to integrate AI into their business operations, while 46% have created AI policies to provide clear and responsible guidelines for its use in the workplace.
What lies ahead for the UK’s SMEs?
There’s no denying that the current UK landscape is challenging for many SMEs – and challenging in a variety of ways. The Spring Statement, the uncertainty over Trump’s tariffs, potential decreases in consumer spending and more are all contributing to fears about what the future could bring.
However, despite these fears, SMEs continue to be positive about their own business prospects, and to invest in both talent and technology. As Rebecca Drew, Managing Director, Vistage International, says, “The ability to adapt, invest in the right areas, and make bold decisions will be what ultimately separates the thriving businesses from those that struggle in the coming months”.
Will you be one of those businesses that thrives?
Download our Q1 2025 Vistage CEO Confidence Index here.
After studying marketing at university, Luke Quilter took time off to travel before landing a role at Holiday Extras. “I quite fortunately fell into a role where I was dealing with around £5m of advertising budget in the very early days of the paid advertising space”, he recalls. “The problem was, we were working with agencies who were never very good at combining the mix of customer service and technical capabilities you need to deliver good digital marketing.”
Luke set up Sleeping Giant Media to do just that: running paid search campaigns in the evenings and at weekends until he and his business partner took the leap to do it full time in the summer of 2009.
Since then, Sleeping Giant Media has grown to become a company that hires around 70 people and turns over about £4m a year. “While it started as paid search, we quickly added other strings to our bow”, he says. Luke’s business offers paid search, SEO, data analytics and content – which includes thought leadership.
Thought leadership is the subject of Luke’s April 30th Vistage webinar. We caught up with him to find out what attendees can expect on the day.
The information gap
In a typical B2B purchasing decision, 83% of a buyer’s research has already happened before they walk through the door. “If you’re not educating people, if you’re not showing them your expertise via thought leadership before they come to your site, you’ll be losing out to your competitors who are”, stresses Luke. “Buyers today want to be educated. They want to know what they’re doing so they’re not so vulnerable when they walk through that door. This is where thought leadership is important: it’s a chance for you to talk about the expertise that your business delivers”.
Some are starting to embrace this opportunity, but are using shortcuts to do so. “AI is a large part of our world right now, particularly within marketing and content marketing”, explains Luke. “We’re seeing some businesses using AI to create content – but the downside is that the search algorithms don’t really benefit from fully AI-generated content because it’s not a unique story.”
This, he says, creates a situation where the internet is full of homogeneous information. “Thought leadership is different”, he continues. “It’s about bringing in that unique story, that unique value, that expertise, authority and trust that set you apart – and that AI can’t fulfil.”
Maximum content, minimum time
If you’re thinking, “I’d love to create more thought leadership pieces, but I don’t have the time”, you’re not alone. “Time is one of the biggest constraints when it comes to thought leadership”, confirms Luke, “but in my webinar, I introduce the concept of content pyramids.”
“CEOs and business leaders are busy people”, he continues. “Our focus is on prioritising thought leadership, but doing so whereby setting aside a single hour can create multiple pieces of content.”
Luke explains how they can spend 15 minutes filming an interview with an expert in their studio. “We’ll then transcribe that content to create a blog post”, he says. “We can turn it into some GIFs. We can turn it into some photos. From that one piece of video, we can create over 100 pieces of content. And when we approach it that way, it removes the daunting feeling that many leaders get when faced with the prospect of creating content.”
Avoiding imposter syndrome
Time is not the only challenge that business leaders face when developing thought leadership content. “Coming up with ideas in the first place is often a struggle”, says Luke, “but ideation is one area where AI can actually be a good solution.”
Imposter syndrome is another challenge. “People feel like they’re not really good enough: they wonder why others would listen to them”, he explains. “Often, people are reluctant to share much – if any – of their personality on a business platform. However, they’re more than happy to talk about themselves at a networking event – it softens the conversation and helps people get to know each other on a more personal level.”
Thought leadership is now part of that networking process – a new forum for networking and increasing your business’ reach. One way that Luke recommends business owners fight imposter syndrome is to work on their company culture, encouraging the entire business to embrace thought leadership as an integral part of the marketing mix.
“Leaders should lead from the front and demonstrate just how important thought leadership is”, stresses Luke. “Talk about ways you can incentivise thought leadership. Make it part of your company narrative and culture, and offer rewards and gamification. All of this will help to instill and embed a culture of thought leadership throughout the business: a collective impact will result in a much bigger shift in content output and reach.”
“Demystify a daunting topic”
Luke’s Vistage webinar is divided into three parts: what thought leadership is and why it is important; how to do it and gain organisational buy-in; and how to ensure maximum output for minimum input.
“This session is about gaining a better understanding of thought leadership”, he says. “It’s about understanding the opportunity within the marketplace and the influence thought leadership can have on your business, combining your audience and your services to build an opportunity to create more compelling and interesting content that will resonate with your users.”
Those who attend Luke’s session will leave with more confidence in themselves to be able to create thought leadership content, as well as a better understanding, allowing them to demystify a daunting topic.
Sign up for your place here.
Vistage Chairs John Baines and Francine Lasky spent years honing their leadership styles as Vistage members before becoming executive coaches to help others cultivate their own management approaches. They remind CEOs that styles have to be both authentic to the leader and also useful to the teams they’re leading.
“People in organizations deserve clarity, and leadership styles can provide that,” Lasky said. “Try on different styles and find the ones that speak to you.”
Baines, who spent 14 years as president of an automation manufacturer, and Lasky, who served as president of her family’s medical device business and also held roles in sales, quality, operations and marketing, share their takes on the leadership styles they have seen in action.
Whether you’re a first-time CEO or a seasoned chief executive, take a look at the different leadership styles below and see which one seems to reflect your current approach. Is it clear-cut that you are one over another, or do you blend styles? What attribute from these styles would you like to begin to practice? Explore the seven main leadership styles.
Purpose-driven and customer-focused servant leaders are often deeply involved in their communities and enjoy healthy personal and professional relationships.
“One of my Vistage members was more analytical,” Baines says. “He engaged in a community leadership program and has come to embrace servant leadership qualities. He’s still the same person, but the parts of him that shine are really motivating and inspiring.”
A servant leadership style might suit you if you:
Coaching leaders thrive on developing talent. They can quickly size up a person’s potential and help guide them — and the company — toward success.
“As a Vistage coach, I’ve developed a coaching leadership style,” Baines says. “My goal is not to tell them where the water is. My goal is more to help them see that they’re thirsty.”
A coaching leadership style might suit you if you:
By a show of hands, how many of you are democratic leaders? Consensus builders who consider teams’ input before making decisions, democratic leaders make everyone feel heard.
“One member joined our Vistage group from a family business, where all he ever saw was one type of leadership style, an autocratic style,” Lasky says. “By being exposed to different leadership styles over the years, he’s developed into this beautiful consensus-building, but still decisive, leader.”
A democratic leadership style might suit you if you:
Imagine a military commander. Now, imagine that commander initiating a company-wide yoga afternoon. If the disconnect just short-circuited your brain, that’s because autocratic leaders value results and efficiency over all else — and usually with good reason. They find a welcome home in highly regulated industries that rely on precision and compliance.
“As a manufacturing CEO, I was an autocratic leader,” Baines says. “I hired people who wanted clear direction and targets. That’s not who I am, but that served me well.”
An autocratic leadership style might suit you if you:
Imagine an orchestra where every musician plays their part flawlessly. The conductor ensures everyone follows the sheet music, creating a harmonious performance. That’s structured leadership in action — a style that relies on clear processes, expectations, and accountability.
Structured leaders establish order, consistency, and discipline within an organization. This leadership style thrives in industries where precision, compliance, and efficiency are critical, such as finance, healthcare, and manufacturing.
“The type of industry can dictate the leadership style,” says Baines. “I found servant leadership difficult in the manufacturing world, for instance. What is our higher purpose? To make parts. In those types of industries, you might find structured leaders.”
A structured leadership style might suit you if you:
If your organization used the word “pivot” a lot during the pandemic, you might be a transformational leader. These leaders are focused on motivating and inspiring teams to innovate and achieve a shared vision.
“Several years into my experience as a Vistage member, I realized I was creative in helping other people solve their problems,” Baines says. “I found myself growing from an autocratic to a transformational leader.”
A transformational leadership style might suit you if you:
If structured leadership is the orchestra, adaptive leadership is jazz — improvisational, responsive, and innovative. In a rapidly changing world, adaptive leaders excel at navigating uncertainty by embracing flexibility and continuous learning.
Adaptive leaders anticipate challenges, adjust strategies in real time, and foster resilience within their teams. This leadership style thrives in fast-moving industries such as tech, startups, and crisis management, where agility is key to long-term success.
An adaptive leadership style might suit you if you:
Implementation Strategies:
Picture a startup where employees own their projects, make key decisions, and drive innovation without constant oversight. This is empowered leadership — a balance between autonomy and accountability.
Empowered leaders trust their teams to take ownership while ensuring alignment with organizational goals. This leadership style works best in environments where employees are highly skilled, self-motivated, and capable of independent decision-making.
“This style might work in some instances, such as with startups,” says Lasky. “But you have to make sure that it doesn’t turn into the Wild West.”
An empowered leadership style might suit you if you:
Implementation strategies:
A simple way to begin to transform your leadership is to apply the three tips below.
It can be invaluable to seek feedback from within your company and from executive peers in a peer advisory group like Vistage.
As a CEO, Lasky listened to feedback from her CFO about including an oppositional team member in a key strategic committee — and was pleasantly surprised to find the employee to be the most valuable member of the committee.
Whether it’s through leadership books, peer groups or even subordinates in your own company, observing the effects of other’s styles can help inform your own.
“A big reason that Vistage is so powerful is all the vicarious learning that happens,” Baines said. “When you’re in a group of diverse peers from diverse industries, you get the opportunity to play in someone else’s sandbox without having skin in the game.”
“There is a saying at Vistage that it’s not about answering your questions, but questioning your answers,” Lasky said. “Sometimes the voice inside your head is like the anti-TED talk. Instead of being inspiring, it’s defeatist and judgmental. The benefit of executive coaching is that sometimes you just need a voice outside the one in your head, one that knows enough about business to ask the right questions and moves you to do better.”
Interested to learn more about leadership styles? Read what it means to be a change leader.
How CEOs can find their leadership style
Why purpose is the gateway to transformational leadership
We are well past National Quitters’ Day (the second Friday in January), when approximately 23% of people abandon their New Year’s goals. But a CEO cannot afford to quit. The most successful leaders know that sustained progress requires more than good intentions — it takes consistency and accountability throughout the year.
That’s where accountability teams come in. These peer-driven groups provide a trusted space for leaders to pressure-test ideas, share challenges, and gain honest insights while staying focused on long-term goals. They sharpen decision-making, foster resilience, and improve business performance all year long.
In today’s business landscape, going it alone isn’t just outdated: It’s a liability.
An accountability team is a group of leaders who meet regularly to share honest feedback and hold one another accountable. Unlike traditional mentorship, where advice flows one way, these groups create a dynamic exchange of ideas, strengthening each leader’s ability to navigate complex decisions.
Accountability teams are particularly valuable for CEOs. Many executives struggle to find people who truly understand their challenges. While employees look to them for direction and mentors offer guidance from a distance, an accountability team provides something different: real-time support from those who walk in their shoes.
Accountability teams boil down to leaders supporting leaders. When everyone is in the trenches together, it creates a high-trust environment where members feel comfortable being vulnerable, sharing challenges and pushing each other to uncover better decisions.
An accountability team raises the bar for leadership by providing:
Great CEOs realize it’s their role to set strategy, create goals, establish the culture and put the team in place to achieve the vision. Accountability groups help CEOs distinguish what areas they can delegate versus when it’s time to consider what they can do differently as CEO to improve outcomes.
CEOs make high-stakes decisions daily, often with incomplete information. The pressure can be overwhelming, leading to hesitation or costly mistakes. For CEOs, procrastination can be a silent enemy — not making a decision is often more damaging than making the wrong one.
Accountability teams create an environment in which leaders can pressure-test ideas, refine strategies and take informed risks, knowing they have trusted peers to help them navigate challenges that arise after the decision is made.
These groups go beyond theory, offering real-world actionable advice. Because members build deep, trusting relationships over time, the feedback is unfiltered, constructive, and designed to move leaders forward.
One of leadership’s biggest pitfalls is confirmation bias — surrounding yourself with like-minded thinkers who reinforce existing beliefs. While this can feel comfortable, it ultimately stifles innovation and growth. Accountability teams challenge assumptions, uncover blind spots, and spark fresh ideas by bringing together leaders from diverse industries and backgrounds.
Not all accountability teams are created equal. The most effective groups share key traits:
Accountability teams aren’t just about hitting short-term goals — they’re about sustainable growth and a lifelong dedication to learning. The world’s most successful CEOs have systems in place to ensure annual goals aren’t forgotten before the end of Q1.
Leadership is an ongoing journey that requires adaptability, perspective, and continuous self-improvement. By surrounding themselves with growth-oriented peers, great leaders ensure they stay sharp, focused, and relentless in their pursuit of excellence.
This story first appeared in Entrepreneur.
Accountability should end in performance, not pain
How to create a culture of accountability [on-demand webinar]
Uncertainty rules, much like it did through the recovery phase of a post-pandemic economy. The hopes and beliefs following the election for a pro-business tax and regulatory environment, along with stabilized inflation and interest rates and increased business activity, have been replaced by mounting concerns about economic instability. With this uncertainty comes a reversal in post-election optimism, as the Vistage CEO Confidence Index fell 22.1 points to 78.5 in Q1 2025.
The dramatic quarter-over-quarter drop is historic on the surface, but in reality, it’s just a 6.6-point drop from the Q3 2024 reading of 85.1 and is still above levels recorded in 2022 and 2023.
The economic pessimism voiced by 13% of CEOs who expected the economy to worsen in December has grown to 42% in March. Conducted between March 3 and 17, 2025, this survey also revealed a drop in optimism: In Q4, 55% of CEOs expected the economy to improve over the next 12 months, a proportion that has fallen to 28%.
Negative impacts of changing tariff policies were reported by nearly 7 in 10 CEOs. This sentiment was recorded before the April 2 global tariff announcement; the potential implications of these tariffs further complicate planning, disrupt supply chains and exacerbate the uncertainty. This only adds to an already defensive posture by CEOs to protect their business and will likely curtail investments, hiring and expansion even further.
The impact of tariffs and potential trade wars with multiple countries will raise costs, as manufacturers and importers subject to tariffs will subsequently pass these increased costs on to consumers. That will, in turn, drive up inflation, resulting in the Federal Reserve raising interest rates to offset inflation’s impact. This is further compounded by the threat of supply chain disruption and the consumers’ response to higher prices, not to mention the reciprocal tariffs imposed on our imports into other countries. A growing perception of government unpredictability and the impact of mass federal layoffs, combined with radical budget cuts, is crushing CEO confidence.
The issue is tariffs, but the problem is uncertainty. The “Mr. Miyagi” tactic of “tariffs on, tariffs off” makes planning nearly impossible. Tariffs and trade policies are the biggest and most pressing concerns raised by CEOs. While changing tariffs and trade policies were unclear in December, they did not contribute to pessimism in our Q4 2024 data. Now, the reality of the policies being suggested and implemented is seen as inflationary and disruptive to business planning. The transition to the new administration is no longer fostering optimism about the economy or the trajectory of business. Instead, it has given way to a more polarized belief in economic instability and chaotic decision-making, as opposed to a business-friendly environment.
In response to rising costs anticipated from tariffs, persistent inflation, and still-increasing labor costs, CEOs must once again revisit their pricing strategy. This is critical as 44% report raising prices since the beginning of the year, and 51% plan to increase prices over the next three months. Read the Q1 2025 Vistage CEO Confidence Index report to learn more about strategic pricing and why it’s become a function for survival.
Price increases are going to be critical as there will be a continued margin squeeze caused by tariffs, the labor market and wage increases. Margin is the critical differentiator of winners and losers going forward.
— Lauren Saidel-Baker, Sr. Economist, ITR Economics
Boost Profits President Casey Brown delves into the recent tariffs announcement and shares strategies for handling the impending turbulence.
Certainly, slowing demand and delayed projects caused by uncertainty and rising costs have downstream effects on the workforce. While 31% of CEO report their hiring increased in the first 3 months of the year, those companies are likely among those experiencing increased demand and backlogs.
Looking ahead over the next 12 months, 45% of CEOs still plan to add workforce. More notable is that 14% plan to decrease their number of employees. Since the survey began in 2003, the only other times this figure rose as high was during the pandemic in 2020 and the 2009 recession, an indication that today’s uncertainty is a major event for small and midsize businesses.
For those in a position to take on top talent, this is a great time to secure the people you will need to scale as growth is forecasted to pick up moderately at the end of the year into 2026. For those struggling, there are opportunities to gain efficiencies in AI to do more with less.
It’s a documented fact that hope is not a strategy. The Vistage CEO Confidence Index data suggests a challenging landscape emerging for CEOs in 2025. Uncertainty, instability, and unpredictability create a volatile economic landscape for CEOs to navigate. With forecasts of moderate growth toward the end of the year, CEOs must maintain their flexibility, build cushions and closely monitor their markets.
For some, their business will continue to thrive, seeing record backlogs and surging revenues as they anticipate a record year. For others, it will be a mixed bag of results, as fears of the yet-to-be-implemented tariffs and resulting trade wars potentially wreaking havoc on their business. The impact of the rapid policy changes has yet to be felt and will most likely change again.
To explore the full Vistage CEO Confidence Index survey dataset, view the infographic, and visit our data center.
The Q1 2025 Vistage CEO Confidence Index survey was conducted between March 3 and 17, 2025, and captured input from 1,796 leaders who are active Vistage members of Chief Executive and Small Business groups in the United States.
I’m getting a lot of questions about tariffs. “What should we do?”
This week, the White House unveiled a massive tariff plan that is expected to include tariffs on nearly all imports to the U.S.
So, how should U.S.-based companies thoughtfully prepare and respond to the changes these tariffs bring? As we explore the answer, it’s helpful to examine what’s common about these tariffs to those from the past and what’s different.
Find the latest insights on tariffs and changing trade policies:
The CEO Pulse: Tariffs Resource Center
Speaking structurally, the tariffs in 2025 don’t look all that different from past rounds. I believe these tariffs will create the same economic effects as we’ve seen: They’ll raise costs for U.S. companies that rely on products and raw materials from abroad. This will, in turn, increase prices for companies and consumers buying products from those importing organizations. This is already happening.
Now, we could get into a political debate about whether this will drive more domestic manufacturing and sourcing. Even if it does, it won’t happen fast enough to avoid an inflationary impact. Costs are going to go up.
If there are domestic alternatives, they’re usually more expensive than imported goods. (If domestic sourcing were cheaper, companies wouldn’t bother with the risks and complexities of importing.) So, even if tariffs eventually push buyers toward domestic suppliers, costs will still rise.
In the short- to medium-term, companies have no choice but to import goods at higher costs, leaving two options: Eat the cost or raise prices.
My experience tells me that companies will do both. Prices are going up. That’s not new. That’s the same story as every other round of tariffs.
Ok, so what’s different? In a word, unpredictability. Unpredictability driven by frequent, wide-ranging announcements and changes to tariff policies happening at an unprecedented pace. Why does that matter? Because markets reward predictability.
Yes, we usually mean the stock market, but this applies to private markets, too. In B2B commerce, knowing what to expect calms people down and makes decision-making more transparent.
What’s different about this round of tariffs is the uncertainty. Tariffs have been announced, repealed, re-announced, delayed, and revised. The communication around them has been unclear and unpredictable. And uncertainty drives fear.
I’ve observed this directly over the past 25+ years in pricing. It’s also supported by well-established and well-researched concepts in psychology and decision theory, such as Intolerance of Uncertainty and Ambiguity Aversion.
The less we know about what’s coming, the more risk-averse we get. When things are uncertain, we hunker down. We freeze. We close the checkbook. That’s true for individual people, and it’s true for businesses.
These last few months of seesawing on tariffs (and other geopolitical and economic factors) will have a chilling effect on business-to-business activity.
So yes, tariffs might increase your cost of goods by 17% or whatever the number is, based on your sourcing mix. That’s a fact. What’s not a fact is how long that’ll last or what comes next. And that unknown creates an emotional reaction for sellers and buyers alike.
Fear is always present with pricing. I would argue that fear is the dominant emotion in most pricing decisions. Ask 100 salespeople what they love most about their job, and none will say, “I love telling customers the price.”
It’s not the fun part. It’s the fear-laden part.
Now add a whole mess of external, fear-inducing factors, and that fear turns into panic. Your customers are freaked out. They will try to avoid incurring those higher costs through every available strategy: aggressive negotiation, carrying less inventory, pausing planned projects, and canceling budgeted investments. The uncertainty makes them even more reluctant to spend money.
My advice for these tariffs is the same as every inflation-driving circumstance, whether supply chain issues, labor shortages, or rising raw material costs: get ahead of it.
You cannot afford to wring your hands for 3 to 6 months, living in spreadsheets trying to assess the impact before you act. This will materially affect your profitability and ability to serve customers in the short, medium, and long term. The biggest mistake companies make during rapid inflationary periods is a price increase that is too little, too late. The right move for most businesses is to act early; don’t wait and lose weeks or months of margin. And go big enough; don’t put yourself in a position to take action that doesn’t actually address the problem.
Even when people agree that price increases are necessary, they still ask: How?
Do we roll it into the product price? Do we make it a separate surcharge or line item? Will that make it easier to explain to customers?
There are pros and cons to each. Whether or not to show it as a surcharge depends on how much your prices will go up, depending on how many of your inputs are affected by tariffs of what magnitude.
If tariffs drive you to announce a substantial price increase, you may want to break it out as a separate line item. You can tell customers that this is strictly tariff-driven and that you’re doing everything possible internally (operational efficiencies, cost control, etc.) to protect them.
You may also promise that you’ll roll that cost back if tariff policies change.
But if breaking it out is unnecessary, roll it into the product price to keep that pricing power even if tariffs end. If you do this, include value-based reasons for the increase, such as investments, improved value, and rising costs elsewhere. This positions you to hold onto at least some of the price increase if tariffs are later reduced.
Either way, be clear, be empathetic, and communicate early. (I wrote about how to do this in 2019 in blog posts about price increases in the wake of tariffs and tariff-related price increase letters, with samples.)
A good pricing strategy is more agnostic to economic conditions than you might think; there are always winners and losers in every market and every economic climate. Best-in-class providers always have pricing power.
Bold price action communicated with empathy and clarity is the best path forward for companies substantively affected by tariffs.
Cost increases are unavoidable right now. Don’t stick your head in the sand hoping tariffs will go away next month. Prepare for the worst. Hope for the best.
Write the price increase letter.
Decide how much prices are going up and when.
Go sooner than you want to and by more than you think you have to.
You will weather the storm better. The businesses that survived the Great Depression, the Great Recession, and COVID-19 are the ones whose leaders were willing to make tough calls.
As Ben Horowitz wrote in “The Hard Thing About Hard Things,” “Peacetime CEO always has a contingency plan. Wartime CEO knows that sometimes you gotta roll a hard six.”
It’s time to roll a hard six.
This story first appeared on the Boost Profits blog. It has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The information and opinions presented are the author’s own and not those of Vistage Worldwide, Inc.