Archive | Business

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Know when to fold ’em

I have always been driven by a desire to create and build something that is meaningful. I have poured my heart and soul into many of my businesses, working tirelessly to turn my vision into a reality. But sometimes, despite my best efforts, things don’t work out as planned; and when that happens, it’s important […]

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Pricing, value and the incentive to buy

Pricing your product or service is a difficult process that can involve multiple points of influence – cost, existing market, competitors, etc. But people frequently overlook or perhaps misunderstand the role that value plays in actually achieving any price ultimately set. The typical way we think about a sale Let’s look at both sides of […]

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Meetings are what you do

It’s all too easy to bash meetings as a manager. They can eat into your day and make you feel like you haven’t completed any “real” work. It’s what good leaders do But what can be more important than speaking with your employees and managers, checking in to make sure all is ok, communicating progress, […]

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What was marketing called before 1900?

Google has a great little tool called Ngram that is fascinating and an incredibly underutilised resource. You simply provide one or more words and Ngram charts the number of times that those words appear in books throughout history (Google has scanned millions of books from libraries around the world). Today, I put in Marketing and […]

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Passion is a force-multiplier

Take two people. One has more skills and ability, but the other has incredible passion for what they do; an energy and intensity that is contagious. They know that they’re not as good [yet], but their desire to get better and their work ethic makes up for any deficiency. Who would you rather have on […]

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Perpetuating Incompetence

Ignorance begets Confidence There’s a cognitive bias known as The Dunning-Kruger Effect that describes how people who are very bad at something, actually think that they are quite good because they don’t know enough to understand just how bad they are; they overestimate their performance. “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are […]

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Big Data is not just more data

Everyone seems to be jumping on the “Big Data” bandwagon these days – especially by the marketing folks. Recently I read Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier and it opened my eyes to the true meaning of this term and how it […]

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The Decline of Initiative

I was asked in a meeting yesterday how someone gets ahead at my company (and with me personally) – and the answer was pretty easy really – initiative. Those people who show initiative – who go the extra mile, who refine their craft, make changes, seek constant improvement, implement ideas and make an impact. These […]

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