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...
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,...
We live in an instant gratification world. Many of the millennials that I know expect to have all the same “trappings of life” that their parents spent several decades to acquire.. now. We are bombarded with images of success, talent, and athleticism. We see musicians with no more natural ability than ourselves playing in front...
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...
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...
In this era of “Big Data,” I often hear terms like data and information being used almost interchangeably; and so I thought that I’d write an explanation of these terms and also include what should be the ultimate goal of data analysis – “insight”. Data? Big or Small. Data is raw. It has no meaning...
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...
“Meanwhile” is a great word for helping you (and others) focus on action. Use it as a reminder that although one path may be blocked, there's usually something else that you can be accomplished. It also reminds you that not everything stops while you are waiting, or procrastinating with or without good reason. For example:...
In marketing, we are all told to clearly identify our ideal customer. We segment, differentiate and profile the people who we think are most likely to buy from us. Typically in any single industry, we have identified the same group of people as our competitors. That’s how it happens right? We all do the...
In hierarchical business structures, people will be promoted as long as they continue to work competently. This is the primary theory behind the Peter Principle as formulated by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in 1969. It goes on to say that eventually they will be promoted to a position that they are no longer competent – their...