Doubt and how to overcome it
Last week Seth Godin posted a brilliantly incisive post on the power of Doubt! Titled, The benefit of the doubt, he brought into focus, in my view, why we fail to move people. In his words: “The crowd likes the songs from the singer they came to hear, not the...Why a Great Strategy Isn’t Enough
As the leader of a private company with 20 to 100 employees, you are in an elite class. To be precise, your company is in the top 2% of all companies (600,000 out of 27.3m). The business has done well. But what is the next stage for you? To get bigger? To reduce...Improving Customers’ Lives – 10 Key Actions
As Bernadette Jiwa noted in her new book, “difference”, it’s becoming more and more difficult to be different. In a world that’s constantly on, 24/7, how do you stand out? Well as she put it so succinctly, it’s not about being different;...Book Review – “difference” by Bernadette Jiwa
I read a very insightful book over Easter – difference by Bernadette Jiwa. Standing on the shoulders of some very smart people, she offers a compelling approach to reimagining your business. The thesis of the book involves a one page Difference Map. The map asks you...Prospecting is not dead: Search Vs. Discovery
Seth Godin published one of his mind-dismantling blog posts earlier this month: Search vs. Discovery. In the post, he was drawing a clear distinction between the two. In Seth’s words, “search is what we call the action of knowing what you want and questing until you...
13 Myths About Entrepreneurship
It’s all about profitability. It’s not. It’s about positive cash flow. You go bust through lack of cash, not profit. Websites are the responsibility of marketing people. Wrong. Today the website is the responsibility of the CEO. Most websites are a disjointed,...The Turnaround of H-P – Smaller Company Lessons
There was a great article last week in the WSJ – H-P Overhaul Shows Promise by Spencer Ante. I’ve summarized below some great takeaways to consider. It certainly inspired me to revisit the operational plan I’m executing in the businesses I’m scaling. Symptoms &...Why Companies Grow But Fail to Scale
I’ve been delivering some presentations in February and March about scaling private companies. I’ve had great positive feedback from attendees. I thought it would be useful summarizing 10 quick reasons companies are failing to scale and what to do about...Sales Teams – 5 Major Actions Needed For Success
#1 Develop more urgency – Processing deals through your Sales Process: I’ve blogged many times about my favorite Sales Process – the Diagnostic Selling approach called Prime, developed by Jeff Thull. Read my summary here. Once deals are in your sales process,...Operational Excellence For Exits
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