Your sales funnel is not a silver bullet
There is way too much emphasis put on the funnel metaphor of the sales pipeline. No matter how we cut it, customers do not follow a neatly programmed defined process, it is chaotic at best, and no simple diagram or ignoring human nature can change that. Moreover, it...
How to wield Occam’s Razor to build robust strategy.
In its simplest form, 'Occums Razor' is code for seeking the simplest explanation possible that fits all the facts. In Einstein's words: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler” Development of Strategy is usually made overly complicated by...
2017 Internet trends report by Mary Meeker at KPCB
Since 2001 Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers has released a report on the technical and behavioural trends driving the internet, compiled by Mary Meeker. It has become the bible of everyone associated in any way with the net as a generator of revenue and value....
The most important lesson from writing 1,500 blog posts
This is the 1,500th post on the StrategyAudit site, and the journey has been a surprising one. I am not a writer, I stumbled into blogging as a way to market my services as a consultant. However, it has become way more than that. Writing a blog, particularly when the...
5 habits of really successful B2B sales people.
Last week, I was unfortunately the target of an unwanted sales pitch from someone who would not take 'Not today' or 'No thank you' or 'I am not interested' or 'Piss off I am busy' as an adequate response to his ministrations. Clearly he had been to a sales training...
Trust: very easy to say, very hard to do.
Trust is the basis of our humanity, without trust, we cannot have relationships of any value, and the breach of trust once given is an emotional wrench. The greater the level of trust given the greater the emotional pain on realising that trust has been breached....
8 human impediments to genuine business renewal.
Why are these changes so hard? Why can they not see that continuing on will be a disaster? These are two questions that I often ask myself working with businesses in distress, or often just underperforming, and looking for some sort of renewal. Neither is possible...
How many baristas do we need to drive growth?
Coffee shops seem to be the harbinger of our growth patterns, they are popping up everywhere, staffed by baristas (has that become a profession?) with cutting edge hairstyles and tattoos. They all add to the GDP numbers in some tiny way, but are they all we need? When...
Richard Nixon casts a long shadow
In 1974 when Richard Nixon delivered his resignation speech, just before the inevitable impeachment, I was sitting in the home of Harvard Professor Jim Hagler just outside Boston. I was seeing first hand the implosion of a presidency from the perspective of a...
3 great strategies to get good at anything
Malcolm Gladwell's '10,000 hours' of practise to become expert has worked its way into the lexicon, for good reason. However, is it always so? I watched my father practise golf after he took it up in his 30's, endlessly, while never getting his handicap below 18. He...