7 steps to SME digital effectiveness.
A friend of mine has a very successful small business selling high value services to a small group of clients from diverse backgrounds. He does not want to be the next IPO, or employ hundreds, or even tens of people, just a couple to keep the business growing...
The “P-word” simile
Talking with a couple of mates over a beer recently, one of whom has a successful boutique recruitment agency, we found ourselves reflecting on the changes in word usage that had occurred over the last 20 years, and how we had contributed to the changes, most of which...
Customer expectations paradox.
The great paradox in selling is that to sell successfully, we often raise the expectations of those to whom we are selling, but to have satisfied customers, we need to under promise and over-deliver. Complicating that dilemma of the potential mis-match of...
Paper-clip marketing.
When you have nothing else to offer, price is what people use to make a judgement about which alternative to buy. Yours or someone else's alternative? However, most people also recognise that you get what you pay for, and that what you pay for is not always just more...
Three simple rules of blogging
Hunt around in Google, and there are thousands of posts out there giving you lists of things to do to have a successful blog. A few Are pretty good, but most a just lists of the blindingly obvious, hoping that the headline "Top 20 tips for success" and their ilk...
Managements single greatest failure
Many years ago, pre-digital, I gave time to a sales rep who rang up and promised to bring in some samples of brand new products from Europe that had changed the dynamics of the market segments they were in. I presumed that all contained the stuff he sold, but the...
Have we lost it?
Until I was about 10 years old, I lived in a little cottage at North Avalon, and used to walk to primary school through the sandhills, along the beach, then to school, and back. It sometimes took longer than it should have, as there was simply so much to see and do....
Where is the ‘Why”
For 35 years as a corporate manager and consultant I have been an advocate of, amongst other things, personal accountability, marketing ROI, extensive use of data in decision-making but without eliminating the wisdom of individuals who have "been there, done that", ...
Small businesses biggest problem
Cash flow is the lifeblood of every business, from the one person micro business working out of their garage, to the largest multinational. To call it "Lifeblood" sounds like a cliché, but the thing about clichés is that generally they are true. Working as I do with...
Digital is just a cost of business.
Who in business does not carry a business card of some sort, from the standard 9 X 5 bit of cardboard to the "it" thing of a USB with a resume, and published material as well as contact details on it? It used to be that having a business card was just a cost of being...