Knowing more by knowing less
Engaging a consultant usually means you have a problem that is deemed to require outside expertise. This begs the question, "why would you engage someone who knows less about your business and its problems than you, to assist solving a problem? The answer is simple,...
Rule of three
For a long time as a consultant, who has done a fair but of sales training in a B2B environment, I have fallen back on a foundation proposition made up of three parts. When planning a sales strategy to sell a product that is not a cheap disposable commodity (like...
Do you still get what you pay for?
My Father always said, "you only get what you pay for" so he instinctively related price to value. Now, the web has changed everything, and increasingly, "Free" is being used as a means to attract a target to trial, to deliver a generic service that leads into the...
Brands are just like people
During the brand development process, to the extend that is it deliberate, most conversations are about the activities that supposedly drive the objective measures of success, sales, margins, market share, household penetration, and so on. However, during qualitative...
It must be in the cultural DNA.
The corporate left brain/right brain conflict is alive and well in Jetstar. Currently Jetstar is spending on TV advertising their Asian destinations, pushing that they are not just a cut price airline, at the same time they are facing a PR debacle, having left...
Web savvy – a no brainer.
On the web, you have lost control of the conversations that can impact on you, anyone can say virtually anything they like, and unfortunately because it is "out there" it can gain traction, take on some credibility. If you cannot control it, you need to be aware and...
Managers, leaders and entrepreneurs.
Engaged in a recent discussion about the nature of leadership, I fell back on the old chestnut that managers manage things, but leaders decide what to manage, which got me through until a "smartie" asked "what about entrepreneurs"? Took a while, and a bit of filling,...
The strategic reality of climate change.
The emerging reality of the emerging "carbon economy" irrespective of the regulatory regime that emerges is not only an operational and regulatory management issue, but a strategic one because of its potential to create and destroy asset value. Over time, emissions...
Product “basket”
Most products have a range of alternatives that the buyer can purchase and use in relative certainty that it will deliver pretty much as promised. Consumers when in a supermarket have a basket of products in a category they buy, usually with a first and second choice,...
One at a time.
Scientific method calls for experimentation where you vary one variable at a time, observe the effect, making further changes only after consideration of the cause and effect relationships in the first experiment are understood. Unfortunately, this is the opposite...