What is the difference between an Elevator Pitch and a Value Proposition, and when to use them?
Good question, but the challenge seems to be overwhelming for some of those who most need to be clear on the differences, and when and how to use them. I spent most of Thursday and Friday last week at the 'Emergence' conference in Sydney, an event designed to boost...
Time can only be productive, or wasted. Which will it be?
Time is our only truly non renewable asset, and it is absolutely finite. Therefore it makes sense to use it as wisely as possible. In a management context, in measuring a process, time has two dimensions.Clock time. Start to finish, how long does a task...
The 5 types of cost in your business.
Cost is a part of every business, you have to incur them in order to deliver a product. For most, the extent of cost management is via the Profit and Loss account in the monthly reports, and by the comparison of expenditure to budget. Both are by themselves...
The problem with politics
We are facing two elections here in NSW, one for the state government, and then federal almost immediately following. What a mess we are in, disengagement, distrust, cynicism on the part of the electorate, and flatulent promises and claims by the body...
‘Brand Conversations’ are usually just a marketers wet dream.
Brand loyalty and frequency of purchase, are not the same thing, although we seem to act most often as if they were. Sometimes we marketers believe our own bullshit, not recognising we are usually delusional, or at least subject to a severe case of...
10 tips on how to build a ‘learning organisation’
'Learning organisation' is a cliché mouthed too often by those who have no experience with such a rare beast. The key is not to try and help the organisation learn, it is to help the people in it learn by doing, spread the good outcomes, and nip the...
What will happen after the Hayne report goes off the front pages?
Following the rather cynical post last Wednesday asking where the blame would be placed when the Royal Commission dust has settled, it seems only fair that I be prepared to stick my neck out to make some observations and suggestions, rather than just...
Finding victory over the deceptive demons of the marketing mind
Years ago I heard the great social researcher and author Hugh McKay describe every persons view of the world as the sight they see from behind the bars of their own experience, background, training and ideas. The more developed are all these barriers,...
How to find the ‘Zig’ when others are ‘Zagging’.
Being a part of the herd may be comfortable, but it is rarely sustainably profitable at levels greater than the cost of capital. Finding points of differentiation, the means by which you can be distinctive preoccupies most thinking marketers, those...
Who gets the blame when the Financial Services Royal Commission is distorted and ignored?
The release of Royal Commissioner Haynes final report into the Financial Services industry has been instructive in many ways. One that will not get much media coverage is the manner in which the various political and interest bodies respond and reflect on...