How will you know if a certain sales approach will work or not?
You will have to continue to test, measure and test because the markets move all the time and what worked well yesterday may not work well tomorrow. The other day I received this question from one of my readers: Do you think that sending old fashioned “snail mail” might...
Going Global on a Shoestring
"How long is a shoestring?" asked Rick Pizzoli when he first heard about the title of my next book. Rick, who runs Sales Force Europe and lives by helping primarily US companies enter the European markets, knows about where the challenges lie....
Is There a Recipe for Success?
I make reflections on this subject because, while I wrote the book 5,460 Miles from Silicon Valley (The In-depth Case Study of What Became Microsoft’s First Billion Dollar Acquisition Outside the USA), it was repeatedly suggested that I should draw some general conclusions from the story, which other entrepreneurs could learn...
The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the Rise of Cyberculture
The story about PLATO is not only interesting, but it will also teach you a lesson or two. It explains the fate of great ideas that are not in sync with the times and how large, well-established companies can make bigger mistakes than they can afford....
Did Mckinsey & Company Kill Swissair?
All had been well until the early 1990s, when consultants McKinsey & Company recommended that the company embark on a “hunter” strategy of buying up poor-quality airlines around Europe, sorting them out with some high-quality Swiss management, and so step up into the big league of international airlines. In...
The ignorant customer and the unfortunate salesman?
It is easy to jump to the conclusion that potential customers that don’t get it must be “ignorants.” However, blaming our failing sales strategy on the customers may prevent us from making the changes that could overcome the resistance. Look in the mirror. That’s where all the answers are....
Slow down – it’s not your business
As a management consultant you have to take responsibility for the outcome of the process you are engaged to help improve. You cannot assume responsibility for the final results. That responsibility resides with the client’s executives, but you have to guarantee the quality of your own contributions....
Proposals Are the Last Thing You Do
I now realized the advantage I had in proposal writing. It was never about me. It was always about the customers. What does the customer need and how do we deliver that, mitigating the risk of failure? How can we summarize this in the briefest way possible?...
Predictable Prospecting: How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline
The book is a "must read" for all business development, marketing, sales and other revenue generation professionals in the information technology industry. ...
An Idea That Eventually Turned Out to Be Worth $1.45B
Improving something that already exists by making it easier to use, less expensive, faster to implement or adding some other convenience features is a viable way to start a business....