The making of the Damascene, the Samurai, or the Viking sword, took time. Each blade was meticulously shaped by hand into hundred layers of steel. This was the secret of its superiority. Each blade was also special and unique due to the passion involved in the making. This was the case over 1000 years ago, because […]
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Selling the Solution, Not the Product
Selling can be sleazy when it’s manipulative. “Let me convince you to do something, so I’ll get what I want.” If you want to grow your business, and feel good about yourself at the same time, it’s necessary to change the way you think about “selling.” Everyone buys things. If you provide a product or […]
The Most Common Sales Fallacies
For many years, I have struggled and beaten off my competition through hard work and failures. I have read many books and many articles on how to be the best Salesman or the Best Marketer and have tried implementing all the advice. I am sick to death of all of these How-To guides and the […]
Innovators or Sheep?
Have you ever notice that so many companies want to be visionary? Able to predict future products and services you need; but yet they also say they respond to market demand by being market-driven. Seems to me that’s an oxymoron. Can you be both market-driving and market-driven? To disruptively break free from reactive business strategy […]
Who Is the Customer and Why Are They Different?
Editor’s Note: The author is an expert and practitioner of the growth strategy framework, Delta Model. The Delta Model is based on the teachings of MIT professors Dean Wilde and Arnoldo Hax. It aims to change your strategic thinking, identify new sources of revenue, and transform your overall organization. This article is based on the business principles taught […]
Brand Not Product
One of my early roles was in a Call Centre environment, but I still see the same culture 15+ years later! We only received inbound calls, so invariably people always had questions or problems they needed solving. We were called ‘customer service’ but, we were actually just a sales team. I was a fantastic salesman, […]
Strategic Planning Demystified with the Mindmap
Editor’s Note: Dr. Stephen M. Sweid is a business consultant, researcher and trainer with over 20 years consulting experience on the international scene: Europe, USA, Middle East and Far East. Dr. Sweid is an author on Flevy, where he has produced materials on Breakthrough Strategy (see his materials here). * * * * I use the Mindmap […]
The Global 8D Problem Solving Process
“If I had an hour to save the world I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute finding solutions.” – Albert Einstein The 8D (Eight Disciplines) Problem Solving Process is a team oriented and structured problem solving methodology that is mainly used to identify, correct and eliminate recurring problems. The 8D Problem […]
Strategy Development and Deployment with Hoshin Planning
People and their managers are working so hard to be sure things are done right, that they hardly have time to decide if they are doing the right things. – Stephen R. Covey Strategy is an expression of what an organization intents to do to get from a current state to a future state. Strategic plans […]
Why a Quantum-Leap Strategy for Emerging Countries?
Gone are the days of incremental changes, whether on the micro or macro level, in sector reforms or a business plan of an SME project. In the globalization era, the business environment everywhere has turned into a process of perpetual dynamic transformations, this despite the onset of the financial crisis, with possibility that the latter […]
A Strategic Competitive Advantage also Requires a Competitive Strategic Sales Strategy
Although Strategic Planning requires alignment of a multitude of separate and critical organizational areas, a major part of any Strategic Plan is a sound, competitive strategic sales strategy with appropriate and effective goals and related action-step / follow-up requirements clearly enunciated. We have alluded several times in my articles to the ever increasing ability of buyers (and competitors) […]
