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Category Archives: Business Acumen
Don’t Upsell…Right Sell
“Would you like to supersize your order?” As I wrote previously (“Do You Want Fries With That?” – An Opportunity for Profitable Growth), upselling can bring additional value to our customers, create additional sales and profits, and cement our relationships … Continue reading
Lead With Questions
As leaders, we often have an employee come to us with an issue or problem. As “make it happen” managers, we then focus on getting the problem solved and getting it done as quickly as possible. Thus, we take charge, … Continue reading
Get to the Front Lines
Undercover Boss has become a hit TV series by showing big corporate bosses going undercover and discovering the reality of the work lives of their employees. As leaders, we do not need to go undercover; we just need to get … Continue reading
Posted in Business Acumen, Leadership, Team / People
Tagged Accountability, Business Leadership, Business Transformation, Business Turnarounds, Change, Customer Satisfaction, Do the Right Thing, Employee Engagement, Face Reality, Human Resources, Integrity, Sales and Marketing, Sales Coaching, Winning Teamwork
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Go Where the Growth Is
In today’s low growth world, B2B companies need to be looking for those market segments and niches that are growing faster than the overall economy. ‘Going where the growth is’ offers our companies the promise of increasing sales to growing … Continue reading
Business Success by the Numbers
What numbers lead to business success? 0 – As in 0 /0 (zero injuries and zero accidents). In any company, the safety of employees and customers each and every day should be of highest concern. 1 – As in … Continue reading
An Open Letter From Your B2B Customer
Dear Mr. or Ms. Sales Manager, I am writing to remind you that I need you. You and your salespeople provide products and services that I need to help me succeed in my business. Unfortunately, many of your salespeople do … Continue reading
Be Easy to Do Business With
In a previous blog, Lessons from a Customer, I related my experience in dealing with 106 companies while I moved from Arizona to California. My conclusion was that most companies provide inadequate customer service and make it too difficult to … Continue reading
Do We Spend Enough Time Selling? – The Cost of Chaos
We have and need salespeople in order to sell, that is, in order to move deals forward. But, how much time do our salespeople really spend selling each week? Rick McPartlin, the CEO of The Revenue Game (and someone with … Continue reading
Determining the ROI of Product Development
This is a guest blog by K. Armen Miamidian, a time-tested CFO for successful mid-market companies. What’s Pumping Your Profits: An Internal Look at the ROI of Product Development? When are expenses not just costs? Why do risky assumptions become … Continue reading
Posted in Business Acumen, Growth and Strategy, Sales and Marketing
Tagged Financial Analysis, Product Development, ROI
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Three Paradoxes of Leading Multiple Business Units
As your company expands or as you progress up the ranks in your company, you will likely move from having P&L (profit and loss) responsibility for one business unit to having P&L responsibility for several different business units (usually located … Continue reading
We Need Less Leadership!
In her thought-provoking book, The End of Leadership, Barbara Kellerman writes: One of the problems plaguing the leadership industry is its fixation on developing good leaders, while ignoring completely the problem of stopping or at least slowing bad leaders. Stopping … Continue reading
The Leadership Machine – Developing Skills for Your Leaders and Executives
In their book, The Leadership Machine (Architecture to Develop Leaders For Any Future), Michael W. Lombard and Robert W. Eichinger discuss ways to build leaders and develop leadership competencies (skills) in any company. Although the book is a bit too … Continue reading
The McKinsey Way – A Strong Primer on Problem Solving
Way back in 1999, Ethan M. Rasiel (full disclosure: a business school colleague of mine) penned The McKinsey Way: Using the Techniques of the World’s Top Strategic Consultants to Help You and Your Business. In the book, Rasiel reveals the … Continue reading
The Essential Drucker: Insights from the Original Management Guru
The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker’s Essential Writings on Management is an indispensable read to help you enhance your business leadership and improve your business. What makes it particularly interesting is that much of it … Continue reading
How to Rake It in When Selling Your Business
For many business owners or entrepreneurs the long-term goal is to sell your company and monetize all the value that you have created. So, what can you begin working on today to ensure that you rake it in from the … Continue reading
Posted in Business Acumen, Growth and Strategy
Tagged Business Sale, Exit Planning, M&A
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The Agenda (Michael Hammer): Useful for This Decade as Well
Way back in 2001, Michael Hammer authored The Agenda: What Every Business Must Do to Dominate the Decade. Slightly more than a decade later, the thoughts and insights in this book remain relevant and worth summarizing. The key assumption in … Continue reading
Stephen Covey’s “Habits” Books – Still Valuable After All These Years
Stephen R. Covey is justifiably famous for his books on business and personal success. In this blog, I briefly summarize two of his best and most relevant books for moving you and your company forward. The 7 Habits of Highly … Continue reading
Jack: Straight From the Gut
In Jack: Straight From the Gut, famed GE CEO Jack Welch (with John A. Byrne), gives a no-nonsense take on what made his 20-year tenure at GE so successful. The first fundamental in strategy is to be in the right … Continue reading
‘Tis a Gift to Be Simple
In a previous blog (Why is Business So Complex?), I highlighted the factors that drive business leaders and businesses towards greater and greater complexity and more and more work. Yes, business is complex. And that complexity cannot be ignored. But, … Continue reading
David M. Shedd - Move Your Company Forward 