Category Archives: Growth!

Leadership: Sell the dream while making the reality.

As a leader, you set the goals, establish the strategies and tactics to get there (with help from others of course) and sell the dream to all your stakeholders.  And that includes potential customers as well as executives and employees. … Continue reading

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How to reach beyond the prospect’s gatekeeper

What’s a gatekeeper? Looking for an entrance into a VC, an angel group, a bank, a CxO for a sales opportunity, or any other entity?  There are always gate keepers whose job it is to filter out the inconsequential or … Continue reading

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Jeff Bezos asked a question that blew me away!

Here’s the question: This piece of wisdom came from Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, during a board meeting for one of the companies where he sits as board member.  Jeff asked the question “Is there anything big or small, which … Continue reading

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Is there gold in your old intellectual property?

Digging through your IP closet for gold… In past years, several times a month I’d have lunch with one of my CEOs, and each time we’d find ourselves digging into the intellectual property developed by the company over the years, … Continue reading

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Budget from the top down or bottom up? A puzzle.

Here’s the argument: Many people believe that bottom-up budgeting leads to waste and misdirection. The advocates of top-down budgeting are strong in their belief that if you give each person or department no guidance, they will budget to their wants … Continue reading

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What can go wrong with your business growth?

So, your business has begun to take off. You’ve figured out your channels of distribution, pricing model and how to support your growing list of customers.  Don’t be alarmed by this next statement.  That’s relatively easy. You can be the … Continue reading

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Premature scaling can kill your business.

Here’s a lesson from experience. Venture capitalists sometimes make an error in directing their portfolio company CEOs to push resources to the limit and scale the business to immense size quickly, all to seize market share.  The logic in this … Continue reading

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Five ways to make and execute a great plan

It is all about execution. Waiting over a year to see results is too long, since your chance of mid-course correction is greatly reduced.  To make the point, Harvard’s Robert Kaplan believes that less than 10% of corporate strategies are … Continue reading

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How big is your ocean? A lesson in TAM, SAM & SOM

Is this a problem or an opportunity? This insight is like a Hans Christian Anderson parable, but aimed at you and your business… There are big fish and small fish, potential customers, all swimming in the sea that is your … Continue reading

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The coffee and wine school of innovation.

Here’s one for debate around a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. Most innovation occurs when creative people are relaxed and thinking about other things.  Coffee, wine, quiet time, showers… How it occurs in large companies… We all … Continue reading

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