Author: Pete Smith

A glimpse into the VC world

August 8, 2010

In sales, a good salesperson learns what motivates their customer's behaviour, including how they are personally incented and rewarded in their job. When negotiating any deal, they must understand what is "in it" for the other side, both at a business and personal level. They also learn to speak the customer's language and acronyms. Yet, ...

Teach me, Coach me, Tell Me

July 29, 2010

Early in my management career, my bosses' boss Bert taught me about "teach me, coach me, tell me" management.  Bert had been a very successful sales rep but as a rookie sales manager, he was failing. He was struggling to make quota and his team was not happy working for him. He had been an aggressive sales ...

Senior Talent – The Art of a Great Hire

July 27, 2010

Howard Gwin  and I developed a Leadership presentation a few years ago. We argued about one slide. Howard's assertion was that when hiring senior level talent into your business, a world class executive's batting average will be 400. In other words, only 4 out of 10 hires will be good or great hires. From my ...

Two Economies

July 26, 2010

I was talking with a colleague recently. We are both consultants working with senior management of emerging tech companies and both of us are busier than we have ever been. It has been like this through most of 2009 and continues into 2010. This isn't the first time that I have had this conversation or ...

Looking at your Target Market through a Different lens

I recently attended Communitech's Tech Leadership Conference 2010 to hear Clayton Christensen, author of Innovator's Dilemma speak and have been applying his principle to a client's business. Christensen argues that new technologies will disrupt and defeat existing companies when they enter the market and fulfill demand by either serving a market that is currently over-served by ...