Blog

Are you trying to sell market leading to market laggards?

May 30, 2011

I was at University of Toronto last week to see my father receive his 60 year anniversary medal for graduating from Engineering in 1951. During the ceremony, I recognized a gentleman who was a senior executive at one of my customers 25 years ago. At the time, I was at IBM and the IT industry …

Do first impressions matter?

May 19, 2011

I am a networker. That means that I meet lots of people every month so I quickly form impressions about them and those impressions dictate my behavior and interactions with them from then on. Conversely, the initial impressions that I leave will also guide them towards or away from future interactions and business opportunities together. …

Business Ethics and the Bottomline Part II

May 15, 2011

In mid-February, a number of stories appeared that Ottawa-based Halogen was being sued by SuccessFactors for allegedly creating a phony company to act as a prospective customer in order to obtain competitive information from SuccessFactors.  I have no insight into this situation or lawsuit other than what I have read in the media but did …

Working from a nicer place

April 23, 2011

If you are looking for business content, Stop. You won’t likely get any from this blog. It is Easter weekend and I am working from a nicer place. Specifically, I opened the cottage this weekend. The cottage is in Northern Ontario, on the side of a lake, in the middle of nowhere. I usually don’t …

Engaging Talent and Resources beyond your Company’s Four Walls

April 20, 2011

Last week, I met with a CEO who is looking to create an advisory board for his company. After the CEO had gotten comfortable with me and what I could offer, his questions switched to "selling me" on why I should want to join his board. As we were wrapping up our meeting, he asked …

830,000% ROI

April 17, 2011

We often think of Start-ups as "penny-pinching, cheap rent, used furniture" organizations that need to scrimp and save to meet their next payroll. This is often true, especially in their very early stage.  A few weeks ago, I heard a presentation by Brian NeSmith, the Chief Products Officer of Blue Coat Systems. He said that …

What happens when “It Happened Again” happens to you

In my last blog, I talked about a Business Analyst who had accepted a job and then resigned before starting to accept another job. I received a lot of feedback regarding that post, including a question on what to do if caught in a similar situation. Would I recommend that the person take the job …

It happened again.

April 4, 2011

This morning a new Business Analyst should have arrived for his first day at work. Although he accepted the position two weeks ago, he chose this past weekend to accept another position. His email stated that he had long been coveting this other position and their offer came as a surprise. I wrote about this …

Meatball Surgery and other interesting practices of Start-ups

March 28, 2011

One of my favourite phrases from the M*A*S*H  was "Meatball Surgery". It referred to the shortcuts that the surgeons of the 4077 developed to keep their patients alive while they quickly performed surgery. While there were better ways, "Meatball Surgery" allowed them to finish with one priority case so that they could move on to …

Improving Sales: The Excuse Department is Closed

March 25, 2011

Improving Sales: The Excuse Department is Closed:  by Mark Suster started circulating a few of weeks ago but I was too busy to do anything with it at the time. Nevertheless, its wisdom demanded that I come back to it and comment. Mark has done a fabulous job of succinctly articulating the challenges of managing …