What do Bob Dylan, Soundboards, and "Big M" Marketing Have in Common? My wife has always been a huge Bob Dylan fan. Me too, but not like her. Years ago she bought Dylan tickets in the center section for his last concert at the State Theater in Minneapolis. When we arrived at the theater, the usher said, “Oh, there’s a
A Best Marketing Practice: Cultivating "Lead" Customer Relationships for Breakthrough Products and Services It’s been many years since I learned what a “lead” customer is, and how to build lead customer relationships to build confidence and reduce risks of new product or service launches. The concept of a lead customer, or lead user, is probably one of the most beneficial
BUSINESS STRATEGY, DIGITAL STRATEGY, and “THE ROAD NOT TAKEN” by ROBERT FROST Many of you probably read Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” somewhere in your educational career. It’s a short poem of four stanzas and 20 lines total. For a poem so brief, it’s surprising that Frost’s famous work is so powerful yet often misinterpreted. If you can’t recall
“WHAT DO YOGI BERRA, GARTNER RESEARCH, AND THE BUSINESS ADOPTION OF MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES HAVE IN COMMON?” Of all the memorable lines that Yogi Berra is known for my favorite is: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” The application of déjà vu to business adoption of innovative emerging technologies seems to actually express what Yogi might as well have been trying
Manufacturing Technology Insights I don’t agree with people who express “grow or die” statements. But there are numerous reasons to have a clear view of the growth roadmap for your manufacturing business. Here are a few reasons you need a growth roadmap—and hopefully, a diversified growth roadmap. Over time, every business’ core products and markets will start to become less
John C. Maxwell, the American author, speaker, and pastor who has written many books on leadership has a wonderful quote about growth that says: “Change is inevitable, growth is optional.” There may be another version of this we should be paying attention to, and I think that version is: “Change is inevitable, so is an economic slowdown.” With the long
High Leverage Marketing: Inoculate Your Business Against a Virus-Driven Economic Slowdown - A 10-Step Practical Guide “Things which are easy to do are also easy not to do.” Think about it. Most days, it’s easy to get up ten minutes earlier in the morning and have some quiet time, but it’s also easy to hit the snooze button and stay
Do you ever wonder how power windows on cars and trucks came about? Try to buy a vehicle with hand crank windows today. Good luck with that. The story of power windows is also a story about value hierarchies. Value hierarchies are graphic depictions of your value proposition. Value hierarchies are usually organized as pyramids with three tiers of value.
Sometimes events get ahead of you. Did you have intentions of implementing a business continuity plan for your business but perhaps it just never got the priority needed to get it defined and operational? Because of event like COVID-19—events we can’t control—now is the time to make it happen. The adoption of “digital” in your business may be another of