Lean Scale Up Revisited

If you can build a culture of learning, growth becomes part of everyone’s job. It is this aspect that I believe separates great companies from good companies. When I view Lean, it is not from the perspective of waste reduction. Instead, I view Lean as a knowledge building exercise. Or, a culture of learning not Read More …

Are you Recognizing the Patterns around You

A serial entrepreneur having founded multiple start-up companies, including one of the first profitable Internet enterprises. His last company appeared on the Inc. 5000 list three years in a row. Eric V. Holtzclaw, Founder/CEO of Laddering Works, advises clients on the “whys” of business: Why customers buy, Why teams work and The all-important “entrepreneurial why”. Read More …

Should we be using Job Stories?

I have not gone all in on Customer Journey Mapping and Customer/User/Buyer Personas because the vast majority are created without the Customer/User involvement. Though they may be the “best” we can do, I feel we often stereotype our customer/users into what we want them to be versus who they are. In lieu of this, I Read More …

Challenging The Challenger Sale

What sets apart the The Challenger Sales Reps? Who so happen to be the most successful sales reps. In the book, The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation author Matt Dixon points out six attributes that showed them statistically significant in defining someone as a Challenger rep: Offers the customer unique perspectives Has Read More …

Challenging Traditional Sales Myths

As many of you know, I am a big fan of Matt Dixon’s work, book, The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation.  I had the pleasure interviewing Matt and split the interview into 2 parts. Last week, Need Customers, Create an Effortless Experience was about his latest book, The Effortless Experience and the Read More …

Does Lean Create too much Structure?

I am a big advocate of standard work, though I might have a different take on it which you can view in this post, Holacracy, Zappos and Standard Work. I always like to get other viewpoint on the subject and in a past podcast with one of my favorite Lean people, Drew Locher, I had Read More …