Customer Acquisition Time for a Startup

I read a book over 25 years ago I believe that was called Take a Chance to Be First: The Secrets of Entrepreneurial Success by Warren Avis. To this day one thought that has always stayed with me about entrepreneurship and starting a business; So do some careful figuring and planning, come up with the Read More …

Creating Meaningful Dialogue with your Boundary Partners? Or Anybody?

I have started to use this term more and more as time goes on. It is a term that I learned from the Outcome based thinking crowd that defines Boundary Partners as anyone that the project influences. I like to bring it a little closer to home and define it is anyone that will assist Read More …

CREATe a Simple Work Flow

Outside of blogging and podcasting, I do actually get a few real jobs that typically involve creating workflows to assist in managing and implement a change. This is done a variety of ways, and I take little credit for any success. I have followed John Kotter’s 8-Step Process for Change introduced in Leading Change as closely Read More …

Helping People to Their Own Conclusions

Annette Simmons wrote the book, The Story Factor (2nd Revised Edition), and a hidden gem, Territorial Games. The Story Factor became a classic when 800-CEO-READ named it in their book as one of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time (Penguin, 2009). Annette is the founder of Group Process Consulting. One of the gems Read More …

The Sales Story Funnel

A common sales exercise is to have a new salesperson state in a paragraph what they do for the company. They are then asked to state it in a sentence or two, after that one word. Organizations will often do the same thing in a mission exercise. It provides clarity to the mission. It is Read More …

Contrarian or Unique Perspectives?

Steve Portigal author of Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights, and founder of  Portigal Consulting.  answered this question from my in past interview: I want to step back for a second, and as a manager, let’s say, I send three people out to interview or just watch the experience. They can come back and Read More …