There is too much talk about the competition. How to build a competitive strategy, tips for analyzing your competition, how to attain a cost leadership position against your competitors and how to out-sell them pervade the thinking of most business people.Barriers to competitive entry misses the point  The underlying strategy is to build barriers to competitive entry; erect a massive wall to pr

Providing superlative customer service is the holy grail of many organizations, yet few actually achieve it.     In fact in my experience, the majority of businesses hover between providing mediocre service to downright terrible service. Why do the words (of wanting to exceed the customer’s expectations with dazzling service) and music (of actually delivering mind-blowing service) not match?

To the entrepreneur the product is the center of their universe. It’s the manifestation of their new idea they hope will change the world in some BIG way.They have a fundamental belief that their product satisfies some compelling purpose and they stress attributes such as features, cool technology and price as the reasons why people should buy it.  A strategic game plan for a startup business

As a startup leader, what emphasis do you put on your sales effort?  The world of sales is complicated and noisy. Customers demand, competitors attack and pundits natter.There are too many messages “splashed and sprayed” at the market through too many channels; this relentless and constant bombardment is distracting and often gets in the way of people deciding who to do business with. Criti

Many sales pundits define 7 stages of the sales cycle, with closing a deal being defined as the end of the cycle.To most salespeople "the close" represents the welcomed end to a time consuming and laborious effort to get the client to buy. It is a time to get paid, take a deep breath, relax and move on to the next challenge.The close has its roots in our culture. A culture where we are taught in s

Traditional business strategy methods give us many tools and techniques to build the “perfect plan".  It offers structure in the SWOT process. It provides analysis in demand and forecasting models. It provides decision-making frameworks to assess the merits of various alternatives. It’s a mature discipline that has definitely helped organizations chart a course for their future.That said, I