2011 will be a year for change–positive, forward-looking change, not reactive, fearful change. Is your brand ready for the new year? Many companies had to violate their brand promise in order to survive the recession. I’ll give you some examples: “We design and build custom homes starting at $3 million for discriminating buyers” but right now we’ll […]
This is the time of year when prognosticators are predicting what will be nouveau and cool, or nouveau and harsh, in 2011. While I have some predictions of my own, I would rather write about what I know won’t change next year. The Whale Hunters promotes a business development strategy focused on continually increasing the size […]
In July, 2010, The Washington Post released a report called Top Secret America, an elaborate investigative piece about American companies that do Top Secret business with the government and the government agencies that employ them. If your Target Filter includes companies that have federal government contracts, this is an excellent report for you. Reporters Dana Priest […]
In order to succeed as a young entrepreneur, it’s all about community. I joined a former startup venture with the credo: My most valuable asset is my network. And it was this value that drove the greatest successes of that entrepreneurial adventure. My team and I always joked that what we lacked in age, we […]
How many times have you come out of a meeting with more work than you had before you went in? And just having lost an hour or two or more of time in which to get it done? It’s no wonder busy people hate meetings! The answer to that dilemma is to change the way […]
Documentation of meetings causes major delays in action at many companies. The larger the company, the more likely it is to have rules about meeting minutes or records: who is in charge of producing them, who needs to approve the final form, how they are circulated, where they are stored, and so forth. Smaller companies […]
In a traditional meeting format, everyone takes their own notes, or someone is assigned responsibilities as a note taker, maybe circulating or posting “minutes” of the meeting. I have worked with companies in which the process of getting meeting minutes approved for publication took weeks! In the meantime, people forget what was decided or what […]
I’ve been blogging about how to reduce the time you spend in meetings and how to make the meetings that you need more productive. If your entire organization goes on a mission to eliminate many meetings and to improve the outcomes of meetings that you choose to conduct, you will make more money. You will […]
Advice on how to structure business meetings with rules of engagement.
Introducing a series of ten blog posts about making meetings more productive to increase the time available for sales and service.
Discussion of The Whale Hunters Target Filter and how to use it to cut costs from your sales process while increasing revenues.
The “brand promise audit” is a key feature of the scouting process, designed to position your company to land big sales. It’s a mandatory feature of your business development strategy! The brand promise audit focuses on how a small company can hone its message to market so as to be distinctive. In far too many […]