Latest Articles
Social Media undermines Sports Sponsorship
By brendan at 16 March, 2010, 1:02 pm
Its not news that Social Media is big business at the moment, and rightly so, because its a game changer. Consider this: If I am interested in raising awareness of my product with the type of person I who barracks for Melbourne Football Club I could take the traditional route and become a club sponsor. [...]
Read More >>Does Commission Only sales actually work?
By brendan at 3 March, 2010, 9:37 pm
Quite regularly I get offered commission only sales work. Rarely though its ever phrased that way. Normally its a discussion about how exciting and lucrative the opportunity is with a statement at the end like “we don’t pay retainers though”. Instead there is a discussion around “spotters fees”, “trailing revenues”, “your margin” or being “looked [...]
Read More >>Selling Services for A Fixed Price
By brendan at 3 March, 2010, 12:41 pm
Recently I had a look at Billing Time and Materials for your services. This time around I thought I would have a look at packaging your offering and selling it at a Fixed Price.
Packaging up your offering is not for the faint hearted though, you need to think carefully about which of your services [...]
Good blocking technique
By brendan at 2 March, 2010, 5:37 pm
I met with “John” at a coffee ship where we were to discuss his business idea that involved sports sponsorship and the internet. John put down his crisp manila folder down on the table and we introduced ourselves as we ordered coffee. John spent probably 10 minutes explaining his idea and I spent another 20 [...]
Read More >>What great questions have you got?
By brendan at 22 February, 2010, 8:54 pm
My son, like many children, had his birthday around the cutoff date for entry into Primary school. So my wife and I had a choice “do we send him a little earlier, or a little late. My position on the matter was “Give me one good reason we should hold him back”. [...]
Read More >>Selecting your start-up funding source
By brendan at 11 February, 2010, 8:01 pm
One of the things that drives me up the wall is hearing the local start-up community complain that the Venture Capital market in Australia isn’t like the US. Of course its not, we are in Australia, a much smaller market, with a completely different culture.
The general complaint is that “Venture Capital is so risk averse [...]
Some Initial thoughts on the iPad
By brendan at 28 January, 2010, 10:08 am
Once again Apple will export California chic to the rest of the world. Certainly Apple is likely to carve out a “new” niche with style and an interface that just works with its new iPad.
The success of netbook has proven that most users don’t need much more that email, web and multimedia display. The iPad [...]
Time & Materials V’s Fixed Price billing
By brendan at 27 January, 2010, 12:11 pm
Just before Xmas I had one of my coffee/mentoring sessions with a vibrant young Victorian entrepreneur and an interesting question came up around how she should invoice her services. Although not an expert in the area of pricing models (I generally recommend Jon Manning of Sans Prix for some hard core consulting), I [...]
Read More >>What would a Sales 101 course look like?
By brendan at 18 January, 2010, 6:14 pm
Something that drives me mad is that in my humble opinion, our Universities are undermining the success of Australian business. I say this because from my observation the number one skill required for success in business, regardless of profession, is the ability to sell. To sell your product, yourself as the right candidate [...]
Read More >>Keeping Smart Productive People
By brendan at 18 January, 2010, 3:44 pm
So after last weeks post on looking after smart but lazy people, I got some interesting feedback from a friend who’s a Human Resources Manager in a national organisation with a couple of thousand employees in what seems like hundreds of locations. She agreed with me, but extended my idea either further with a [...]
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