One Sock

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success, failure and the space in-between

By brendan at 11 October, 2011, 11:38 am

I had a coffee with a friend yesterday that got shafted at work. She had been working on an exciting new agenda for some months, got signoff at every level and was ready to transition into the new leadership role that came with her plan. Unfortunately they (the evil bosses) took her plan, but replaced [...]

Undermining governance in four steps

By brendan at 5 October, 2011, 12:21 pm

Earlier this year, I stepped down from a board role in a not-for-profit environment. I felt that the Board had a very strong CEO at the table combined with a weak chair, and in my opinion – under the guise of good process, we were slowly winding our way to hell. I came to the [...]

sales, marketing, processes and lemmings

By brendan at 21 September, 2011, 1:29 pm

A popular misconception about Lemmings is that every once and a while, they all suddenly run off a cliff and commit suicide. Unfortunately, its not a misconception when talking about sales & marketing processes in a professional services environment. As I’ve mentioned before, in any organisation, there is generally only 6 core Tactical Sales & [...]

fools, charlatans & the internet

By brendan at 21 September, 2011, 1:01 pm

I can’t stand dealing with fools and charlatans, it drives me mad. The only resource I have that’s finite is my time, and every second wasted with idiots and liars, I will never get back. But everyday I meet or contact an number of new people or businesses, that I have never dealt with before. [...]

creating habits

By brendan at 24 August, 2011, 12:24 pm

I used to have an employee called Tim, that would dash over to a customer’s site, the moment they had a problem, and fix it for them. Great customer service! Unfortunately it was terrible customer service for the other clients whose site’s he was supposed to be at. Saying “Yes” to the urgent support request [...]

revenue model innovation for service firms

By brendan at 22 August, 2011, 3:57 pm

I have been buying and selling services for around 20 years, and during most of that period, have only ever seen two pricing models. Fixed rate or Hourly rate. Each with a couple of tweaks that are normally of benefit to the supplier, not the purchaser. Fixed Price – is normally used when the service [...]

tweaking break even points for fun and profit

By brendan at 22 August, 2011, 2:39 pm

The difference between a good business and a great business is normally just a tweak or two. Now about 20 years I remember sitting in a lecture thinking that the concept of Break Even Analysis was just a little too basic and boring. Accountants describe the Break Even Point is when: When n x sales [...]

having fun going global

By brendan at 22 August, 2011, 1:19 pm

Everyone wants you to “go global” if you are not already “born global”. Its fashionable because in a global economy it means money flowing in Australia and increasing wealth through the multiplier effect. But despite it being great for Australia for firms to be “going global” it can kill your business if you don’t have [...]

competing with lower prices is stupid

By brendan at 22 August, 2011, 11:47 am

The other week I said “Cutting costs and only competing on price is a death spiral. Always has been, always will be.” I then got asked why a couple of times, so I thought I might expand on this point a bit. I don’t want to give a lecture, but I thought it might be [...]

musings on privacy and sausages

By brendan at 17 August, 2011, 1:09 pm

Saturday afternoon I made some sausages with a mate. Pork & Fennel, Chicken with Tuscan seasoning and Lamb with Rosemary and Honey. And as always when we finish making the sausages, we BBQ them up for our families. Delicious. If you make your own sausages, you will never eat supermarket sausages again. And on this [...]