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 [...]
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 >>4 Keys to deploying Social Media
By brendan at 15 December, 2009, 5:51 pm
Last Thursday the Churchill Club ran event on using Social Media for Sponsorship and Fundraising. It was a great evening with perspectives coming from Peter Williams (CEO Deloitte Digital), Jeremy Kann (General Manager, Sales & Commercial at Australian Grand Prix Corporation) and Vicki Kyriakakas (Communications Manager at Environment Victoria).
It was quite a wide ranging [...]
A modern parable for tough times
By brendan at 28 July, 2009, 6:14 pm
Most forecasters seem to agree that despite the fact we have sidestepped the worst of the global financial crisis, we still have tough times ahead. And in tough times, one of the things you need to do is be innovative and work your assets harder. Note, Competitors that don’t innovate [...]
Read More >>3 questions around a good idea…
By brendan at 11 May, 2009, 9:35 pm
Last week I mentioned I was going to have lunch with an old workmate Glenn to discuss an idea he been asked to get involved with. I responded to his initial email in detail about things to think about in regards to getting involved, but not whether the idea was a good one in the [...]
Read More >>The Boogey Man
By brendan at 3 February, 2009, 2:41 pm
One of my relatives occasionally drives me mad with his worrying: How would it look if he failed? What would his wife say? What if he didn’t like it?
His worrying almost always to takes the same form.
1. Identify the worst case outcome (eg usually a combination of bankruptcy/divorce courts/public ridicule).
2. Don’t explore it any further [...]
unknown, unknowns
By admin at 10 November, 2008, 9:58 pm
I’m currently reading The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb [pls link to ] . Its a fascinating book that discusses why the improbable seems to happen a lot more than people expect. There was a section in the book that talked about the military and how they talk about “Known, Unknowns” and [...]
Read More >>On the subject of Advisory Boards
By brendan at 25 July, 2008, 3:42 pm
The other week I sat down with my technology advisory board and felt my self lucky. Here I was with a group of industry leaders that I barely knew, talking about great ideas for my business. The cost to me was close to zero but their ideas were invaluable.
But getting to the point were I [...]
On the subject of lifespan
By admin at 3 July, 2008, 4:08 pm
Last week I discussed one of the major problems I had with my IT services business Edion, the issue that the business wasn’t scalable. Another issue we had is that my concept of its lifespan was wrong. As anyone who goes into business for himself is aware, no business lasts for ever, in fact 95% [...]
Read More >>
