Selling learning curve and Today’s challenges

Recently I came across Gartner research on effective sales interactions guide (available here), I decided to write my thoughts on sales and elaborate on the subject that sales, marketing and company strategy is continuously evolving.

There are plenty of articles and for sure we have heard that business is an ongoing process that changes and we have to adjust our practices in order to remain in the business also tomorrow. Or in other words, the one will survive who is changing as said by famous Latvian writer Rainis. However I hear a lot from CEOs of SMEs who are in business of selling that they know their customers, they know what customer wants and that they have their best practices in place. In many cases practices means having not so impressive sales presentation, lousy company web site (that was updated couple years ago) and vague online presence – having Twitter or Facebook account without an administration. In these cases it seems that knowledge of customer is based on the prejudice and own beliefs of the world out there that it is not necessary true.

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Importance of breaking out of mental traps

Recently, Harvard Business Review published an article on Engineering Reverse Innovations that highlights the idea of designing products and services in developing economies and after exports them to developed countries. Article is definetaly worth reading not only if you are thinking about bringing products and services to the the developing world but also may help to enter markets relatively new markets of European Union where purchasing power is not still as strong as in old Europe. Authors of the article mention few traps and design principles to avoid those however I want to add my thoughts on topics that relate but were not covered by article.

Nudge Theory and Education

An interesting blog post on Nudge Theory and Education by Anthony Steed. Definitely worth reading and thinking if you can apply some of the practices in your daily routine and bringing up your children.

If you are interested in the subject then book called “Nudge: Improving decision about Health, Wealth and Happiness” is one to read.

Link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X

Emotional Shopping and Buyable Pins

Just few weeks ago news came on buyable pins – feature that is going to be introduced later this year within Pinterest together with Apple Pay, Shopify and few retailers. Today, you can read variety of articles on the topic. It seems that the announcement itself has made a revolution and everyone is so excited just about the news not solution itself. (Few links below).

Idea itself is not anything innovative, even more it would be wrong to think that some kind of technological or business model disruption will happen. However there are some issues that are worth consideration, just to name few – buying on demand, or in other words – buying what customer likes and wishes. Buying without number of authentications thus making online shopping more easier.

 

Counting Losses and Forgetting About Wins

Recently I have come across many (not saying a lot) articles and heard people complaining about loosing out on deals and business in general due to a fact that someone has ‘stolen their industry’ or ‘their business model’. It seems that people are looking more for the ones to be blamed forgetting that also at the time when they started their businesses probably someone felt the same about them. But the purpose of this blog is not to justify anyone, just to impose probably retorical question – do you really think that once you have your business running, you own something more than profits earned (apart from assets)? The short answer would be – ‘No’.

“Successful corporate strategies need to be based on simple, measurable rules”

Corporate strategy can be described as a formula that can be used to prepare a medicine. From my point of view this is how corporate strategies should be viewed and understood. Medicine, the outcome, should not be the one from past but the one from future. Attention should be paid on things that actually make strategy – decisions, abilities and goals, as these will be the key elements. Not all of the elements that initially are drown from surveys and other intelligent sources to build up strategy will be useful as corporate strategy must be executable by the company and should be in line with core competence of the company. It means that much attention should be paid to resources and knowledge that is already inside the company not forgetting that business environment is continuously changing. I would agree with opinion of Ram Charan (one of the authors of Forbes magazine) that there are two successful ways how to build your corporate strategy – outside in and future back thinking approaches. Outside In thinking means looking at the business through the lens of a leader sitting elsewhere and identifying global trends without the existing assumptions, biases and rules of thumb. Future-Back requires you to extend your time horizon as you assess the world and imagine what the competitive landscape will be some twenty years out. This longer time frame will help you see what trends are enduring, or unstoppable.[1]

“Entrepreneurs don’t have clearly articulated strategies. As they grow, they need to develop them”

In order to have a competitive advantage company should have assets, knowledge and to identify its specific core competences. By applying corporate strategy company should be able to outperform others on a financial basis – it means having competitive advantage and thus being able to perform better than others.  Even though core competence of the company is usually slowly changing over time if ever changing, for example, Kodak disability to change its core competence[1], corporate strategy should not remain the same for long.