2013 Jul 29

Customers Are Rational In Their Minds, Not Yours

LED lights. I like LED lights. Yes, those very cool bulbs that use almost no energy at all, do not heat up, can give lots of different colours, and require almost no changes. LED (and CFL) light manufacturer have struggled for some time to get these wonders of modern technology to be mass consumer products. Yet, like the electric car manufacturers, they cannot seem to convince individual consumers that it is worth it.

2013 Jul 28

Why Is Pricing So Hard to Execute?

An earlier article of mine discussed pricing being related to customer perceived value rather than actual value. No matter how much you believe something should be worth to a customer, it is his or her perception of that value that determines what price you will get for your product or service. Unintentionally, another article on LED lights touched on pricing and perceived customer value, as well as how to change that perception.

2013 Jul 25

HR Time: How Best to Recruit

And now for something completely different... (extra credit to those who can place the classic reference). I regularly emphasize the importance of incentives, culture and hiring the right people, however, I cannot recall ever referring to it as HR, since it has certain very specific connotations. Early on in my career, I was advised about how to handle certain questions in a job interview (yes, I actually did hold many "

2013 Jul 25

Your Emotions Can Cost You the Game, Send You to Ukraine

Emotions are a funny thing. After all, they are, in many ways, what make us human. Love, hate, anger, joy, fear, happiness. Without them, we are nothing but machines. They are what drives us to the heights of achievement and the depths of depravity. In business, as in life, emotions are a great motivator, but a terrible executor. Essentially, emotions are great at driving you to strive for achievement, but while you are getting there, your emotions can cause great damage.

2013 Jul 24

Your Price Is About Perception, Not Value

Whatever you're selling, to anyone anywhere, the price you will get is always about what your customer perceives your value to be, not what your value actually is. This is hard enough for most people to get. It is almost impossibly hard for two types of people: Engineers: Yes, I am an engineer too. Engineers look at the world rationally. They solve problems with math, science and algorithms. They are trained to think in terms of trade-offs and problems with a defined set of solutions.

2013 Jul 23

Learning from Lerner... Is the Grass Always Greener?

The phrase "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" is an old and profound English saying. It means, essentially, that humans in their very nature look around them, see what others have, and desire it in many ways more than what they have. The neighbour's grass, on the other side of the fence, seems to be more lush, greener. Of course, it is usually just an illusion, one created by focusing on that aspect of the grass.

2013 Jul 22

Forests and Trees, Programmers and English Majors

A friend of mine on Twitter posted the following pithy quote yesterday: "Ask a programmer to review 10 lines of code, he'll find 10 issues. Ask him to do 500 lines and he'll say it looks good." As anyone who has worked with developers knows, this is 100% true, quite humourous at times, and frustrating (for those of us who manage such people) at others. Ironically, it is also true for other professions.

2013 Jul 21

Eisenhower Take II: "Budgeting Is Everything?!?"

In a previous article, I emphasized the importance of the planning process itself, even if you are 100% convinced that the plans you make and execute upon will come to naught, "as soon as you meet the enemy." No, I am not implying that the market and customer are your enemy, although I do recall working in IT back in the early 1990s, where we commonly complained that, "if only we had no users, everything would run perfectly.

2013 Jul 20

Plans Are Nothing... Planning Is Everything

The title of this post is a famous quote from General, US President, and President of my alma mater Columbia University, Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower, who was emphasizing the well-known dictum that "no battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy," normally attributed to "Helmuth von Moltke the Elder." Eisenhower was layering an important corollary to Moltke's statement. True, the moment the battle starts, so many unpredictable things happen that the plan goes out the window; nonetheless, the planning process itself is important.

2013 Jul 19

Balance is the Key: Subscribers vs. Walk-Ons

I regularly play ice hockey. Not only do I love the game, but it taught a great lesson this morning on balancing your customers. A new rink opened near me (much better than the 2.5-3 hour drive each way I used to do). The owner took one look at his numbers - $18/person/hr for public skating on a rink that can easily accommodate 35 people gives an expected revenue of $630/hr, vs $275 for rental to hockey or figure skating groups - and said, "