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If All You Have Is Price
If the (perceived) value your products and services bring to your customer is virtually identical to your competition, then all you have left to compete on is price! And this is a very dangerous place to be! In a separate article, I wrote about questioning your value add – that if the perceived value of…
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Are Your Sales Channels Keeping Up With Your End-Customers
Like most manufactures or service providers, you have an abundance of options to sell and deliver your products and services to your end-customers – this is your Sales Channel. It goes without saying that developing a dynamic and robust sales channel strategy is required to, once again, out-maneuver your competition. However, if you haven’t spent…
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Ever Hear of Virgin Cola?
Sir Richard Branson, Founder and Chairman of Virgin recounts his own Downing Goliath story in the following CNBC interview … Elon Musk developing his “burnt hair” branded perfume might be the next example. Remember, just because you can do a thing, doesn’t mean you should.
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What’s Your Value Add?
“It’s very nice to meet you! So, Bill Taylor, what’s your value add?” This very probing and potentially threatening question was first asked of me by Scott McNealy and Ed Zander from Sun Microsystems back in 1992. It was my first meeting with these very iconic, very charismatic superpowers of the computer industry. I was…
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Solutions – Why Can’t We All Work Together?
If you like me shudder when someone mentions the word Solutions and you think: Solutions? Can’t we come up with any better word than solutions for a set of integrated products and services? so·lu·tion [suh–loo-shuhn] noun 1. The act of solving a problem, question, etc.: We have a solution for our customer’s problem. Dictionary.com Unabridged.…
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Looking Your Future In The Eye
What has always amused me is that practically every company used as examples in “Best Practice” books such as In Search of Excellence, Good to Great, or Execution seem to have failed to continue being excellent, or great, or have stopped executing. They have fallen prey to the dilemma of holding on to what once…
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Are You Stuck In The “Commodity Corner”
The first product offerings (I’m including physical devices, software, and services in the definition of “product”) you introduced years ago – those that made you successful and dominant in your markets – may be the very ones destroying your business today. Some of your products are cash cows, and likely generate the most sales revenues.…
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What’s Your Value Add?
“It’s very nice to meet you! So, Bill Taylor, what’s your value add?” This very probing and jarring question was first asked of me by Scott McNealy and Ed Zander from Sun Microsystems back in 1992. It was my first meeting with these very iconic, very charismatic superpowers of the computer industry. I was working…
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Don’t think it can happen to you – think again…
Read the posts, join in the conversation, share with your colleagues… Bill Taylor, Founder Downing Goliath © Downing Goliath All Rights Reserved
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Quote of the Day
Darwin is often misquoted or misunderstood with respect to survivability. Life, and dare I say business, is rather indifferent to who is strongest, or prettiest, or smartest unless, of course, these become advantageous to adapting to a changing environment. The “innovation highway” is littered with companies who fail because they were unable or unwilling to…
Dowing Goliath: my thoughts about business execution excellence (or the lack of it…)
Downing Goliath 