Innovation

How to Build an Insanely Successful Product or Service

I was at a tech startup event last week and as is at all these events, there was a discussion about how do you build new products or services that have a good chance at success. I have learnt from my personal experience and from observing a lot of successful and not so successful startups that every entrepreneur trying to create a new product or service could follow the following process to have a good chance at building a successful product or service: Step1: Know thy user My personal experience in having facilitated numerous innovation workshops and from observing some highly […]

Leadership

A Blueprint for Success

Maya Hu-Chan wrote a blog post titled “Are you a global thinker” in which she explores what it takes to succeed in a global leadership role. She lays down a 5 step in becoming a global thinker: Understand your company’s global strategy and ambitions: Embrace a global mindset Get out there! Build a support system to sharpen global thinking Help others to think globally too If you look at the suggestions and read a countless other posts that talk about how to succeed in any realm of life, there are some similarities that I find. Reflect: Irrespective of the field of […]

Marketing

Seven Secrets of Highly Effective Storytelling

If there is one skill that would help you to connect with your peers, customers, partners, spouse and kids equally and set you up for success, it is the ability to tell a story well. The most effective way to influence people is through powerful stories. The wonderful thing about this is that it is a skill that all of us can acquire with practice. I stumbled upon a video where J.D. Schramm walks us through seven secrets to effective storytelling. You can watch the entire video below. And if you are short on time, let me summarize the seven secrets […]

Sales

What can Sales Executives Learn from the Book “Switch” by Chip and Dan Heath

One of the most important skills that the sales executive policies leader needs to succeed is an ability to create a need or desire to change the status quo among their prospects and customers. In large, complex sales cycles, it is not just enough to be able to sell the change but also to be able to help the customer adopt the product or solution and get the benefits that were promised. This can lead to more engagements with the customer and hence create a positive spiral. The question is how can sales executives use the concept of “Switch” proposed […]

Marketing

We Become the Stories We Tell Ourselves

We have all heard the famous quote from Henry Ford: “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.” This quote captures something that is so important and fundamental, that I have come to think of this every single day for the past few weeks. I then stumbled up on the video below: I think that this is a powerful video. It goes on to show that that we as individuals and society become the stories the sum total of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. So, if it is your dream to transform yourself or the society, […]