How many times this week did you avoid calling a colleague and send them a text message? Or participate in email banter in lieu of a 30 minute coffee date? Your B2B business opportunities may be slowing due to the lack of F2F (face to face) contact.
Alan Weiss, my consulting mentor and prolific communicator, recently shared this comment in his weekly news flash:
Nancy Porte of Vovici (now a Verint company) recently read my book, and asked me to spend time discussing some highlights. In this Listening Post interview, you will learn:
Continue reading "Don't Occupy Seattle! Harvest More Value from Your Customer Base" »
I stumbled across a resource-rich site that any small B2B business owner will want to visit often.
Stephanie Chandler, founder of BusinessInfoGuide.com, showcases contemporary authors and experts every week and pithy, tactical advice for entrepreneurs.
I especially liked her timely "Best Gift Ideas for Entrepreneurs" post.
Click here to also enjoy my latest interview -- and hear my secret passion for Pinot Noir.
P.S. If you are looking for an inspiring holiday gift for your CEO clients, contact me about how you can order some autographed copies of my book at a great price: contact_us@energizegrowth.com.
I’m inviting you to the Enlightened Business Summit from Oct. 25-29th. When my friend Chip Conley asked me to join the faculty, I was honored!
The event features a fantastic lineup of top-tier CEOs, bestselling authors, and visionaries, all sharing their most important insights for free:
http://enlightenedbusinesssummit.com/feature/Lisa-Nirell
Names you might recognize include NY Times bestselling authors such as Tim Ferriss, Stephen M. Covey, and Tony Schwartz, plus CEOs like John Mackey of Whole Foods, Tony Hsieh of Zappos, and George Zimmer of Men's Wearhouse.
The event is hosted on the phone and you can participate in as many sessions as you like. You will hear the best insights from these leaders, so I hope you can join me.
P.S. Feel free to forward this invite to your community using this link: http://enlightenedbusinesssummit.com/feature/Lisa-Nirell
A recent article in U.S. News & World Report disclosed that in 2010, airlines have generated $2.1B in additional passenger revenues through clever, and often egregious pricing strategies. If they had asked their customers for ways to make travel memorable again, would they have selected this strategy to grow revenues?
The "pay to breathe, walk or eat" pricing approach is rapidly eclipsing customer service in the airline industry, and customers like me are furious. Their nickel and dime strategy are earning them billions: Extra baggage fees comprised $600M in additional revenues and flight changes comprised another $900M.
StarCite, a B2B technology company serving the travel industry, has charted a different course to fuel growth. I recently met with Greg Dukat, their CEO. He outlined a customer-centric growth strategy that challenges the airlines' approach, and will surely outlive it.
Continue reading "How B2B Stars Innovate – and Why Airlines Have Hit a Black Hole" »
Yesterday, as Magnus and I were biking in Hilton Head, South Carolina, a huge, rotted spruce pine fell across Lighthouse Road, a main thoroughfare. The tree fall caused traffic snafus, and forced us to change our route.
Within two minutes, a cacophonous local emergency crew arrived on the scene and began clearing the debris. And within two hours, peace and normalcy were restored to the Sea Pines hamlet.
How often do we expect a beautiful, mature tree to rot and die?
Few of us could ever predict when the rotting tree in our company is going to collapse. To make matters worse, even fewer of us know where the rotting trees are located. As a result, sales stagnate, clients leave, and innovation halts.
Today's successful, innovative companies know how to assess which trees are about to expire. Here are eight places they typically look:
1. A product that has lived past its prime, and is now considered a commodity--yet commands over 60% of their time and energy.
2.An executive team who continues to play "chief rainmaker" and are frequently used as the cleanup crew in contentious sales situations.
3. An employee that is brilliant at their craft, but is poorly equipped or incapable of marketing or sales - yet still remains in a customer-facing role.
4. A marketing strategy that incorporates few or no social or online interactions with customers and prospects.
5. Tolerating a "client from Hades" that pays slowly, refuses to be a reference, and expects miracles.
6. Continuously blaming the volatile, credit-challenged economy for a company's growth problems.
7. Heavy aversion to risk. This attitude often surfaces as the common practice of favoring team members who protect status quo.
8. Tolerance of poor client communication standards. I continue to receive emails with no signature lines (containing contact information), static Web sites with outdated content, and so-called "professionals" who do not return phone calls.
Where are the rotting trees in your business development systems? Do you have firm (e.g. written) plans in place to address a delay in revenues, or will you be forced to call in the emergency crews?
When a tree falls across your main highway, how soon will you remove it?
This post originally appeared on FastCompany.com.
copyright 2010, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.
The term "best practices" is SOOO yesterday.
In this guest post from Patricia Wheeler of The Levin Group, you will hear why.She proffers three strategies you can implement immediately to ensure you are defining the next big thing, and avoid falling behind the leadership curve. Without these strategies, you will find your products and services becoming commodities faster than the hottest song from Lady Gaga.
Continue reading "Skip Best Practices – Think “Next Practices”" »
Chip Conley and his investors were forced to make some tough decisions.
Several months ago, Conley, the CEO of Joie de Vivre Hotels in San Francisco, California, witnessed competing hotels facing potential foreclosure. According to the Wall Street Journal, "there is about $5.6 billion in securitized mortgages tied to hotels coming due this year and next...27.8% cover properties now estimated to be worth less than their mortgage balances." (source: Trepp LLC's Foresight Analytics). Billions of dollars of mortgages are coming due in the coming years. Analysts are forecasting that the hotel industry will not regain its full strength until 2013.
Photo courtesy of Chip Conley
Continue reading "How to Promote "Joie De Vivre" With New Investors" »
I had the pleasure of connecting with Dan Schawbel last week. He is the genius behind the #1 job blog by CareerBuilder in 2008-2009. FastCompany dubbed him "a personal branding force of nature."
Dan wanted to know more about my book, how leaders manage rapid growth, and some of the best ways for B2B companies to stay connected to customers and partners.
If you are in the process of hiring more professionals, or are personally seeking a new position, check out his blog. It's chock full of inspiring stories, ideas and resources:
http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/personal-branding-interview-lisa-nirell/
Photo courtesy of http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/
copyright 2010, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.
