Disruption – Knowledge, Flexibility, and Revolutionaries 

The Unexpected Challenge. The ability to shift, change and adapt is an essential part of what organizations need to do to survive and manage change in today’s world. Understanding this must be part of marketing and business operations. If your customers are not paying attention or they’ve totally changed, you need to know this.  Disruption…

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Not knowing the future is a way to invent what’s next

And then there was COVID… It’s March 2020: suddenly restaurants, bars, and schools are closed. When COVID hit and began to have global impacts, everyone was forced, location by location, nation by nation, to face a new reality. How and what we purchased changed overnight. Remember the toilet paper shortages (I still wonder why that…

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Do you really know me?

Personas: They are customers and individuals with their own motivations. What’s my biggest problem? What do I need to deal with to make my job easier? Does someone understand what I need to get done? Can you say one thing to me that lets me know you’ll solve my problems? In the B2B world, the…

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Listening to Customers, Fake Friends, and Consumer Behavior

Listen and Learn: What Are Your Customers Thinking? If you don’t listen to your customers — really know them and understand them — you can’t build a valued relationship. Many brands wrongly believe that selling consists mostly of pitching a product, a solution, or an idea. In fact, the most important part of selling is listening to…

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A Different Kind of Brand Guide For Startups

Having advised early-stage startups at the UC Berkeley SkyDeck and worked with mid-stage series C round funded companies, I’ve seen a wide range of business models with amazing ideas. Some take off others do not. The challenges are many and they really test your focus and commitment. Here are some thoughts that might be helpful…

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Traction

The value of engagement is in staying connected. No, traction is not the treads on your tires or the treads on the bottom of your hiking boots. In the start-up, world traction means the success you’ve seen so far or the proof you have that demonstrates to customers the value and unique solution you have that solves…

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Radiant Insights: Millennial Housing, Experience-Retail and B2B Marketing

Marketing Apartments to Millennials —  Social Media, Fitness Centers and A Dog Wash.  Lifestyle and Housing for Millennials is Online, Social and Connected As one of the largest living generations in America, millennials have come of age and officially proven themselves a force to be dealt with just about everything. Born sometime in the early…

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