Tag: sales

Shortcuts work

Fabrizio3 Comments

One problem with shortcuts is that they work.

If your sales are flatlining, a discount will probably boost them.

If you are nearing the deadline, cramming all the info you have in a format that is difficult to read will probably allow you to make it.

If you need more visitors, a catchy headline will probably get you more clicks.

If you want that bonus, you will probably get it with a good enough job.

If you want to be noticed, blabbering for 20 uninterrupted minutes in the next meeting will probably make people remember you.

Shortcuts work. And that’s pretty much where their utility ends.

They are not a basis for your next leap, a foundation on which you can build your future, a stone to step on to get closer to the change you wish to make.

Shortcuts are in the moment. And living one shortcut at a time can be an exhausting addiction.

Time to stop now.

Each and everyone

FabrizioLeave a comment

Change cannot be imposed.

You can force people to do certain things instead of others. You can persuade them to think in a certain way. You can threaten them with punishments or incentivize them with rewards. You can get compliance and meet standards. You can shout, cry, beat, chase, restrict, and silence.

None of that is change.

Change can only start from within.

And if you want to direct change towards what is good for the community, you need to involve each and everyone in the process.

Who are they serving?

FabrizioLeave a comment

Is your team serving a bigger purpose – the organisation and its values, the customer and their ambitions, the broader community and its needs?

Or is your team serving you?

Some questions to find out.

How often do you get pushback on your ideas?

What happens in meetings when you start talking?

How different do the solutions that get to you look like?

When is the last time you heard about a dissatisfaction?

If you don’t have time to review, are things delivered nonetheless?

Honest answers to these questions have the potential to make a huge difference.

Apple

FabrizioLeave a comment

The fact that Apple goes against Facebook (and others) on privacy matters should not come as a surprise.

Apple is the company of the 1984 commercial. It is the company of Think Different. It is the casual and relaxed guy opposed to the formal and uptight adult of the Get a Mac campaign. It is the solitary teenager who makes us cry in Misunderstood.

Few companies have managed to maintain such a consistent brand over decades.

Apple is the company against the establishment and the common way of thinking.

And now that they are part of the establishment, they still find ways to be consistent with their brand.

They have won already.

Farther away

FabrizioLeave a comment

When a system is broken, there is no patch, no tool, no framework, no novelty that can fix it. All of that can make it work for a while longer, and a little more, but in the end the system will still be broken.

So, if you are serious about making it work, the only way is to take a step back and have a look at the system itself.

It is painful, because it means that what you have done so far might have taken you somewhere you were not supposed to be. Yet, the alternative is to end up even farther away.

Your choice.