Last night's talk was well received. We had a good crowd, with folks filling the seats and and a few having to stand up along the back wall. Here's the feedback from the talk: I was surprised that it was more than 12 capsule reviews back to back, that Sean [...]
12 Books For the Busy CEO: spend an hour and leave with a summary of key marketing insights and some rules of thumb for successful innovation in Silicon Valley. You might even identify one or two books that you haven’t read that will be worth your time over the Christmas [...]
Just For Today I Will Feel Grateful For My Customers. I Worked Hard To Get Them. Without Them I Would Not Have A Business. I Will Be as Friendly as Can Be to Everyone That I Work With; I Will Treat Them as If They Are Responsible For Keeping Me [...]
Map out a calendar of subjects to cover. Just planning one or two a week for the next 2 months will help you avoid writer's block. This still leaves room for "inspired" work but can give you some structure. Pick a focus or related set of subjects for your writing. [...]
Going pro means learning how to deliver the results required. Some key points to remember as you ask folks in larger firms to take a risk with our new offering or service. They are from a March 1993 column entitled “Going Pro” by Asa Baber. […]
I will be offering practical advice to startup entrepreneurs in this blog. I am a hardware engineer and a mom, so I like lists with a do-it/done methodology. My post are short and to the point. Hopefully you will find them useful. "It is the greatest of all mistakes to [...]
It's a strange thing to know someone who's making the front page of the paper for losing his job. I have known Gary Smith for almost 20 years: we met when he was a methodologist at LSI Logic and their salesman for 3Com dragged him in to encourage us to [...]
Early software sales are typically a mix of service and product, and in fact can look a lot like consulting deals. Here are a three tips to help plan your next sales call. Focus on the prospect's business needs, issues and concerns more than your smarts, methods, or credentials. Promised [...]
I have been catching up on my reading and came across a profile of Larry Sonsini in Fortune's Nov-27-06 print edition. The article in the print edition is titled "The Man To See In The Valley" but "Scandals rock Silicon Valley's top legal ace" in the on-line version. It's part of [...]
A collection of quotes on perseverance, staying true to your character, and keeping your promises. […]
Always carry 3×5 cards with you wherever you go. I keep a handful in my shirt pocket and jot down those sudden inspirations or solutions to small problems that I would otherwise quickly forget. […]
Email overload has become an overused term. But I find myself with an inbox hovering near 6,000 messages (5932 at the moment) and so I have to make some serious changes. […]
John Nesheim, author of High Tech Startup, has been blogging for a little over a year. His most recent post, just before Thanksgiving, gives his perspective on bootstrapping BOTTOM LINE: Bootstraps are difficult to do. A few rare ones become giants (Dell). Most struggle and remain small, or go out [...]
Here are a set of quotes for Thanksgiving to reflect on over the holidays. […]
It's been a month since my two posts on Nusym Technology. They upgraded their text treatment ( nu · sym ) to a nice logo. They still promise to deliver the "most significant breakthrough in functional verification in a decade. Nusym Technology is an EDA software company that provides an order of magnitude [...]
Mary Sullivan addressed "Customer Centric Marketing" last Monday, providing a number of examples of marketing messages based on the customer's operating reality. Mary highlighted the need for marketing campaigns to recognize that the customer is in charge of the buying process today. The example messages cut through the noise (Mary [...]
I dropped by tonight's Stirr Mixer at Illusions on 260 California Ave in Palo Alto. It's a better venue for parking and it's not as loud as the Blue Chalk----if it's too loud you are too old? I am certainly at risk for this in the Stirr crowd. The West [...]
Bruce Mau wrote 43 statements in 1998 to articulate his beliefs, motivations, and strategies in what he called “An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth.” His focus is on “growth” in the sense of increasing both craftsmanship and artisanship. I have selected eight that I think are are the most applicable to folks in [...]
Mary Sullivan has prepared a great presentation on "It's All About Them: Customer-Focused Messaging" for the tonight's SDForum Marketing SIG at DLA Piper Silicon Valley. Mary offers a messaging framework for moving beyond product-centric features and product-centric benefits to demonstrating your understanding of a prospect's problems, needs, and wants. If you want to see more [...]
Here are 3 things I learned from Jennifer Vessels in Next Step's workshop "How to Sell the Real Value of Your Solution" on Thursday, November 7. I need to align my sales efforts with my prospect's success factors. This means that I need to figure how they are getting measured and [...]