Posts by: Tim J. Smith, PhD
“I know he’s a good general, but is he lucky?” Napoleon Bonaparte Failures happen. The question is will you learn the right…
MoreOuterwall Inc. the owner of the Redbox downgraded their performance guidance tipping off a 13% decline in market capitalization. Did investors overreact? And what caused the poor performance in the first place?
More“You can’t ‘manage’ a crowd – or a community – through transactional exchanges or economic incentives. You need something stronger: shared purpose.”…
MoreWho should oversee pricing decisions? Marketing? Sales? Finance? Research by Homburg, Jensen, and Hahn showed it was none of them, all of them, and it depends.
MoreWhich of the following is most critical for a successful entrepreneur to have? An Idea Money Employees Customers Which one? Customers, you…
MoreKimberly-Clark Corp. (KMB) is “desheeting” its products to improve profitability. Weber Stephen Products LLC avoids price promotions and markdowns on their grills, and yet maintains a dominant market position. These are two rather disjointed activities but they both appear to fall afoul of the suggestions given in a recent Wall Street Journal article by Professor Ailawadi of Tuck and Professor Farris of Darden. Are Ailawad and Farris wrong, are the companies wrong, or can both pairs be right?
MoreHaving a long list of prospective buyers may be comforting for a salesperson, but a highly applied sales methodology for business markets suggests salespeople should only pursue prospects that fall within two out of four response modes. What are these response modes? How do they affect price performance? And why should salespeople only pursue two of them?
MoreCelebrate, Lament, Ignore. You choose how you respond to stimuli and situations. If your prospects are bad, create new ones. Don’t sell…
MoreTo graduates: Michael Dell (Dell), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple), Mike Lazaridis (RIM), and John Mackey (Whole Foods) all dropped out…
MoreSince childhood, we have heard about economics. Now that we are adults with jobs, it seems like using an economics for pricing would be wise. But, as grown-ups, we also know that things are never as simple as they appeared when we were kids.
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