Top 6 – December 2013

timjsmith

Tim J. Smith, PhD
Founder and CEO, Wiglaf Pricing

Published December 27, 2013

Desperation to Euphoria in two letters: Aaaahhh, Aah. Ah. … Aha!

  1. Strategic success in business develops from differentiation. For some business activities, boilerplate best practices will do. For others, you have to get more creative and personal.
  2. Equifinality in an organizational setting “has come to mean that the final state, or performance of an organization, can be achieved through multiple different organizational structures even if the contingencies the organization faces are the same.
  3. You have to throw out the garbage to make room for cooking up dinner.
  4. In “Marketing Malpractice”1, Clayton Christensen noted that 90% of the 30,000+ consumer products launched annually fail. Don’t forget to retire the failed product to leave room for investing in the next success.
  5. Some sounds connect with people better than others. Test the sound beyond looking for available .com domains.
  6. Somehow Kroc begged, borrowed, and stole what was needed to secure the “McDonald’s” name, and the rest – as they say – is history.
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About The Author

timjsmith
Tim J. Smith, PhD, is the founder and CEO of Wiglaf Pricing, an Adjunct Professor of Marketing and Economics at DePaul University, and the author of Pricing Done Right (Wiley 2016) and Pricing Strategy (Cengage 2012). At Wiglaf Pricing, Tim leads client engagements. Smith’s popular business book, Pricing Done Right: The Pricing Framework Proven Successful by the World’s Most Profitable Companies, was noted by Dennis Stone, CEO of Overhead Door Corp, as "Essential reading… While many books cover the concepts of pricing, Pricing Done Right goes the additional step of applying the concepts in the real world." Tim’s textbook, Pricing Strategy: Setting Price Levels, Managing Price Discounts, & Establishing Price Structures, has been described by independent reviewers as “the most comprehensive pricing strategy book” on the market. As well as serving as the Academic Advisor to the Professional Pricing Society’s Certified Pricing Professional program, Tim is a member of the American Marketing Association and American Physical Society. He holds a BS in Physics and Chemistry from Southern Methodist University, a BA in Mathematics from Southern Methodist University, a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Chicago, and an MBA with high honors in Strategy and Marketing from the University of Chicago GSB.