Strategy

No Roadkill Marketing – Take the Pledge

Share Have you ever eaten roadkill? I know several people that have, but it’s not something that appeals to me. Besides the yuck factor, there’s the risk of disease. So why would you tolerate Roadkill Marketing in your organization? What’s Roadkill Marketing? Just like it sounds. It’s driving in any direction toward a distant business […]

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CEOs: For Better Success Improve Communication of Your Strategy

ShareYou’ve worked really hard on your strategy and plan. You’ve communicated it to the troops. You’ve done this frequently though a variety of channels. But six months later, your strategy isn’t getting traction? There are lots of reasons strategies fail. In a study by Donald Stull (MIT Sloan School of Management) and Kathleen Eisenhardt (Simple […]

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Solve This Strategy Implementation Killer in Four Steps

ShareA CEO of a $50M SaaS company is faced with a strategic implementation problem. In order to recognize his strategic vision of double-digit growth he has challenged his sales team to get so many orders that his implementation team leader literally cries. Failure of managers to work across disciplines to implement strategy is one of […]

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Agility in Strategic Implementation

ShareThe first thing to die on the battlefield is the battle plan. The same thing applies to strategic plans. A big problem with strategic plans is that they often assume a static view of the world or the competitive landscape. For example, assuming that if you reduce your price, competition will just let you take […]

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Strategic Value Chain Analysis – Last Experiment First

ShareIt’s not just your differentiation that makes your strategic plan successful. It’s where that differentiation occurs in the Value Chain, and whether it’s worthwhile. When my daughter was younger, she came to me and asked me to help her develop a plan for a terrarium business. I thought it might be a teaching moment. So […]

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What’s Your Strategy?

ShareAt Prairie Sky Group we listen to dozens of business plans for small and medium sized businesses each quarter.   We have a belief that focus and execution are keys to business success.   Often by asking one key question, we can determine how the client is doing.   That question is, “What’s your strategy?” Strategy is tantamount […]

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Papa’s Guide to Financial Basics

ShareAs a boomer, I’ve done a terrible job of helping my children learn one particularly useful life skill, that of managing their financial lives.  (Insert here all the self-recrimination about giving them everything I didn’t have, and being the financial safety net in case they get in trouble.) Today’s twenty-somethings are ten years behind the […]

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Everything Doesn’t Need to Take Three Months

I just put up two different websites. One was relatively complicated, while the other was straightforward. They both took the same amount of time: three months. I decided I would formulate a new law of website development. Every website takes three months. But why? Everything shouldn’t have to take three months.

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If It Crashes, Millions Will Be Lost!!!

Mars curiosity will be landing one way or the other August 5th. Will you have seven minutes of terror, or will you know your prospects are watching your whiteboard before the video is over?

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