The Financial Services Expert Trap
For the past 60 years the financial services industry has been booming. Since 1980, year over year growth rates tripled and large entities flourished as smaller competitors crumbled. With low interest rates and new regulations, banks grew quickly as the rest of the...
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If You Want Potential Customers to Be Honest Ask Open-Ended Questions
Three years ago, I was coaching a successful company that was very confused about the failure of a recent product launch. When I was first hired, they told me they were convinced they had done everything by the book. Before developing the product, the company held...
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Your Customers Are Lying to You- Here’s What You Can Do About It
(Note: This is the second installment of a multipart series on conducting customer interviews and discovering true migraine problems. And check out the first article in the series.) Ok, you’re on the bandwagon. You understand that you need to a get to a new level...
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I Run From Danger and Other Dumb Assumptions Entrepreneurs Make
What does it feel like to have a terrible business idea? The kind where people laugh behind your back as you walk away? Take a moment. Think about it. It actually feels a lot like having the world's best business idea…right up until the moment when the market tells...
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Experiments: Innovation Risk Management
No innovator fails because they couldn’t build their product. They fail because no one found value in what they built. Here’s what usually happens when someone gets a new idea: Their mind starts racing with all the possibilities of what it could turn into, the impact...
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What My Motorcycle Accident Taught Me About Entrepreneurship
I’ve been thinking about my first motorcycle accident. I’m not counting the time when I drove my Kawasaki Ninja to my friend Eric’s house and, while showing it off, fell over and needed his help to pick it back up. No, this was a lot more serious. I was attempting to...
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How To Significantly Reduce The Risk and Expense of Innovation
Corporate innovation is all the rage these days. With plenty of money and time at their disposal, employees have ample resources to create the next big thing. But before they commit too many resources to an idea, these intrapreneurs can learn a lot from successful...
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Are You Fostering Or Killing Innovation In Your Organization
Launching new products and services is the only way to stay competitive in the new economy. Unfortunately, most companies have a process in place that stifles innovation. I recently gave a TEDx talk titled "Our Approach to Innovation is Dead Wrong" about why our...
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How Higher Education Is Killing Entrepreneurial Thinking
A few weeks ago, at the National Association of Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE) Conference, I took part in a panel discussion on the subject of preparing our future workforce for entrepreneurial thinking. As companies increasingly express an interest in...
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Measuring Value Metrics
The data you choose to measure to test the success of a project is very important. If you measure vanity metrics instead of measuring real value based on the strategic goals of the organization, you could end up with a warehouse full of cupcake supplies. The metrics...
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How I Got A Ridiculous Deal On A Car And Why Your Customers Have All The Power
When I walked into a local car dealership in Columbia, Mo. earlier this year, I knew which car I wanted and I had a plan to get it at a great price. Within thirty seconds of walking onto the showroom floor, a sales rep named Chad asked me to step into his cubicle with...
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