“Robert Redford happens to be a movie star, but he’s the star who founded an enterprise that changed an industry. Along the way, this very successful entrepreneur developed theories of innovation and creativity that will inspire you and improve your business, too.”

“More important than having a great idea is figuring out how to sell it to the boss — especially in a culture that’s not too keen to accept your idea. How to do it? A couple of academics from Stanford and the University of California at Davis looked at how ideas are successfully sold in, of all places, Hollywood. Selling a script or a movie may not be all that close to selling your idea for a new product or marketing campaign. But the lessons ring true, no matter what kind of idea you’re peddling.”

“You can be truly smart and still struggle in life if you lack the ability to plan, organize time and space, initiate projects and see them through to completion, and you cannot resist immediate temptations in favor of later better rewards.”

“More important than having a great idea is figuring out how to sell it to the boss — especially in a culture that’s not too keen to accept your idea. How to do it? A couple of academics from Stanford and the University of California at Davis looked at how ideas are successfully sold in, of all places, Hollywood. Selling a script or a movie may not be all that close to selling your idea for a new product or marketing campaign. But the lessons ring true, no matter what kind of idea you’re peddling.”

“Eliyon CorporateAlumni is a free service that provides a searchable database of information about millions of former employees of companies. The information on these people was gathered automatically from the web using sophisticated extraction and artificial intelligence software. You can use the service to locate former employees of companies to contact.”

“It’s an interesting and important question for people hell bent on making a difference. In ‘What’s The Big Idea’ by Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak, there some great advice. The best of it comes from Mitzi Wertheim, a social anthropologist by training who works in — of all places — the U.S. Department of Defense as a ‘change consultant.’”

“As David Colescott approached retirement as a real estate broker in June 1999, he assumed that the stock market would rise by an average of 10 percent a year. Based on that belief, Mr. Colescott, now 68, said he had expected to withdraw 8 percent of his nest egg’s initial value in his first year of retirement and take out slightly larger amounts, to allow for inflation, in subsequent years.”

“As David Colescott approached retirement as a real estate broker in June 1999, he assumed that the stock market would rise by an average of 10 percent a year. Based on that belief, Mr. Colescott, now 68, said he had expected to withdraw 8 percent of his nest egg’s initial value in his first year of retirement and take out slightly larger amounts, to allow for inflation, in subsequent years.”

“Attention all CEOs: Time to get your stories straight. In today’s economy, approaching a client without a clear pitch on your company’s value proposition is about as constructive as banking your financial future on stock options. That’s why so many solution providers are reshaping their sales messages around things like technology leadership, business-process improvements and industry-specific expertise.” (More here).

“CEOs have a right (and a pressing need) to know what they are getting for those shareholders’ dollars that are spent on marketing. Every P&L expense in the enterprise is measured by its R.O.I., with one exception: marketing. This is true even though marketing is a relatively large expenditure (as much as 30 percent of revenue for some companies).”

“CEOs have a right (and a pressing need) to know what they are getting for those shareholders’ dollars that are spent on marketing. Every P&L expense in the enterprise is measured by its R.O.I., with one exception: marketing. This is true even though marketing is a relatively large expenditure (as much as 30 percent of revenue for some companies).”

“It’s an interesting and important question for people hell bent on making a difference. In ‘What’s The Big Idea’ by Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak, there some great advice. The best of it comes from Mitzi Wertheim, a social anthropologist by training who works in — of all places — the U.S. Department of Defense as a ‘change consultant.’”

“With consumers disclosing their most intimate secrets online (voluntarily!), Google has essentially created a ‘domestic database’, i.e. a world-wide database loaded with your customers’ details and profiles, with a depth of information your company’s database can only dream of. So instead of consumers Googling you before they buy your services, you should Google THEM, and instantly get more personal information than you’d ever be able to capture with traditional 1:1 in an entire life-time. TRENDWATCHING.COM has dubbed this emerging trend COUNTER-GOOGLING, and the opportunities are tasty!”

“Reveries Magazine launched on October 15, 1996 and has steadily developed into a favorite of thought-leading marketers at companies and agencies, large and small, in America and around the world. Our focus is on insights, ideas and strategic marketing issues (versus news and information, per se). We feature Q&A profiles of interesting, insightful people, as well as roundtables, surveys, white papers and opinion essays.”

is the new book by XPLANE founder Dave Gray. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a manager or a saleperson in the trenches, this book is for you. View sample pages and order online at posted in Sales, XPLANE | Permalink | Comments Off