Prof Bruce's definitions
A tech whiteout occurs when your office experiences or you experience a complete meltdown of the technology you rely on to run your enterprise or life.
“All we did was call in one of our techies and the next thing you know we had a total tech whiteout in our office: our entire network crashed, our VoIP phones wouldn’t work, in fact, you couldn’t even log on to your own local workstation since even that is controlled by the network. These days the Internet is so in-grained into our work flow for: data storage, social networking, running our websites, operating our phones, running applications, communicating with our clients, etc., that when our network isn’t working, we might as well send everyone home. The only thing that was working was the one old analog phone line we keep around for our fax machine.”
by Prof Bruce April 5, 2010
Get the tech whiteout mug.A Playlet is a mini-play, usually less than three or four minutes in duration, that helps students learn about a subject by watching characters perform real life simulations. Scripts are usually less than 500 words and the playlets can be performed by three or, at most four, actors.
“You know last month I was trying to teach my entrepreneurship students about Bootstrap Capital (Self-capitalization) and I wasn’t sure that I was really getting through to them all. So I got a few students together and we wrote, acted and filmed five playlets on the subject. We put each playlet up on YouTube and, lo and behold, when we showed them in class this week, there were quite a few ‘ah ha’ moments amongst the students. It seems that video and play acting real life situations got the message through in a way that really clicked.”
by Prof Bruce March 29, 2010
Get the playlet mug.A client when buying your product or service can experience a negative cost if the benefits from using your product or service are greater than its cost. A negative cost can also result from a reduction in their costs from the use of your product or service that is greater than the cost of buying the product or service from you or it may result from some combination of higher benefits and lower costs.
Negative cost selling is all about understanding your client’s business from their point of view and being able to measure the benefits you create and the cost reductions you cause.
Negative cost selling is all about understanding your client’s business from their point of view and being able to measure the benefits you create and the cost reductions you cause.
“A minor soccer team organizer approaches a professional team for a donation to help with their upcoming tournament. Instead of just giving them money, the pro team gives them tickets at a discounted price (say $25 each) which they in turn sell at full retail price (say $45 each). They keep the difference. Their cost for each ticket is a negative cost, i.e., -$20. This also turns all the local minor sports teams, the players, their moms and dads, grandmothers and grandfathers into a new sales channel for the pro team which helps to fill their arena or stadium. It also teaches the kids about entrepreneurship and self-reliance and they come to understand the maxim: ‘Give a person in need a fishing rod, not a fish.’”
by Prof Bruce October 30, 2009
Get the Negative Cost mug.A combination of mystery and devious. Used to describe a person whose actions and plans are both mysterious and devious, especially as it relates to business matters.
"Rick's corporate organization is so complex that the only word I can use to describe both it and him is mystevious.
Here's the way it appears to work: he owns all of Acme 1 Inc. in which he has invested $25,000. Acme 1 owns 51% of Acme 2 which has outside investors that invest $25,000 less a dollar in Acme 2. Acme 2 then invests all of the proceeds in Acme 3 in return for 51% of Acme 3. Again Acme 3 has outside investors that put in cash equal to the amount Acme 2 has invested less a dollar.
By the time Rick has incorporated Acme 12, he controls (absolutely) a company that has $51,197,953.00 of cash on hand with an initial investment of just $25k. And it's all perfectly legal to boot."
Here's the way it appears to work: he owns all of Acme 1 Inc. in which he has invested $25,000. Acme 1 owns 51% of Acme 2 which has outside investors that invest $25,000 less a dollar in Acme 2. Acme 2 then invests all of the proceeds in Acme 3 in return for 51% of Acme 3. Again Acme 3 has outside investors that put in cash equal to the amount Acme 2 has invested less a dollar.
By the time Rick has incorporated Acme 12, he controls (absolutely) a company that has $51,197,953.00 of cash on hand with an initial investment of just $25k. And it's all perfectly legal to boot."
by Prof Bruce April 13, 2010
Get the mystevious mug.A prime consideration for every enterprise, even not-for-profits and charities, is what their sales or distribution channels are or will be. These are channels that you sell into and can take years to develop.
If you can not acquire customers and clients in a cost-effective manner, your company is doomed. Sales channels can help you do that. They are a ‘Magic Marketing Button, MMB’—every time you find a way to effectively ‘ping’ a channel, new clients and customers appear, as if by magic.
Once you have developed these effective sales channels, you can also look for other products and services that you can resell or distribute through them—which will raise your margins since the cost to add products and services produced by others to your sales channels is usually small and quite often zero. You may also be able to thereby create new recurring revenue streams for your enterprise.
By bundling other company’s products and services with your own, it may also be possible to co-brand or co-promote with them—they can promote your enterprise to their clients, customers and suppliers and you can do likewise, opening up whole new markets for both.
If you can not acquire customers and clients in a cost-effective manner, your company is doomed. Sales channels can help you do that. They are a ‘Magic Marketing Button, MMB’—every time you find a way to effectively ‘ping’ a channel, new clients and customers appear, as if by magic.
Once you have developed these effective sales channels, you can also look for other products and services that you can resell or distribute through them—which will raise your margins since the cost to add products and services produced by others to your sales channels is usually small and quite often zero. You may also be able to thereby create new recurring revenue streams for your enterprise.
By bundling other company’s products and services with your own, it may also be possible to co-brand or co-promote with them—they can promote your enterprise to their clients, customers and suppliers and you can do likewise, opening up whole new markets for both.
“Craig Miguelez met up with Jack MacGregor to discuss Craig’s new auto feed system for major bulletin board and classified ad services. Craig realized at once that Jack had developed an amazing sales channel over the last four years—he does professional photography for REALTORS and has more than 1,200 clients. Craig’s pitch to Jack was simple: ‘You resell my auto feed system through your sales and distribution channel to your clients for $30 and you keep $10. My system will make sure that their listings are always up to date on these bulletin board and classified ad services, you’ll make $12,000 per month of recurring revenue with almost no marginal cost and I’ll be able to acquire 1,200 new clients in one fell swoop.’”
by Prof Bruce April 12, 2010
Get the Sales Channel mug.A co-opetitor is someone who competes with you but, sometimes, cooperates with you. Someone who engages in co-opetition.
“REALTORS are rivals for listings and buyer clients but when they put them on MLS, they cooperate which means that he or she becomes a co-opetitor.”
by Prof Bruce November 1, 2010
Get the co-opetitor mug.In a tough, competitive world, it is crucial for CEOs to have direct and forthright conversations with clients and suppliers. To do that effectively, they have to disintermediate their direct reports and even their techies, which means that they will be able to get accurate information from the field without it being filtered or biased, say, by their direct reports who may only want to tell their CEO what they think he or she wants to hear.
“By using social media tools like Twitter themselves, CEOs can disintermediate everyone from the data stream. They can connect directly with customers, clients, suppliers and others and hear unfiltered reports of what is really going on in their enterprises. Just as importantly, they can make their views known to their followers and stakeholder group without it being filtered by their PR people or the media. In times of crisis, this might save the organization.”
by Prof Bruce February 21, 2010
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