Andrew Penny

Market Strategy

The Long Game in Market Expansion

Andrew Penny, June 3 2025

Many years ago, I was employee #14 at Bell Mobility in Canada, serving as Vice President responsible for securing dominant market share in Quebec and Eastern Ontario. At the time, we sold cellular subscriptions through phone retailers, whose sales reps could earn up to $1,000 per phone. While our competitors doubled down on this retail gold...

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Market Strategy

Ten New Drivers

Andrew Penny, May 20 2025

In a recent Tuesday TUNE-UP, I talked about PESTLE analysis. The timing was uncanny. Because Canada just got a new Prime Minister: Mark Carney. And on day one, he laid out one of the most business-relevant political agendas we’ve seen in years. Here are 10 key drivers you need to

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Market Strategy

PESTLE

Andrew Penny, May 6 2025

Every Strategist knows the acronym PESTLE. It helps us to consider the context in which any planned course of action would take place.  I encourage all leaders to put PESTLE into their strategic planning sessions. For those who don’t recall, PESTLE reminds us of the key areas to

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Market Strategy

“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs …”. *

Andrew Penny, April 22 2025

About 2500 years ago, 100km west of Shanghai, a young military scholar developed some unconventional ideas about strategy. He took the surprising step of documenting them in a book he called “The Art of War”.  Importantly for our SMB clients, his approach was very much that of the

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Market Strategy

SEO is OVER

Andrew Penny, March 18 2025

Buyers are increasingly using AI to solve problems such as ‘How do I manage a sales funnel? How do I seal glass to aluminum? Where should I stay in Atlanta? They do this because they will get answers rather than a list of ‘sponsored’ web pages they could visit. And they typically get a prompt asking if they would like to know where they can buy...

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Leadership & Management

Business as Usual???

Andrew Penny, February 25 2025

There is absolutely no doubt that it won’t be Business as Usual for the next few years. And that could be a good thing!    Why? As the late great Montrealer Leonard Cohn famously said: “Forget your perfect offering, There is a crack in everything,That's how the light gets in.”

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Market Strategy

Product Market Fit is fine, but what about Brand Market Fit?

Andrew Penny, February 11 2025

Some companies spend way too much time developing insignificant incremental features for their products. Nobody buys a product, or service for that matter, based on how long the feature list is.  Once it can get the job done, the product capabilities become irrelevant. What becomes more important, as Pete Townshend might ask,

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Leadership & Management

Don't Panic

Graham Birkenhead, February 4 2025

Douglas Adams’  Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy starts with very simple advice – “Don’t Panic!”   This is great advice anytime but is particularly relevant today.  A single individual has been given the controls to much of the world’s economy and, without the dampening effects of consensus thinking, we are in for a rough time. It reminds me a bit...

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Communication

Lead with your Inside Knee

Andrew Penny, January 21 2025

I spent a few days skiing at Mont Tremblant last week. The snow was perfect and the company excellent.  One of our group is a solid intermediate skier and always trying to improve. Unfortunately for him, the other three of us are all experienced ski instructors and only too keen to offer advice.  It seems that each of us had been quietly...

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Leadership & Management

How 2025 will be the same as any – and all – other years

The Kingsford Team, January 7 2025

If your inbox is anything like ours, you will already be experiencing the annual deluge of trend predictions and forecasts for 2025 - all very interesting, but it can feel a bit like reading your horoscope.  Sure, things are always changing — the economy shifts, technology evolves, new buzzwords emerge — but you can’t grow a business based on...

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