Market

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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Leadership & Management

Early Birds, Second Mice, and a Dancing Guy

Graham Birkenhead, April 29 2025

In today’s unpredictable world, good leadership isn’t just about moving fast.  Instead, it’s about moving with judgment; it involves knowing when to lead from the front, and when to watch, learn, and move decisively at just the right moment. We all know the old saying:  “The early bird catches the worm”.  And in business, this has often been held...

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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

Services

Andrew Penny, April 8 2025

Almost every headline these days refers to tariffs and the chaos and reciprocity swirling around the world. In the midst of all this, we need to remember that the new tariffs ping-ponging back and forth are on ‘Goods’ – physical, manufactured stuff. If you are in the services business, the impact is indirect – i.e. your foreign clients may be...

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Communication

Marketing without Trust is Just Noise

Graham Birkenhead, March 11 2025

For as long as humans have been around, the ability to decide who to trust  - and who not to trust - has been a crucial part of our survival tool box.  Individually, we human beings are relatively weak creatures, but our strength comes from forming social groups, to work, problem solve, and live together.  And that requires communication and the...

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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

Another Year Over

The Kingsford Team, December 17 2024

We are fast approaching the end of the year, and this will be our final Tuesday Tune-up for 2024.  And what a year it's been.  And as we take a quick look at 2024, this is an indication of the world of challenge and more importantly, opportunity that awaits us for 2025. Over the last year we’ve

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Leadership & Management

Interesting Times

Graham Birkenhead, November 12 2024

not 1605 As has been the case throughout history, whenever times get interesting - there is opportunity as well as threat; we need to be on the lookout for those opportunities so we can seize them, and we need to be prepared to mitigate any threats. Strategy is an ongoing process of achieving your goals using resources available to you while...

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Market Strategy

Sell Me This Cup

Andrew Penny, September 3 2024

There is a Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) issue that pervades most companies, and they try to be attractive to as many buyers as possible. And when I say attractive, I am not referring to their product or service alone – I am including the whole package: product, price, packaging, brand, support and so

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Market Strategy

Lessons from a Marketing Pioneer

Graham Birkenhead, July 9 2024

Fulford Place George Fulford was a pharmaceutical manufacturer who made his large fortune with "Dr. Williams’ Pink Pills for Pale People"; these were sold in over 80 countries around the world.  The 'pink pills' were actually, essentially, iron tablets.   And the 'pale people' were those suffering from anaemia of which there were many resulting...

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