The Business Growth Blog by Rob Cuesta

Are today's executives more like the free agents we associate with sports teams than the 'company man' of days (and years) gone by?

Some time ago, I saw a question on LinkedIn about  how the  behaviour of executives is changing. The questioner (Bradley Foster) asked:

"Are today's executives more like the free agents we associate with sports teams than the 'company man' of days (and years) gone by?

A lot of the executives I coach are more like lone wolves than what we have come to think of executives as team players who are loyal to the company they serve. Are executives more like the free agents we associate with sports teams than the 'company man' of days (and years) gone by? "

Managing your Technorati authority

I noticed the other day that this blog's Technorati 'authority' rating had dropped by a point. Your 'Authority' rating is actually a measure of your blog's popularity, rather than a measure of the worth of the information you are imparting, based on the principle that the more people are discussing something, the  more authoritative it must be. High minded, but you can probably see the flaw in that argument: by that reasoning, the most intellectually stimulating and valuable media phenomena today are Big Brother, the Diana inquest and X Factor :-)

You don't have to please all of the people all of the time...

There's a principle in pricing a product or service that if you're not turning off a third of your prospects by charging more than they want to pay, you're not charging enough. I happen to believe that the same principle applies right across the spectrum.

It's "just" a word, and "just" a brand

I was in a branch of Marks & Spencer the other day and saw their new in-store promotional materials. If you're not familiar with M&S, it's a British chain of department stores, not unlike Sears in the US, or The Bay in Canada, but notable primarily for the fact that they only sell private label goods: there are no big consumer brands.

What would you do...

... if you only had 6 months left in your job? That is the question facing one of my clients right now. But as I was working with him the other day it struck me that it is something that everyone should be asking themselves, even if they've only just started a new job or business.