2003 | The Wiglaf Journal

Patents and Licensing

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | February 19, 2003

An expected competitive advantage resulting from a new product improvement generates considerable excitement in your workplace. You share in the excitement but fear attempts by your competitors to use the improvement in their own products. Assume your improvement qualifies as an invention. Though you have the prospect of securing intellectual property rights to protect your…

Selling Productivity

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | February 5, 2003

In the past decade, we have continually heard selling messages focused on the provision of business value. But what is business value? How do businesses capture value and thereby improve their profitability? Business value is provided through enabling businesses to increase their productivity. Increases in productivity are derived by improving one of the three core…

Accelerate Rapport-Accelerate Your Sales

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | February 5, 2003

Business developers know the importance of relationship in winning and growing business. Even in IT, sales is still a people business and most business developers and marketers have a knack for developing rapport. Still, we’ve all encountered prospects and clients whom we wouldn’t choose as buddies outside of a business setting. It’s in these situations…

Valued Strategies

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | January 22, 2003

Michael Porter, author of Competitive Advantage and father of the 5 Forces industry analysis, has said that there are three fundamental strategies for a firm in any industry: Cost Leadership Strategy, Differentiation or Branding Strategy, and Focus or Niche Market Strategy. In a cost leadership strategy, companies sell their out put at low prices and…

The fall of PR and the rise of Community-Centric Communications

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | January 22, 2003

In his controversial new book “The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR,” marketing legend Al Ries argues that traditional advertising is taking a back seat to public relations in terms of effectively delivering customers. As a matter of fact, Ries’ own assessment is handicapped by an assumption that public relations remains the most…

Value and ROI

By Tim J. Smith, PhD | January 1, 2003

Customers demand value. Customers want to be sure that when they buy a product or service they can use it and, in its use, derive more value from the product or service than the cost of selecting it and purchasing it. At the core of this decision criteria is the value proposition. Managing the value…