Tom SpencerIf you think you are beaten, you are. If you think you dare not, you don’t. If you like to win but think you can’t, It’s almost a cinch you won’t. If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost. For out in the world we find, Success begins with a fellow’s will. It’s all in the […]
What do you want to do when you grow up? THIS is a tribute to those people whose actions make our lives possible. Think of an ordinary day of your typical city dwelling person. A school student, university student, office worker or senior citizen. It is very likely that they may need to go somewhere, […]
Are you dancing too fast? Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round, or listened to the rain slapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight, or gazed at the sun into the fading night? You’d better slow down, don’t dance so fast, time is short, the music won’t last. Do you run through each […]
The Value GROW Model can be used to help people set and achieve goals 1. Background The Value GROW Model is an adaption of the traditional “GROW Model” – a framework used widely for coaching individuals to set and achieve goals. The traditional GROW Model has been used and popularised by various high profile coaches […]
When the economy slows, you’re likely to get RAPED, SHAFTED or SCREWED Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown in the US economy, Congress has decided to implement a scheme to put workers of 50 years of age and above on early, mandatory retirement, thus creating jobs and reducing unemployment. This scheme […]
12.50pm AUGUST 1st and I was trying to make plans for lunch (priority #1). No problem, I’ll just check my gmail account and use Google Maps to find the address. Gmail, Google Maps, Google.com, Google.com.au and Google.com.hk failed to respond (for at least 20 minutes). There is some chance that there is just a problem […]
This guest post is by Rob Ashton, chief executive of Emphasis – a business writing company that runs report-writing courses for consultants. No matter how knowledgeable you are as a consultant, you’re only as good as your last report. Meetings come and go, but reports last. You may meet five or ten people while on an assignment, […]
Good management consultants follow the scientific method A GOOD scientific experiment will follow 7 steps. The type of science can change: biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, computing, management consulting – but the steps remain the same. 1. Aim Clarify the questions that the organisation is trying to answer: Who, What, When, Where, Why, How? For example, the organisation may […]
WARREN Buffett is the world’s most successful value investor. Very few people have ever managed to achieve his level of investment success. The interesting thing about that fact is that there are only a few simple principles that you need to know if you want to be a successful value investor. Stick to your Circle […]
Printing money is the last refuge of failed economic empires and banana republics QUANTITATIVE EASING is a monetary policy tool sometimes employed by central banks to stimulate the economy when conventional monetary policy becomes ineffective. To stimulate the economy, the central bank normally carries out expansionary monetary policy by lowering short-term interest rates through the […]
THERE MAY be a business school bubble for other people, but not for you. Whether you are buying into a bubble depends on whether the cost of what you are buying significantly exceeds its intrinsic value. For most assets, you can find the intrinsic value by looking at the expected return – the more money […]
THANKS to Wil for pointing us towards an interesting HBR article looking at The Business School Tuition Bubble. Is there a business school bubble? Almost certainly, and you can view a scary graph of the higher education bubble here.
YOU may wonder whether you should blog. Stop wondering. You’re either on the Internet or you’re with the trolls. Here are the steps: Search Digest Synthesise (hint: this is were all of the competitive advantage comes from) Polish Publish (hint: this is where all of the value comes from) Repeat #WINNING
TODAY MAY 1st 2011 (US time) the news of Osama bin Laden’s death circled the globe. According to the New York Times, Bin Laden was shot in the head when he resisted capture and his body was later buried at sea. And there was much rejoicing! Bin Laden’s death is a popular outcome for the US and its […]
Subtitle: The battle between John Maynard Keynes and F.A. Hayek DURING THE global financial crisis, we were told by governments that the best way to fix the world economy was to increase spending. This sounds simple enough given that increased government spending and lower interest rates can be used to boost output, but it is […]
IN THE English-speaking world, we have issues when it comes to relationships. There is only one word for friend, which begs the question: “are you a friend, or aren’t you?” Facebook has helped us go some way towards solving this problem by providing a new class of friend, you can now have “real life friends” […]
THE advent of blogging during the late 1990s significantly lowered the barriers to entry in the publishing industry. Any person with a computer, a blogger account and a half baked idea could get into the industry, and they did. To shake things up further, the advent of blogging reduced the cost of distribution and the […]
BACK in 1997, Tom Peters talked about “Brand You“. Tom told us that big companies understand the importance of brands and that today, in the Age of the Individual, you have to be your own brand. This is absolutely true, but it is only part of the story. You are not a walking brand, you […]
Consultants make a god damn difference Teachers and consultants are alike in many ways, one of the more striking similarities is that great teachers and great consultants both make a god damn difference!
“Know your [competition], know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.” ~ Sun Tzu YOU are running a company, advising companies or would one day like to be. A company needs to understand its competition, and here are 11 points to help you do that. 1. Identify the competition Who are the […]
THIS post was initially going to be called “finding your competitive advantage”, but I think it goes further than that. Here are 8 factors to get you thinking, and to help find what you’re looking for: Why do you do what you do every day? What makes you tick? What do you believe in? These […]
Whether your goals are personal or professional, setting SMART goals is the first step to actually achieving them “A goal properly set is halfway reached.” ~ Zig Ziglar 1. Background ALTHOUGH its origins are unclear, SMART goal setting appears to have been first used by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book “The Practice of Management”. […]
Seth who? SETH Godin is an American marketing guru born in 1960 in Mount Vernon, New York. Seth is an entrepreneur, author, public speaker and agent of change. Seth is widely regarded as America’s greatest marketer. Seth is always starting new initiatives, some of his more remarkable contributions are highlighted below. Companies Yoyodyne, his first […]
“One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others.” ~ Lewis Carol IF THE GOAL in life (and business) is to help others, then a good first step would be to try to understand the people we are aiming to help so that […]
WHETHER you are entering a new market, launching a new product, growing market share, developing a pricing strategy or managing costs, you will want to understand the products that you are dealing with. Here are 9 things to think about when trying to understand a product. 1. Identify the product What is the product? What […]
Loyal customers provide repeat business. Do something remarkable, and they will spread the word CUSTOMER loyalty is an important asset for any business for two reasons. Firstly, loyal customers will give you repeat business, to quote Tom Peters “all business success rests on something labelled a sale”. Secondly, and more importantly, loyal customers are the people who […]
HERE is a short list of quality consultancies in Spain: 1. Everis Website: www.everis.com Founded in Madrid in 1996, Everis operates in 26 locations across 13 countries (Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Spain, UK, USA). In Spain, Everis has offices in A Coruña, Alicante, Barcelona, Bilbao, Las Palmas, Madrid, Murcia, […]
OVER the last 3 years we have witnessed the birth of student run management consulting firms in Australia. Student run management consulting firms harness the energy and enthusiasm of capable students to help non-profits enhance their social impact, and provide a platform to foster mutually beneficial relationships between students and the non-profit sector. Students benefit because […]
NOTHING exists which is permanent. Your current success is the result of your past efforts and good fortune, and how well you have responded to changing circumstances along the way by seizing new opportunities and avoiding threats. An interesting example of a company that failed to respond to changing times is General Motors. GM was […]
MAINSTREAM economics would have you believe that the purpose of business is to maximise profits. If a business loses money it will soon go bust, this much is clear. Profit is necessary for any ongoing business operation, however the fact that a business makes a profit does not explain the purpose or raison d’être of […]
WARREN Buffett is an American investor born in 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska. Buffett is often referred to as the “Oracle of Omaha” and is the world’s most successful stock market investor. Buffett is the largest shareholder and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He has an estimated net worth of around $US45 billion. In 2010, Forbes ranked […]
In the previous post on Moral Hazard, we learnt that Moral Hazard refers to any situation where a person is not fully responsible for the consequences of their actions. As a result, they may take greater risks than they would have otherwise. Here are 6 examples of situations where Moral Hazards arise in practice. 1. Insurance […]
Moral hazard is when they take your money and then are not responsible for what they do with it. ~ Gordon Gekko 1. Relevance of Moral Hazard THE unemployment rate in the United States is now around 9%. Over 13% of all US mortgages are either delinquent or in foreclosure (Mortgage Bankers Association). Total loses […]
“IMPOSSIBLE is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. […]
You will be more likely to succeed if you can clearly articulate why you are getting into the consulting industry BEFORE applying for interviews, one question that you will want to ask yourself is “why consulting?” Relevance of the question The question is important for at least two reasons: You will be asked this question […]
You may want to launch a new product, start a new business or enter a new market. What’s stopping you? BARRIERS to entry are costs that must be paid by a new entrant but not by firms already in the industry. Barriers to entry have the effect of making a market less contestable and allow […]
Good presentations are clear, relevant, structured and provide the audience with a takeaway message YOU have probably seen a presentation at school, university or at work that you would describe as “less than successful”. The presentation was probably unsuccessful because it failed to meet your expectations. You may have found yourself asking one of the following questions: […]
THERE is a term that consultants use which is called “boiling the ocean” (I borrowed this idea from Victor Chang). If you want one cup of hot water, there are two ways you can do it: go and collect one cup of water, and heat it up; or try and boil the entire ocean. As […]
… do you? YOU may be one of thousands of people who finished a vocational university degree (engineering, law, accounting etc.) and thought, “I need to get some professional experience to my name … and then I’ll branch out and do what I love!” Two years later and you are still an engineer/accountant/lawyer. You’ve learnt […]
IN A RECENT post we learnt 12 tips for nailing the Guesstimate Question, which is a usual type of question that you can expect to be asked when interviewing for a position at a consulting firm. We now consider how to approach the Guesstimate Question. There are at least three ways to answer a guesstimate […]
THE only way to do well in the consulting case interview is to do lots of practice. Here is the most current list of free online case interview questions: Ace the Case Bain & Company Booz & Co Boston Consulting Group Capital One Job Search Online MBA Case McKinsey MIT Oliver Wyman
PEOPLE are motivated to succeed in business for different reasons. Some people want to change the world and some just want to make money. If you go to business school or listen to CEOs speak at annual meetings you’ll hear a lot of talk about money: how much money, made by whom, from which activities, […]
THERE are currently more than 105,000 homeless people in Australia. Census figures from 2006 indicate that each night 54% of homeless people seeking supported accommodation are turned away, which means around 56,000 people are sleeping on the street each night in Australia. The problem is that in the wake of the financial crisis the number of homeless […]
AS WE found out in the previous post, the guesstimate question is a usual type of question that you can expect to be asked when interviewing for a position at a consulting firm. Here are 12 tips to help you nail the guesstimate question: Practice: We live in a world where most of us use a […]
THE guesstimate question is a usual type of question that you can expect to be asked when interviewing for a position at a consulting firm. What will you be asked to do A typical guesstimate question will require you to estimate a number by doing a rough “back of the beer coaster” calculation. You are […]
A PERSON who wants to work on their leadership ability should work on their self-esteem. The job of a leader is to persuade and inspire. A leader needs to develop and persuasively convey a clear vision of what their organisation plans to do, and to inspire and empower the people who work for that organisation […]
WORLD GDP is growing at 4% per year, how long will it take for world GDP to double? Your company’s revenue is growing at 10% per month, how long will it take for your company’s revenue to double? There is a simple rule of thumb that you can use to figure out roughly how long […]
WE ALL know the old marketing adage, “sex sells”. The marketing approach is quite simple: link sex directly or indirectly with the product or service that you are selling. It may be a certain brand of cola that we end up buying, but it was sex that we were after. Sex is a base level […]
SEEMS fairly straight forward doesn’t it. The purpose of life is the pursuit of pleasure, and the quest for those objects and experiences that will make our life more enjoyable. As I recently discovered while reading “The Consolations of Philosophy” by Alain de Botton, this was exactly the philosophy held by Epicurus, an ancient Greek […]