alliances

5 Cornerstones of a Powerfully Successful Business Development Pitch

by Donald McMichael
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photo:  Aladair Mid­dle­ton via Flickr You live and die by the pitch in busi­ness.   Pitch­ing is not a sci­ence nor an art & sci­ence it’s pure art. You have mere min­utes to impress your audi­ence and with suc­cess or fail­ure hang­ing in the bal­ance a tight rel­e­vant pre­sen­ta­tion is key.    There are tons of […]

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How to Win Friends and Stifle Competition

by Donald McMichael
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If you’re King of the Hill and there is another that’s bang­ing on the front door you pro­tect your house (top of the line iPhone) by mak­ing sure that all your flanks are cov­ered. That’s the vir­tual role of the iPhone 4S and the line’s new pric­ing struc­ture. As pointed out in a New York […]

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Here is a Method That is Helping Niche Businesses to Boost Sales

by Donald McMichael
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I have the plea­sure of teach­ing entre­pre­neur­ship at FIT (Fash­ion Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy) in NYC. Being a New York City based busi­ness school cloaked as a design/art insti­tute pro­vides fer­tile ground for dis­ci­pline mash-ups.  The attached arti­cle from FT.com details the rise of retail mash-up, Antwerp’s con­cept stores which dis­play and sell every­thing from clothing […]

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MBA: Negotiating Genius in a Pinch">60 Second MBA: Negotiating Genius in a Pinch

by Donald McMichael
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The March 31st post — 60 Sec­ond MBA: Res­cue Your Nego­ti­a­tions; 3 Com­mand­ments - on nego­ti­a­tion drew a fair amount of inter­est. Why, because nego­ti­a­tion skills are impor­tant for every­one, no mat­ter what they do for a liv­ing. It is some­thing that most every­one uses often in life; skills to swing the deal in your favor […]

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MBA: Is Cultural Context Stymieing Your Business Development Effort? Are You Sure?">60 Second MBA: Is Cultural Context Stymieing Your Business Development Effort? Are You Sure?

by Donald McMichael
MBA: Is Cultural Context Stymieing Your Business Development Effort? Are You Sure?">Thumbnail image for 60 Second <span class=MBA: Is Cultural Context Stymieing Your Business Development Effort? Are You Sure?" />

  Whether we rec­og­nize it or not we live in a global mar­ket­place in which mar­kets are local. In years past it very rarely crossed our minds that we – when I say we I’m talk­ing about us as indi­vid­u­als — would be inter­act­ing with both part­ners and cus­tomers from around the world on a […]

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MBA: Rescue Your Negotiations; 3 Commandments">60 Second MBA: Rescue Your Negotiations; 3 Commandments

by Donald McMichael
MBA: Rescue Your Negotiations; 3 Commandments">Thumbnail image for 60 Second <span class=MBA: Rescue Your Negotiations; 3 Commandments" />

  Today’s tip on nego­ti­at­ing comes directly from a con­ver­sa­tion I had with one of my neigh­bors Marty. It is often said that great neigh­bors are the result of a strong fence. If that’s the case then out­stand­ing neigh­bors are those who have a knack for shar­ing appro­pri­ate knowl­edge & wis­dom. There were def­i­nitely some […]

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Do you work only with the ‘Best of the Best’?

by Donald McMichael
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Do things the long short way. Take a lot of time upfront to really make sure you’re get­ting into the rela­tion­ship with the right per­son, using the right strat­egy. As opposed to the short long way, which is doing things for instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion – jump into rela­tion­ships just because you’re excited about it… choose really […]

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