Shipulski On Design

Search Results

When someone you care about needs help, help them. Even when you have other things to do, help them anyway. When people ask you for help, it’s a sign they trust you.  And they trust you because you’ve demonstrated over time that your words and behaviors match.  You said you’d do A and you did […]

Patents are the currency of technology and profits are the currency of business.  And as it turns out, if you focus on creating technology you’ll get technology (and patents) and if you focus on profits you’ll get profits. But if no one buys your technology (in the form of the products or services that use […]

Like most things, selling is about people. The hard sell has nothing to do with selling. Just when you think you’re having the least influence, you’re having the most. When – ready, sell, listen – has run its course, try – ready, listen, sell. Regardless of how politely it’s asked, “How many do you want?” […]

Recreational athletes train because they enjoy the activity and they compete so they can tell themselves (and their friends) stories about the race. Their training routines are discretionary and their finish times are all about bragging rights. Professional athletes train because it’s their job. Their training is unpleasant, stressful and ritualistic. And it’s not optional. […]

It’s easy to complain about how things are going, especially when they’re not going well. But even with the best intentions, complaining doesn’t move the organization in a new direction.  Sometimes people complain to attract attention to an important issue. Sometimes it’s out of frustration, sometimes out of sadness and sometimes out of fear, but […]

If some talks to you in an angry way, what do you do? Well, if it’s a family member you take it personally and respond with equal and opposite anger. If it’s someone at work, you take it personally but use a bit more restraint.  And in both cases, the root of all the trouble […]

When companies want to innovate, there are three things they can change – products, services and business models. Products are usually the first, second and third priorities, services, though they have a tighter connection with customer and are more lasting and powerful, sadly, are fourth priority.  And business models are the superset and the most […]

It’s not enough to sell things to customers, because selling things is transactional and, over time, transactional selling deteriorates into selling on price. And selling on price is a race to the bottom. Sales must move from transactional to relational, where people in the sales organization become trusted advisers and then something altogether deeper. At […]

In business and in life, one of the biggest choices is what to do next.  Sounds simple, but it’s not. The decision has many facets and drives many questions, for example:  Does it fit with core competence? Does it fit with the brand? How many will we sell? What will the market look like after it’s launched? […]

Anything that happens happens because of people, and anything that doesn’t happen doesn’t happen because of people.  Technology doesn’t create itself, products don’t launch themselves, companies don’t build themselves and trust doesn’t grow on its own.  Any kind of work, any kind of service, any kind of organizing – it’s all done by people. The […]

Once you have a project to work on, it’s always a challenge to choose the first task.  And once finished with the first task, the next hardest thing is to figure out the next next task. Two words to live by: Critical Path. By definition, the next task to work on is the next task […]