Comments on: Thought of the Day: Questions vs. Answers http://gigaom.com/2008/03/26/thought-of-the-day-questions-vs-answers/ Tracking the Internet Evolution Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:54:14 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=MU By: Lee Brillhart http://gigaom.com/2008/03/26/thought-of-the-day-questions-vs-answers/#comment-875268 Lee Brillhart Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:57:32 +0000 http://foundread.com/?p=637#comment-875268 These are all fine questions and I agree that the right question is generally (not always) more important than the right answer. Some others have spoken about this but another key question is whether the company has good product-market fit. This takes into account BOTH the benefits of the product AND the timing of the offer. This is a really important question that is often not addressed with much precision. And, really good product-market fit is big risk mitigator. It helps decent but young/green/learning teams stay in the game and helps remove a lot of flotsam from the sales and marketing process. And, regarding cost/revenue name tags for team members: EVERYONE needs to be thinking as a "revenue" provider. I say this because I have had some really good experience as CEO working with/teaching administrative folks (traditional "cost" centers) that by doing their jobs more efficiently they are rin effect generating new sales (and in many cases a small cost savings can equate to a decent derived revenue figure). Psychologically, this seems to work better than focusing on "cost cutting". Maybe just semantic bullshit and maybe I'm delusional but it sure has seemed to work; particulary when I got halfway smart about it and incented the cost savers exactly the same as I incented the sales team. These are all fine questions and I agree that the right question is generally (not always) more important than the right answer. Some others have spoken about this but another key question is whether the company has good product-market fit. This takes into account BOTH the benefits of the product AND the timing of the offer. This is a really important question that is often not addressed with much precision. And, really good product-market fit is big risk mitigator. It helps decent but young/green/learning teams stay in the game and helps remove a lot of flotsam from the sales and marketing process.

And, regarding cost/revenue name tags for team members: EVERYONE needs to be thinking as a “revenue” provider. I say this because I have had some really good experience as CEO working with/teaching administrative folks (traditional “cost” centers) that by doing their jobs more efficiently they are rin effect generating new sales (and in many cases a small cost savings can equate to a decent derived revenue figure). Psychologically, this seems to work better than focusing on “cost cutting”. Maybe just semantic bullshit and maybe I’m delusional but it sure has seemed to work; particulary when I got halfway smart about it and incented the cost savers exactly the same as I incented the sales team.

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