For everyone who has ever struggled with identifying a clear, concise, and compelling value proposition, Barry Horwitz shares an article that clarifies the issues and identifies the pitfalls.  In his book, Your Music and People, Derek Sivers addresses a problem faced by musicians: being asked to describe the kind of music they play. Saying “all kinds,” doesn’t help. That, according to Sivers, is like saying, “I speak all languages.” Nor does claiming to be unique, since all musicians rely…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome James Wilton with  Monevate. James Wilton spent 3 years at McKinsey and Company, where he led the pricing service line at Fuel (McKinsey’s practice for startups), and recently left to found Monevate, a pricing strategy consulting firm focused on serving growth-stage companies. He has ~15 years experience in consulting roles, with ~9 years focused on pricing strategy transformation and new product pricing. Prior to joining McKinsey, he served as the Head of Strategic Pricing at…

  Kaihan Krippendorff asks a most pertinent question to help companies identify a strategy that will improve customer relations and revenue.   The former president of Starbucks, Howard Behar, told me a few months ago that the most important decision Starbucks made, that led to many of the disruptive choices this category-defining company made, was their decision to be “in the people business serving coffee” rather than the “coffee business serving people”. In other words, Starbucks decided to view their “customer”…