Patrick Lefler
Patrick Lefler
Patrick Lefler is the founder of The Spruance Group -- a management consultancy that helps growing companies grow faster by providing unique value at the product level: specifically product marketing, pricing, and innovation. He is a former Marine Corps officer; a graduate of both Annapolis and The Wharton School, and has over twenty years of industry expertise.
John Wooden remembered; his leadership lesson for today’s CEO
Today would have been John Wooden's 101st birthday. Born in the small town of Hall, Indiana on October 14, 1910, the former UCLA basketball...
Would H-P enter the PC business if it wasn’t already in it today?
It seems that Hewlett-Packard is now re-thinking an earlier decision to spin off its personal-computer division. If you remember, it was just two months...
Are traditional book publishers ready for oncoming meteor?
The Wall Street Journal's Jeffrey Trachtenberg wrote an interesting article on Monday that asks the question: As more and more readers make the switch...
Dynamic pricing hits the big leagues
Last month, we highlighted the New Jersey Devils' announcement that they were going to a three-tier pricing structure--variable pricing--that will charge higher than normal...
MoviePass’ Pricing Innovation Challenge
MoviePass, the subscription service that provides theatergoers the ability to attend unlimited movies at a fixed monthly rate, is promoting their innovative pricing model...
Amazon to feast on Groupon?
As the Wall Street Journal so succinctly puts it with regards to Groupon's business model..."The clones are attacking in droves." According to Monday's Journal,...
OpenTable and Savored partner for discrete discounting
Interesting announcement this past Monday in the restaurant sector that illustrates how OpenTable--the online real-time restaurant reservation service--is incorporating special pricing elements into its...
Netflix price hike – a deliberate strategy to shape customer behavior
Last week, Netflix announced that starting in September, they were splitting their two distribution modes--streaming video and by-mail DVD--into separate subscription plans, each costing...
The innovative business
As existing businesses look to innovation and the creation of entrepreneurial ventures as a means to grow profits and gain a competitive advantage over...
One pricing question every salesperson needs to answer…
How well do your salespeople know their customers? No, I'm not talking about knowing basic customer information or buying habits. Rather, I'm talking about...
Is it a Lincoln…or a reincarnation of the Cadillac Cimarron?
Remember the Cadillac Cimarron? It was designed to be Cadillac's answer to the sales threat during the early 1980s from the increasingly popular German luxury...
Apple’s questionable pricing strategy
Besides Steve Jobs' well-publicized announcement of Apple's new cloud and music storage service on Monday's opening day of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple also...
Leadership lessons from the Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is one the great leadership organizations whose principles have become the envy not only of other service branches but...
Wishful thinking – the greatest enemy of today’s entrepreneur
It's been said that in warfare, the greatest enemy of victory is wishful thinking. The same can easily be said for today's entrepreneur. In its...
Never underestimate the power of stories
Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore remains one of the best sources of information on how to market and sell "disruptive products to mainstream...
Get out of the office; talk to your customers
The two most important steps for any new business venture are to understand whom you are selling your product to and why they will...
David didn’t beat Goliath with a whiteboard…
Tim Ferris, best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek has written a great essay that is featured in the entrepreneurial TechStars book Do More Faster...
Winning or losing…what is the more powerful emotion?
Loss aversion refers to the tendency of people to strongly prefer avoiding losses as opposed to acquiring gains. And this difference between gains and...
A price war for book publishers?
Yesterday's Wall Street Journal featured an interesting story regarding how one of the country's largest book publishers is using price to compete against the...
You have to play to win…
There's a great story out there about luck that goes something like this… A man kept praying to God to win the lottery. That week...