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.
A stark contrast in leadership and accountability…
Earlier this week, the investigations of two separate accidents--one from the University of Notre Dame, and the other from the United States Marine Corps--were...
Does value follow price?
We're all familiar with the term "you get what you pay for"—but does it really factor into buyers' perceptions of value today? There's a really...
Innovate with price
Pricing and innovation are not normally associated together in the same sentence. Pricing is thought to be stagnant (and boring) and impossible to alter,...
Problem solving and asking “why?” five times
To get to root cause of any problem requires probing; you have to ask the right questions. And the most important question to ask,...
Innovation and the importance of critical thinking…
The more I hear from innovators (some successful and others not-so successful) on the importance of being able to make snap decisions based on...
Stanley Bogdan; fly-fishing innovator extraordinaire…
Last week, Stanley Bogdan--perhaps the finest fly-fishing reelmaker in the world–passed away at the age of 92. Not being a fisherman, I had no...
Talk to your customers; find out what they don’t want
Bruce Johnson of Accelerated Growth Consulting recounts a terrific story that highlights the importance of getting out of the office and talking to customers. While...
So much for the NYTimes online pricing discipline…
We talked last week about the New York Times' introduction of a paywall for access to their very popular website in order to increase...
Dissecting the NY Times online pricing model…
The New York Times will soon introduce a paywall to its very popular website in order to turn online visitors into paying customers. It's...
Motorola’s Xoom matches iPad price…but drops the ball on defining value
Motorola Mobility Holdings announced that it will start selling a $599 Wi-Fi only version of its Android 3.0 tablet called the Xoom; a price...
Full Court Press: A John Wooden lesson for today’s CEO
In 1964, coach John Wooden's UCLA basketball team won the NCAA title; the first of ten championships over the next twelve years until his...
Don’t confuse execution with tactics…
Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan are the authors of one of the best books on execution written over the past twenty-five years--Execution, The discipline...
Innovation requires execution…not creativity
Everyone talks about the need for creativity and great ideas. It's become the 'fad of the month' with entire industries now devoted to idea...
Have frequent flier programs lost their way?
Scott McCartney, The Wall Street Journal's Travel Editor, penned an interesting article this week regarding airline frequent flier programs. The piece, titled What Airlines...
The innovative wizard of Sony
Nobutoshi Kihara, the man behind most of Sony's wildly successful consumer products recently passed away on February 13th. He was 84 and spent his...
Wanting what you can not have…
In their book Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, authors Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin and Robert B. Cialdini tell the...
Innovation in our cities; easier said than done
This past week, one of the blogs featured in the Harvard Business Review's The Conversation featured a story about recent efforts of Kentucky's two...
Emory Bellard’s innovative lesson for college football…and life
Before today's powerful Spread Offense became popular, and even before the West Coast Offense took football by storm in the 1980s, the Wishbone ruled...
When DEC was the king of innovation…
Ken Olsen, the founder of Digital Equipment Company (DEC) and one of the great entrepreneurs of our lifetime passed away earlier in the week...
Innovation is not pixie dust…
John Lennon's classic Beatles song "All you need is love" breaks down all the world's problems into one simple solution: Love. There's nothing you can...