The Business Trendsetter Podcast

The “Mandela Effect” is a term describing large numbers of people believing something is true, when in fact it is not true.  The term originated from large numbers of people believing Mandela was dead almost 30 years before he died. There are lots of examples, such as most people think they can buy “Jiffy” peanut butter when the real name is Jif.  Or thinking Tupperware is non-existent when in fact it was still selling plastic ware...

A decade ago Microsoft was well on its way to irrelevancy. Forbes mag christened Ballmer was the worst CEO in America.  The Board fired him, and today his replacement has led Microsoft to pre-eminence in tech, atop the AI heap.  His lessons for how to turn around a behemoth are relevant for organizations large and small.

This podcast explains how Nadella immediately de-invested in the “core” Microsoft products of Windows and Office....

Spark Partners has been coaching clients for almost 30 years on how to achieve long-term success.  But despite the research, the books, the Forbes (and other) articles and interviews, people are still getting things wrong.  The failure cases of 30 years ago are forgotten (Multgraphics, Kodak, Xerox) while new cases – with identical patterns to the old – are happening right now in 2024 – Boeing, Intel, Walgreens, Red Lobster and Big...

Intel is looking more like Kodak, Hostess Baking, ToysRUs and GE every day.  People wonder “How can a company that is so successful, so innovative screw up its business so badly?”  There really is a pattern to what these companies did wrong, which you can avoid.  Listen to this podcast, using the Intel case study to explain how leaders fall into the bad decision-making trap.  Learn how you can be more like Microsoft, Apple and Amaz...

Shockingly, YouTube is now the #1 streaming service on televisions – bigger than Netflix – and bigger than broadcast TV.  For 17 straight months YouTube has been the winner, with ad sales growing at double digit rates and exceeding $50B/year.  This podcast tells the phenomenal story of how Google kept tinkering with the platform until it figured out how to profitably monetize those users.

An even better story in this podcast is abo...

Intel was once the leader in semiconductors by a huge margin.  They were half of the “wintel” platform that was the PC business for over 20 years.  But now, Intel is on hard times.  Sales are down over 30%, profits are down (losses in semiconductors), and plans are to lay off 15K employees while discontinuing the dividend.

This podcast delves into what went wrong with the innovation engine at Intel.  How things changed, and Nvidia,...

Most people focus on operating their business better, faster, cheaper.  They look for efficiencies in doing what they’ve done.  But that is NOT the road to long-term success.  That’s just making sure you have an effective Value Delivery System.

Success requires knowing your customers’ needs, and then understanding the value you can provide by fulfilling your needs.  Yes, there will be a delivery system. But before that you need to k...

Lots of people somewhat glaze over when told they need to be more involved in AI.  The tendency can be to think of AI as requiring very hard core, high end, difficult technology skills that take years of education and application.  It’s easy to think that most of us are simply incompetent when it comes to AI, and it’s a challenge beyond most of us.

This podcast explains the top skills needed to succeed with AI, and none of them are ...

Do you ever wonder how a business as successful as Kodak could invent digital photography, and then completely lose it and all relevancy?  Or how Blockbuster could dominate home video sales, and end up bankrupt?  It happens because leaders don’t move early enough to understand customers, and don’t move quickly enough to react to customer needs.

This podcast uses the Biden crisis to demonstrate how leaders make monumental mistakes.

Every small and midsized business leader tells me they know their customer.  They are sure that’s why they succeed.  But, unfortunately, most don’t know the vast majority of their customers very well, and they are surprised when business turns south on them.  They try to raise prices, or cut costs, and they are surprised that customers leave.  Or they try to expand into new markets, and they never attract a strong customer base. 

T...

As business leaders we tend to focus on what we control. But what we don’t control is infinitely larger than what we do control. We can’t control the world, so the smartest thing to do is focus more on the world, so we can adapt and adjust we do control toward greater success. 

Geopolitics is about as far away from what we can control as possible; especially as small and mid-size organization leaders. But these global events do mak...

Everyone sees trends, but most of us are so locked into our current situation that we don’t recognize how to use those trends for better outcomes.  We are so stuck doing what we’ve done that we feel little room is available to doing something new.  But the good news is that new tools – most of which are free – can help enormously with this overcoming this problem.

This podcast not only explains how we lock into our current situatio...

Unbeknownst to most people, 3D printing is a $20B business growing at 25%/year.  While most people haven’t used a 3D printer, or even thought about it, it’s really a lot like ChatGPT.  It’s a new technology on the scene that took 35 years to develop – and opens the door to enormous innovation, better business practices, lower costs, exciting new products and a whole lotta growth!  3D .printing is to the physical world what AI is to...

We at Spark Partners are constantly asked how to know when to invest in a trend.  We’re asked how to tell a trend from a fad, and how to know that investing in a trend will pay out.  This podcast answers those questions by looking at case examples like Amazon, Apple, Tesla and even making predictions about Nvidia and the future of AI.

The key to identifying trends is learning how to read weak signals.  If you wait until the trend is...

This podcast explains why so many of us make poor business decisions.  Quite simply, we tend to look backward rather than forward.  We think the future will look like the past, when that is mostly unlikely.  We let biases built up over time, and perceptions of today (which are often wrong) drive decisions - instead of data and trends.

Good leaders hire good coaches to help them understand the marketplace and how it shifts, in order ...

For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), intellectual property (IP) can be a hidden goldmine. But how do you capture that value when selling your company? Custom software applications can be a strategic answer.  Many SMBs have unique processes or algorithms that give them a competitive edge. Building a custom app allows you to encode these procedures into the software itself, making it difficult for competitors to replicate. T...

Lots of talk about AI, but many small and mid-size businesses still aren’t applying AI.  This podcast is a short primer on what’s happening in AI and how to get started.  You can do it wrong, and we explain how easy it is to use the wrong data sets.  And you can apply it wrong, attempting problems that require adaptability between data sets.  Or you can do it right by focusing on activities that are repetitive, and where you have (...

In the future electricity will be free.  How’s that for a forecast?  Adam made over 200 forecasts for Forbes mag, and when he stopped writing all 200 were proven accurate.  This podcast explains how to do good scenario planning using the electric utility industry as an example.

Demand is going up.  But supply is challenged by the technology transition from fossil fuels to sustainables.  Will the industry be able to meet demand with ...

In this episode, Manny engages in conversation with Tanner Herbert and Rebecca Crane, both principals of the Signature Group, a longstanding full-service residential real estate company supporting buyers and sellers in Southern Arizona's fast-paced market. Beyond traditional services, their company also engages in wholesale transactions and fix-and-flip projects. Through their insights, we gain a deeper understanding of how the rea...