The Business Trendsetter Podcast

Artificial Intelligence is one of the biggest trends driving growth this decade.  Machine learning and AI have infinite applications, and  the ability to help customers accomplish more with less effort.  So companies will benefit from applying AI, no matter what business they are in. Yet, generic AI won't succeed unless it focuses on fulfilling an unmet need.  Offering features, functions and bene...

Demographic changes, which are entirely predictable with high accuracy, will have the most impact of any trend on businesses globally for the next 20 years. Specifically, the aging population in the USA, Japan, China and Germany will create major changes in how manufacturing is implemented, creating tremendous market shifts.  Japan and China are likely to be the biggest losers, and America has a l...

To succeed, all businesses - large to start-up - require sales.  If you don't sell, you don't have a business.  Yet, many of us have a terrible impression of sales as an occupation.  Even salespeople often have a bad attitude about their own profession. And this is just silly.  Sales is a great occupation.  Mostly we need to get over our own beliefs about sales, and return to understanding that ev...

America occupied Afghanistan, and appeared capable of staying much longer.  But in reality America's position had weakened dramatically, and the decision to leave laid bare false assumptions built on hope.  Business leaders can learn from this in order to be more successful. First, if you aren't growing your customer relationship, it is dying.  It is impossible to have a strategy of maintaining th...

Cover 19, and now the Delta variant, are Disruptions.  As we at Spark Partners discuss in our writing and training, significant disruptions create market shifts.  And as Adam wrote in “Create Marketplace Disruption: How To Stay Ahead of the Competition” those who build on the trends accelerated in a Market Shift stand to be the really, really big winners.   Mobile technology adoption is 15+ years...

Revenue growth requires strategy AND execution.  Yet despite over 5,000 business schools in the USA, there are fewer than 300 courses on sales. Dr. Frank Cespedes of the Harvard Business School has been closing that education gap for over 20 years, as an academic and leader of a services firm focused on sales process improvement. Successful sales improvement requires hiring good people. But that i...

Netflix wasn’t always a household name. They had to destroy Blockbuster first.  But then to keep from being destroyed itself Netflix had to transition from delivering DVDs to streaming movies. When streaming technology became generic, causing Disney, NBC and others to unleash their content Netflix became the #1 content producer.  Now, as entertainment keeps changing, Netflix is going to pivot agai...

Taking advantage of Trends to grow your business requires implementing projects outside the normal flow of business. To do this successfully you need Blank Space teams that have the opportunity, and permission, to color outside the lines – to Get Outside the Box, Then Think.  These teams can figure out how to build on the trend creating new revenue opportunities, unhindered by the existing busines...

Do you know how to tell the difference between a trend and a fad? If you invest in trends you can be ahead of competitors and make lots of money. If you invest in fads the bottom could fall out and you could lose it all. So understanding the difference has enormous implications for the success of your investments. This podcast offers insight into current events, describing them as trends or fads,...

Max's goal is to be a billionaire, and possibly the next Jeff Bezos.  He doesn’t just goal it – he’s planning for it.   In this podcast he gives his perspective to challenges entrepreneurs face, and how programs like his and Spark Partners help companies succeed.   Topics include: - The role of social media in quick success - Why regulators and politicians cannot stop the global trends - Why you n...

Like all industries, construction is impacted by trends.  Even though it seems very traditional, trends in financing costs and  how we work are making a big difference in the facilities we need for living and working.  While high materials cost is most likely a bubble, trends in labor shortages are here to stay.  Being creative will be crucial for success if you are a builder, contractor, office o...

In this week’s podcast, Manny and Adam bring on special guests John De Lorenzo and Kristopher Savage of Desert Pearl Mushrooms, a Tucson-based business that grows and sells culinary and medicinal mushrooms throughout the city. In a time of great push for plant-based proteins and meat alternatives, John and Kris strive to create a business that meets the needs of consumers who want low fat, high pr...

Autonomous cars are going to happen. The question is when.  It’s most likely a LOT earlier than you are anticipating. And that’s a missed opportunity for your business to perform better, building on the higher reliability and safety of autonomous vehicles – which will include semi-trucks.  You need to plan on this trend as you develop future scenarios and plan on new markets and new products. Demo...

We love to talk about trends and the importance of following them, but there’s a few trends that need a little love on their own. In this episode of the Business Trendsetter Podcast, Spark Partners hone in on the growing trends of remote work and the gig economy, and the serious need to fully embrace them. Self-employed and remote workers have increasingly begun to inhabit the economy in the last...

Amazon is buying MGM Studios for $9B. But actually, Amazon is buying MGM for free. And you can do the same thing – if you follow trends. You too can create enormous “Trend Value." Amazon grew from $0 to $1B revenue/year in under 5 years. By following trends in e-commerce, cloud computing and video streaming. In 25 years Amazon’s sales grew to $386B. That rapid growth, created by investing in trend...

Megatrends are the big trends that affect all people, and all businesses.  Originally identified in 1982 by John Naisbitt (who died 13 April) and detailed in his book of the same name, today we can still use Megatrends to make decisions that will improve our success.  By using Megatrends to drive our planning, and decision making, we position our careers, and our businesses for greatest success.  ...

We put resources onto our business, and it becomes an ongoing “constant.” We insufficiently evaluate if we are over-investing people, money and our management resources in protecting historical businesses. Thus, we don’t sufficiently invest in growth opportunities. Too often we think that we have no resources to pursue growth, when in fact we have ample resources if we redeploy.

Obtaining the right advice is really important to helping you succeed. We all need external input to get over and around our biases, while providing external eyes, ears and mental energy to our business. But most of us have no idea how to identify the right advisor or coach, nor how to structure the relationship to get the best advice. This podcast identifies the most common mistakes, and how to a...

You can never assume your business is sustainable. In reality, market shifts can happen remarkably fast. Your business can become obsolete faster than you ever imagined. Just as technology and disruptive change creates opportunity, it also creates “creative destruction.” Great leaders build on trends to grow value. Poor leaders get stuck trying to “sustain” and inevitably destroy value.

There is real, measurable risk. But we make most decision on our perception of risk – rather than real risk. What’s new, or you don’t understand, you think of as risky. But many new opportunities are NOT risky. In fact, often doing nothing (maintaining the status quo) is the riskiest strategy.

You can create “Opportunity Value” in your business – making it possible for your value to increase by creating more opportunities for success. It’s easy to keep busy and not get around to innovating. But if we use current events to help us address trends leading to permanent changes we won’t be whipsawed by headlines and instead invest in opportunities to create higher long-term value. Examples -...

The pandemic hit a lot of small businesses hard. None worse than food & beverage, which shut down totally with no idea what the future would bring. Facing potential failure Crooked Tooth Brewery in Tucson, AZ had to figure out next steps. But rather than waiting for the pandemic to end, or doubling down on its existing business, Crooked Tooth looked at market trends and invested in new products an...

Cryptocurrencies recently drew a lot of attention due to Elon Musk personally investing heavily, while having Tesla also invest. Subsequently some CEOs (mostly of tech companies) began saying companies should hold cryptocurrencies instead of dollars, euros or other government backed currencies. Thus, the price of the major ones, like Bitcoin, skyrocketed. However, there is good reason for wild vol...

Successful innovation requires tracking big trends, and thinking about how these will change customer behaviors and markets. Innovators have to develop for the long-term, yet far too many are so focused on short-term results they don’t see long-term implications – and opportunities!! Success doesn’t come from hard work. It comes from working smart. Put your energy/resources into innovations, and p...