![RobertMSterling's tweet photo. For anyone here who hasn’t worked in corporate strategy at a Fortune 500 company and wants to understand how utterly bone-headed decisions—such as changing your customers’ cell-phone plans unless they proactively call to opt out—get made, here’s a quick explainer 👇
This chain of events typically starts during a quarterly board of directors meeting, during which an independent director (generally a current or retired CEO of a company in a different, non-competing industry) says that the company isn’t making enough money and that it’s the fault of the CEO, who is a supremely unqualified buffoon.
(Tangent: Every board director has his own pet favorite metric, be it growth (e.g., year-over-year sales), profitability (e.g., EBITDA margin), investor returns (e.g., change in share price if public, return on invested capital if private), or some byzantine metric that he used to love when he was the division president of a Ma Bell carve-out back in the 1980s (e.g., change in same-store gross profit divided by number of people on the sales team, raised to the power of pi and divided by 1998, which represents the year his current girlfriend was born). The exact metric doesn’t matter; what matters is that, by the standards thereof, the CEO sucks.)
The independent director will then pull open the calculator app on his iPhone 7, punch some numbers in, and say something to the effect of, “If we can increase revenue per customer by just $5, our market cap will increase by billions. Get your strategy team to figure it out.”
From here, the CEO and the CFO will then set up a meeting with the SVP of corporate strategy for 7:15 AM the next morning, to be held in the locker room of the country-club whose $20k annual membership dues the company’s shareholders generously cover. Sitting in the sauna, buck naked save for bleached white towels barely sufficient for the mission to which they’ve been called, the executives will decide that the most prudent course of action is to call McKinsey and pay them approximately $2.5M to figure this out for them. (Note: The CFO will get a quote from his buddy at Deloitte or KPMG, just to be able to tell the board that they solicited competing bids, but everyone knows that the work is just going to end up with McKinsey. Or Bain.)
McKinsey will rapidly set up office in a large conference room on-site, as if it’s the makeshift command-and-control center of an air base in Kuwait on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and they’ll deploy a dozen MBAs with a weighted average age of 26.5 years across the company’s headquarters. The consultants will meticulously evaluate all levers for revenue growth, including M&A, organic growth from new customers, and organic growth from existing customers (either by reducing churn or just finding ways to get more money out of each one). M&A will quickly get crossed off the list, since McKinsey doesn’t want Goldman coming in and taking over, and new-customer growth is always just painful, so, by process of elimination, they’ll decide on getting more money from existing customers.
After performing an analysis called a customer segmentation, McKinsey will realize that the company has already squeezed every last dollar possible out of the company’s highest-paying customers, whose loyalty is already pushed to the limit. They will therefore instead try to figure out how to get more money from lower-paying customers.
Associate 1: How do we get more money from our cheapest customers?
Associate 2: Can we go back to selling ring tones, like we did in 1998?
Associate 1: I did a case study on that at HBS! Ten minutes go by. Anyway, that’s why it won’t work. What if we just… raised prices?
Associate 2: These customers are highly price-sensitive. We can’t do that unless the customers think they’re getting additional value.
[CONTINUED IN NEXT TWEET]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F8rsqAEX0AAzc_A.jpg)
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Call for AI Case Studies: Showcase Your Success at HSMAI Fall 2024 Curate
We invite you to apply to join us at the HSMAI Fall 2024 Curate event for a unique opportunity to share your expertise and inspire industry leaders with your AI case studies.
More: https://t.co/ycavbZJi83
PSA to media out there covering Delta's ongoing meltdown:
These disruptions are not due to Friday's CrowdStrike outage. Not anymore.
This is now a Delta problem, and a Delta problem alone. They need to own it.
My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.
.@Zillow started 2024 with strong Q1 revenue numbers helping us outperform the residential real estate industry as we execute on our growth strategy. Our hands are steady on the wheel and we are pressing on the accelerator as we drive Zillow’s business and the industry forward.
We saw revenue growth across the business, with Residential, Rentals, and Mortgages all increasing year over year. This success gives us the confidence to continue scaling the housing super app experience — an integrated, digital moving solution for consumers, their agents, and their loan officers.
Zillow is the most trusted brand in residential real estate, with the largest, most engaged audience. We’ve built and maintained such a powerful brand position because we’ve always prioritized delivering exceptional customer experiences and tech innovations — our most important investments.
I’m impressed with the results the @Zillow team has achieved through relentless focus on innovating for customers and partners in pursuit of a seamless, digital, and more joyful moving experience for all.
Take a look at our shareholder letter to dive deeper into all things:
Who to follow
Jay Kuhns
@jrkuhns
Healthcare HR Exec • Author • Speaker • Board Member, Children’s Cancer Center • “Unstoppable Power” book available now
FlixBus North America 
@FlixBus_NA
Discover the smart, green way to travel the US, Canada and Mexico! Download the app today! https://t.co/WkXr2HmXST **24/7 Support: https://t.co/60CeG4LKay**
krista pappas ✌
@pappas
@bostonventures | Investor | Entrepreneur | Advisor | https://t.co/s7bVjCpcfw
FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Announces Rules to Deliver Automatic Refunds and Protect Consumers from Surprise Junk Fees in Air Travel | US Department of Transportation https://t.co/pt94BzRH1k
Social media friends, I want your help in finding Steven & Sheryl! Apparently they met for the “longest one night stand in history” at Franks Bar & Grill in Manhattan Beach, CA in 1981 🙂
Have you ever written on a bill like this?
1st Pro Homer ✅
@georgelombardjr
.@zillow had another great quarter, reporting impressive revenue numbers across our increasingly diversified and growing business.
We’re in position to tap into the giant $2T of total transaction value in the real estate industry as we transform the way people buy, sell, finance and rent homes.
Zillow is a household name that gets ~200M unique users a month, we have tech and product talent that is unrivalled in the industry, and we have a strong balance sheet that gives us the flexibility to pursue continued growth.
Our growth plan involves digitizing and integrating all of the disparate components of the end-to-end move process in one place: the Zillow housing super app. It’s a complicated, fun, and large challenge. We’ve made great progress and are ready to step on the accelerator.
Take a look at our shareholder letter to dive deeper into all things @ZillowGroup: https://t.co/1fXyeENuuJ
$ZG $Z #ZEarnings
I’ve made or seen hundreds of hires, and one thing I have never seen is a B player hire an A player. Not once.
If you play that out, you realize that compromising on even a single role can destroy a team forever.
In response to the significant impacts of today's storm, VISIT FLORIDA has activated the Expedia Emergency Accommodations Module.
Residents and visitors who have been impacted by the storm can find real-time hotel availability at https://t.co/UqpyaoN7Wm
It's only been 1 day of CES 2024, and the tech developments have been incredible.
The 10 most impressive reveals of CES 2024 so far:
1. The world's first transparent MICROLED screen by Samsung
sorry, Jeter should NOT be in ads for @ChoiceHotels. Doesn't fit his brand (cool, luxury, trendy) and makes him look like he's selling out. Whomever is running his marketing / endorsement co is wrong.
It’s hard to overstate how important of a moment this is in modern aircraft design. Almost 400 people aboard that A350 and all got out safely after sustaining heavy damage. A lot of analyses and small scale tests on carbon fiber just got a massive trove of new data.
When you’re launching your app, setup redundancy for all commodity service providers: 2 analytics providers, 2 sms providers, 2 of everything.
When you go viral and they try to extort you with egregious contracts, add their competitor to the email thread and say: “May the best man win” and log off.
Another day, another viral TikTok with incredible brand response.
This woman bought a rain jacket from @thenorthface and was hiking in the rain in Australia where she complained she was absolutely soaked despite the rain jacket saying it was waterproof.
Her request?
Meet me at the top of the mountain and bring me a new coat.
The video got 10.3M views.
The team at North Face quickly replied with a video showing a guy grabbing a new jacket at the North Face store, jumping on a helicopter and bringing it to Jenn.
Another example of great social listening + speed to response!
This is a masterclass in turning a unsatisfied customer into millions of impressions with positive brand sentiment.
Bravo @thenorthface 👏
For anyone here who hasn’t worked in corporate strategy at a Fortune 500 company and wants to understand how utterly bone-headed decisions—such as changing your customers’ cell-phone plans unless they proactively call to opt out—get made, here’s a quick explainer 👇
This chain of events typically starts during a quarterly board of directors meeting, during which an independent director (generally a current or retired CEO of a company in a different, non-competing industry) says that the company isn’t making enough money and that it’s the fault of the CEO, who is a supremely unqualified buffoon.
(Tangent: Every board director has his own pet favorite metric, be it growth (e.g., year-over-year sales), profitability (e.g., EBITDA margin), investor returns (e.g., change in share price if public, return on invested capital if private), or some byzantine metric that he used to love when he was the division president of a Ma Bell carve-out back in the 1980s (e.g., change in same-store gross profit divided by number of people on the sales team, raised to the power of pi and divided by 1998, which represents the year his current girlfriend was born). The exact metric doesn’t matter; what matters is that, by the standards thereof, the CEO sucks.)
The independent director will then pull open the calculator app on his iPhone 7, punch some numbers in, and say something to the effect of, “If we can increase revenue per customer by just $5, our market cap will increase by billions. Get your strategy team to figure it out.”
From here, the CEO and the CFO will then set up a meeting with the SVP of corporate strategy for 7:15 AM the next morning, to be held in the locker room of the country-club whose $20k annual membership dues the company’s shareholders generously cover. Sitting in the sauna, buck naked save for bleached white towels barely sufficient for the mission to which they’ve been called, the executives will decide that the most prudent course of action is to call McKinsey and pay them approximately $2.5M to figure this out for them. (Note: The CFO will get a quote from his buddy at Deloitte or KPMG, just to be able to tell the board that they solicited competing bids, but everyone knows that the work is just going to end up with McKinsey. Or Bain.)
McKinsey will rapidly set up office in a large conference room on-site, as if it’s the makeshift command-and-control center of an air base in Kuwait on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and they’ll deploy a dozen MBAs with a weighted average age of 26.5 years across the company’s headquarters. The consultants will meticulously evaluate all levers for revenue growth, including M&A, organic growth from new customers, and organic growth from existing customers (either by reducing churn or just finding ways to get more money out of each one). M&A will quickly get crossed off the list, since McKinsey doesn’t want Goldman coming in and taking over, and new-customer growth is always just painful, so, by process of elimination, they’ll decide on getting more money from existing customers.
After performing an analysis called a customer segmentation, McKinsey will realize that the company has already squeezed every last dollar possible out of the company’s highest-paying customers, whose loyalty is already pushed to the limit. They will therefore instead try to figure out how to get more money from lower-paying customers.
Associate 1: How do we get more money from our cheapest customers?
Associate 2: Can we go back to selling ring tones, like we did in 1998?
Associate 1: I did a case study on that at HBS! Ten minutes go by. Anyway, that’s why it won’t work. What if we just… raised prices?
Associate 2: These customers are highly price-sensitive. We can’t do that unless the customers think they’re getting additional value.
[CONTINUED IN NEXT TWEET]
![RobertMSterling's tweet photo. For anyone here who hasn’t worked in corporate strategy at a Fortune 500 company and wants to understand how utterly bone-headed decisions—such as changing your customers’ cell-phone plans unless they proactively call to opt out—get made, here’s a quick explainer 👇
This chain of events typically starts during a quarterly board of directors meeting, during which an independent director (generally a current or retired CEO of a company in a different, non-competing industry) says that the company isn’t making enough money and that it’s the fault of the CEO, who is a supremely unqualified buffoon.
(Tangent: Every board director has his own pet favorite metric, be it growth (e.g., year-over-year sales), profitability (e.g., EBITDA margin), investor returns (e.g., change in share price if public, return on invested capital if private), or some byzantine metric that he used to love when he was the division president of a Ma Bell carve-out back in the 1980s (e.g., change in same-store gross profit divided by number of people on the sales team, raised to the power of pi and divided by 1998, which represents the year his current girlfriend was born). The exact metric doesn’t matter; what matters is that, by the standards thereof, the CEO sucks.)
The independent director will then pull open the calculator app on his iPhone 7, punch some numbers in, and say something to the effect of, “If we can increase revenue per customer by just $5, our market cap will increase by billions. Get your strategy team to figure it out.”
From here, the CEO and the CFO will then set up a meeting with the SVP of corporate strategy for 7:15 AM the next morning, to be held in the locker room of the country-club whose $20k annual membership dues the company’s shareholders generously cover. Sitting in the sauna, buck naked save for bleached white towels barely sufficient for the mission to which they’ve been called, the executives will decide that the most prudent course of action is to call McKinsey and pay them approximately $2.5M to figure this out for them. (Note: The CFO will get a quote from his buddy at Deloitte or KPMG, just to be able to tell the board that they solicited competing bids, but everyone knows that the work is just going to end up with McKinsey. Or Bain.)
McKinsey will rapidly set up office in a large conference room on-site, as if it’s the makeshift command-and-control center of an air base in Kuwait on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and they’ll deploy a dozen MBAs with a weighted average age of 26.5 years across the company’s headquarters. The consultants will meticulously evaluate all levers for revenue growth, including M&A, organic growth from new customers, and organic growth from existing customers (either by reducing churn or just finding ways to get more money out of each one). M&A will quickly get crossed off the list, since McKinsey doesn’t want Goldman coming in and taking over, and new-customer growth is always just painful, so, by process of elimination, they’ll decide on getting more money from existing customers.
After performing an analysis called a customer segmentation, McKinsey will realize that the company has already squeezed every last dollar possible out of the company’s highest-paying customers, whose loyalty is already pushed to the limit. They will therefore instead try to figure out how to get more money from lower-paying customers.
Associate 1: How do we get more money from our cheapest customers?
Associate 2: Can we go back to selling ring tones, like we did in 1998?
Associate 1: I did a case study on that at HBS! Ten minutes go by. Anyway, that’s why it won’t work. What if we just… raised prices?
Associate 2: These customers are highly price-sensitive. We can’t do that unless the customers think they’re getting additional value.
[CONTINUED IN NEXT TWEET]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F8rsqAGW0AARJ6f.jpg)
I used to be insulted when I met with a consultant/advisor who had an exorbitant rate—so I'd try to find someone cheaper.
I came to realize that there are four price levels for consultants and you should calibrate your expectations as follows:
A. Cheapest: Random guy in Kazakhstan who you find on Upwork. The instructions you have to provide will be so prescriptive that you are basically writing code, but the work will be completed to spec (if you are certain what the spec should be—which is rarely the case).
B. Middle: They signal that they can work without supervision but there's a 50-50 chance the project fails.
C. Top 10%: Same risk profile as the Middle. You're getting scammed.
D. Top 1%: They will save your team 6 months of work and have a reasonable likelihood of growing your company by an order of magnitude.
What if you're afforded your opportunity or your chance, are u prepared? Are u ready? Can u handle the pressure, the moment, the expectations or the seriousness? Are u built for this? Can u handle the scrutiny of the position? Please evaluate u because your time is coming & u may only get 1 shot. PREPARE for Success now. #CoachPrime
We've created what I think is a pretty generous stipend for candidates whose accepted offers we've rescinded. And we're pivoting our entire recruiting org to helping these awesome people land on their feet with great companies. If your company is hiring tech or logistics talent and wants to connect with pre-vetted people who cleared Flexport's very high bar, DM me and I will get you into the process that we've created to match these great folks with companies that are hiring.
I'm taking a lot of criticism for making this decision to rescind offers and even more so for it doing it out in the open like this. But this will be one of the easier decisions that I have to make right now to get Flexport back to profitability.
the time people are spending on X is up 14% from last year -- driven by sports, business, finance, music, entertainment, and political enthusiasts. glad to see you all are as addicted to X as we are 😄
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