Doug Wagner, Author at Sunwapta Solutions

3 Aug 2012

Doug Wagner: Certified Go-Giver Coach

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-04T15:46:21-06:00August 3rd, 2012|Categories: Doug's Blog, Go-Giver Coach, Manifast, Mindset and Motivation|

(I’ve been bursting at the seams to announce this.)

I first met Bob Burg on Twitter. Then I read his blog posts. Then I read his book “The Go-Giver“.

“The Go-Giver” essentially nailed how I thought business (and business relationships) should work. Up until that point I wanted things to be like that but was not seeing “the real world” behave like that.

I signed up for the Go-Giver Retreat 2012 (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3) and went in April. Everyone I met there was super wonderful; including the […]

1 Aug 2012

Pivot: Strategic Plans Need to Adapt Quickly

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:36:23-06:00August 1st, 2012|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Manifast|

We started out thinking that our Manifast strategy would be to use our business expertise to build a great software product. It would educate and "coach" businesses to work on the business. Business advisers, coaches and consultants would use Manifast to enhance how they work with clients and the pairing would benefit all.

We launched the product publicly in January 2012.

By March we shifted our marketing focus to working with business advisers who would in turn use Manifast to work with their clients. We would still encourage Do It Yourself (DIY) companies to use the tool as well.

More recently […]

26 Jul 2012

Little Things Matter: They Add Up to Big Things

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:36:36-06:00July 26th, 2012|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

I recently caught some of the speakers at Susan Baroncini-Moe's Guinness World Record attempt at the longest uninterrupted web cast. As of this writing she is allegedly the new record holder.

I happened to win a free copy of a book for being quick on Twitter (live Tweeting quantity). My closest competitor did taunt me mid way through (her mistake). Not that I am competitive.

It just arrived the other day in a standard brown envelope. Upon opening the envelope I saw this:

BizInBlue
Susan also […]

16 Jul 2012

Wake-up! People ARE Your Strategy

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:36:46-06:00July 16th, 2012|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog|

It is not customers first. It is not employees first. It is not shareholder or owners first.

It is people first.

Take care of all the people and you are halfway to a successful business.

You can have the most brilliant strategy on paper. You can invent a killer product or service. Without the right team you are dead in the water.

StormBrewing
Are you waiting for lightning to strike or doing the hard work of building your team?

HR is Not A Function or Silo

First the term […]

9 Jul 2012

Defying the Gurus- Don’t Pigeon-Hole Me

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:36:59-06:00July 9th, 2012|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Manifast, Marketing, Sales|

Marketing wisdom and search engine optimization techniques suggest narrowing the definition of what your product does so that it falls into one (or a few) categories and search terms that people would use to find it.

I get that people search for things based on what they already know.

What if your product or service defies easy categorization? For example, lots of musicians don`t fit nicely into one genre. What if your product or service spans multiple categories?

We built Manifast to help people to build their dream business and in so doing, […]

5 Jul 2012

Innovate, Imitate or Replicate?

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:37:15-06:00July 5th, 2012|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Manifast, Software Development|

You can either do things the way everyone else does them (imitate) or the way it has always been done (replicate)… or you can innovate and come up with something (hopefully) better.

We had this discussion today at our Manifast development team meeting.

When you are building a single user web application or one where only one person needs to interact with a piece of data at a time, things are relatively simple.

When you have an enterprise (even a small enterprise) software package where many people have to view and edit the same data, you have to address concurrency. Concurrency […]

26 Jun 2012

12 Years in the Making – Manifast Your Dream Business

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:37:21-06:00June 26th, 2012|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Manifast|

Only 4% of businesses make it past 10 years. Sunwapta Solutions just celebrated 12 years in business.

Woohoo. (insert fireworks,marching bands and the Flintstones).

For that I am extremely grateful.

This is also my 400th blog post and 2nd video blog.

It has been quite a rollercoaster ride over the years. Bootstrapping with a $100 initial investment. Not getting paid much for the first year(s). Long hours. Watching our baby grow… and stumble.

I wouldn’t trade it. It has been 12 years of University, Graduate School, Internship and Hard-Experience.

Because without this experience we would not have been […]

19 Jun 2012

Chasing Lots of Rabbits is Not a Strategy

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:37:34-06:00June 19th, 2012|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog|

If you are a coyote and you are chasing rabbits and try to catch them all at the same time you are likely to come up empty handed and go to bed hungry. If you catch one first then catch the next one after that you are likely to be well fed for a long time.

Les McKeown (author of Predictable Success and The Synergist) just posted the following tweet earlier today.

LesTweet
It has a very important message because I think a lot of business […]

11 Jun 2012

Fascination, Value and Relationships – Day 2 of the Go-Giver Retreat

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-04T15:23:36-06:00June 11th, 2012|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Mindset and Motivation, Sales|

The Fascination Advantage

One of the speakers I really, really wanted to hear was Sally Hogshead. However, due to the events mentioned in my last post I unfortunately only caught the last 15 minutes of her presentation. I can say that her message about how to fascinate using the 49 personality archetypes is powerful.

Mine is the Veiled Strength (Mystique and Power) which is only loosely related to being a Ninja.

Despite missing most of the talk I look forward to further understanding her work and figuring out how to use my triggers to fascinate.

The Law of Value

[…]

7 Jun 2012

Power of Gratitude For Healing

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:38:05-06:00June 7th, 2012|Categories: Current Events, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

Note: This post will deviate a bit from the normal business and personal development focus. I make no apologies. I write for myself just as much as I do for my readers, and I needed to write this even though it was hard, really hard.

The Hidden Event At The Go Giver Retreat

As I mentioned in my prior posts I went to The Go Giver Retreat in West Palm Beach in April 2012. The first day of the event was fanstastic. The speakers were awesome, I had the opportunity to connect with speakers and participants, and things were great.

I went for […]

dwagner

About Doug Wagner

HR is Not A Function or Silo

The Fascination Advantage

The Law of Value

The Hidden Event At The Go Giver Retreat