dwagner

About Doug Wagner

Doug Wagner is an entrepreneur, President and Co-founder of Sunwapta Solutions. Sunwapta's mission is to help businesses transform from surviving to thriving, sustainable growth. From strategy to implementation, this means marketing, sales, managing your brand and delivering consistent value. Get more clients and keep them.
19 Dec 2011

How Money Really Works – Part 1

By |2017-04-04T15:08:50-06:00December 19th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

Have you ever heard someone say that there is no shortage of money, in fact there is an abundance of it? This is what the rich understand and the poor do not.

I’ve heard it quite a few times, several times in the last week alone.

What does this really mean? I had to really think about it too.

The following is my take on what they mean about how money really works. Like most things, there is a reason it is important and some important lessons to be learned that go with it. So I encourage you to stick with […]

15 Dec 2011

New Fables in Biz – Tortoise and the Hare

By |2017-04-03T11:41:59-06:00December 15th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog|

The classic tale written as a business case study.

The tortoise and the hare were the two main direct competitors in their industry. They were focused intensely on one-upping each other and acting invincible to smaller players.

The tortoise was slow and steady. He was adverse to risk and sought to keep competitors away by putting a wall around his products and services. It was hard to move fast with all the baggage he was carrying with him. He was really good at copying the innovations of others.

The hare was fast and willing to take risks. Unfortunately, the hare was missing focus […]

2 Dec 2011

Proof that Values, Purpose and Culture Are Important

By |2017-04-03T11:42:06-06:00December 2nd, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Dream Teams|

Lisa Petrilli offers real proof that successful companies consider their values, purpose and culture to be extremely important. Not only that they live and breath it.

What CEOs Really Think About Values and Culture

This is something I have believed in strongly for quite a while and have even been building into our new product; because it is important.

What is your experience and thoughts on this?

1 Dec 2011

Buying Attention In Social Media – Does It Work?

By |2017-04-03T11:42:11-06:00December 1st, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

As soon as something becomes popular, someone tries to figure out how to make money on it. Nothing wrong with that… that is a free market in action.

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. are essentially free for the end user. The companies building and running them can't afford to do so forever without a revenue stream. So free means harvesting the data and selling it in some way, shape or form; and some advertising.

Businesses in general are experimenting with how to interact with customers and potential customers via these platforms. Some have been remarkably successful which is causing […]

30 Nov 2011

Losing Focus On Your Goals – Those Pesky Little Distractions

By |2017-04-03T11:42:19-06:00November 30th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

The other night I woke up with a burning sensation in my left eye. It felt like something major was in there and my eye started watering like crazy. I spent 30 minutes flushing out my eye to no avail.

I was starting to think I would be heading off to emergency. My eyes seem to attract problems for some strange reason. I was also thinking there go my business plans for the next few days.

From past lessons I knew that rubbing is very bad. Scratched corneas take a while to heal and are quite painful.

I decided to have another go […]

24 Nov 2011

You Can’t Do That!

By |2017-04-04T15:10:30-06:00November 24th, 2011|Categories: Books and Courses, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

I received my copies of “The 10x Rule” and “If You’re Not First, You’re Last” by Grant Cardone. I randomly flipped open a few pages in each (what I normally do when I get a new book) and stumbled on something worth sharing. I haven’t read the books yet but based on my last post, I feel compelled to share this message from Grant.

Be Deaf when Someone Says You Can’t
Grant Cardone

Be deaf when someone says you cannot do it!
Be deaf when someone says it is impossible!
Be deaf when anyone tries to put […]

23 Nov 2011

Giving (Negative) Advice: You Could Be Wrong

By |2017-04-03T11:42:30-06:00November 23rd, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the influence of criticism and negative thinking on yourself and others. I have two major motivations:

  1. I want to grow as a person,
  2. I want to support our companies mission (To help people achieve their full potential).

Have you ever met someone who is perpetually positive about everything? How about the opposite?

Yet the reality is most people, myself included, are usually somewhere in the middle. We go through highs and lows emotionally and express those feelings externally in how we deal with others.

Our frame of reference, beliefs, other feelings and a host of other things […]

21 Nov 2011

Taking Critcism Well?

By |2017-04-03T11:42:40-06:00November 21st, 2011|Categories: Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

This post is my comment in response to Bob Burg's post "Consider the Source". Since it ended up being one of those "epic" responses I thought I would put it up as a post myself.

Taking criticism well is one of the hardest things we need to master in business and life in general. It hurts and we are wired to react to hurt.

The thing is, the degree of hurt is often of our own making. By that I mean we let ourselves react as if our physical being is threatened and therefore some defense mechanism needs to be […]

17 Nov 2011

Agile is Out, Lean is In… Work Management Options

By |2017-04-03T11:42:47-06:00November 17th, 2011|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Software Development|

In business, there are two main types of work:

  • Ad hoc ongoing work, and
  • Project based work where a bunch of work is lumped together to achieve a bigger objective.

Of course the lines blur a lot: large ongoing work versus small projects.

Ad hoc ongoing work tends to be mostly queue based for most people. How this work gets managed (or not) varies wildly.

For project based work I see that you have 4 main options for managing it:

  • Schedule based – The standard planned up-front Gantt chart type project. A variation would be to plan/schedule only as far out as you need to until you get […]
9 Nov 2011

How to Create a Marketing Persona – Make it Personal

By |2017-04-03T11:42:56-06:00November 9th, 2011|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Sales|

Whether you are talking about product (or service) development or your marketing strategy or sales tactics it is important to understand who your customer is.

This is where personas can help you.

You start by creating a specific and detailed profile of the people you want to reach. Then create characters (or personas) to represent those people. I really like the idea of treating them as real people as long as you can remember they aren't.

Harry Potter is a character in a popular series of books and movies. When you mention his name, you can immediately bring up a picture of him, […]