dave wakeman Archives - Wakeman Consulting Group

From Flailing to Focused: An Extraction Economy Manifesto

From Flailing to Focused You know the feeling. Things feel okay. The numbers look fine. Your board isn’t panicking. But there is something you can’t shake. A weight. An unease. A sense that the foundation isn’t as solid as the spreadsheets suggest. You’ve moved the numbers around. Highlighted different metrics. Told a new twist on […]

Blue Dot Fever

“Blue Dot Fever” is everywhere. The New York Post. Twitter. TikTok. Everywhere. The seating charts are damning. Whole sections unsold. Blue dots just staring at you. A lot of folks will tell you this happens all the time…those are folks on the primary side. Other folks will say this is a sign that customers have gotten […]

When Sports Broke?

You can only push people so far. That’s the sentence FIFA cannot say out loud. That’s the sentence that On Location may be whispering internally. The host cities don’t want to admit it, not yet, not while there’s still time to hope a wave of visitors is coming. But it’s the truth. The extraction machine […]

Premium Seating’s Consistency Problem

How to fill seats when the buzz wears off Walk into any new or renovated arena. Premium seating…as far as the eye can see. Capital One Arena: 4,500 new premium seats. FC Barcelona: tripling Camp Nou’s hospitality inventory. The trend is everywhere. The real problem isn’t building the seats. It’s filling them. Consistently. The first […]

The Three Mirages: Why Organizations Chase the Wrong Targets

There’s a feeling we are all familiar with. Working hard. Growing. Adding clients. Opening offices. Can’t quite keep up. But something feels off. Like you are chasing something elusive. Likely a mirage…I’ve identified three that seduce more organizations than anything else. The Money Mirage: “Growth” becomes “success.” Revenue. Headcount. New markets. New offices. Measurable. Addictive. […]

The Confidence Game

Why you know what to do…but don’t do it. Lately, we’ve been following a narrative arc. We started with CFA: Choice, Focus, Action. The operating system of strategy. We moved on to The Strategy Stack. Five questions every organization must answer to act effectively. Last we, I gave you The Strategic Health Scorecard. A diagnostic […]

Even if the States Win, Will It Be Enough?

Thirty-six states and DC returned to the courtroom Monday. They rejected the DOJ’s settlement. They hired a rock star of antitrust. They are presenting evidence. And the evidence is brutal. Bob Roux, Live Nation’s president of US concerts, took the stand on Monday. He claimed “more competition than ever.” He denied blocking artists from non-Ticketmaster […]