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Finding the Signals in the Noise?
I recently shared why business intelligence dashboards are now a must have for executives seeking to better understand, leverage, and ultimately profit from the treasure troves of data surrounding...
View ArticleFor Your Business, 7 Ways to Make It an Awesome Holiday Season
The most inspirational entrepreneurs and executives truly “have it all,” throughout their years and especially so during the holiday season.They enjoy the blessings of the season that those that work...
View ArticleIn Business, Winning through Losing
This weekend, the youth soccer team I coach suffered a heart-breaking loss in our league’s championship game. In addition to losing the game in its final moments, to add insult to injury, we did so on...
View ArticleBreaking Free of No Man’s Land
I met this week with partners from the Newport Board - an organization of former CEOs and senior executives that "guides companies through No Man's LandTM" - that unfortunate place where the vast...
View ArticleSelling Services Overseas: A Happening Gold Mine for U.S. Small Businesses
Shrouded in the drumbeat of negativity that passes as international business reporting these days has been the bursting growth in U.S. Service Exports – increasingly from U.S. startups and small...
View Article2016: Five Ways to Make it Your Best Business Year Ever
One of the many great things about the holiday season is the opportunity it affords to “turn off” the negativity that for better or worse passes as “news” in our modern day.From the bluster of the...
View ArticleWant To Double Sales in 2016? Use the 20% Rule
This first week of 2016 is the best time to set big growth and success goals for the New Year. There are two main approaches to doing so:1. Set Attainable Goals. This is the incremental “get a little...
View ArticleUsing the 20% Rule to Double Business Results
In last week's post, I described The 20% Rule, where by improving four key business processes by just 20% each leads to results doubling. What I love most about The 20% Rule is how it allows us to set...
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That Quality of Certainty
Perhaps the most underrated of Steve Jobs'many talents was his maniacal ability to be totally convinced that whatever business position, opinion, or strategy that he was holding at a particular moment...
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Business Lessons from Trump, Sanders et al
With the Iowa Caucuses this coming Monday and the New Hampshire Primary a week later, this is crunch time in both the Democratic and Republican Presidential Nomination Races.And whatever your politics,...
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Modern Selling: Challenge Yourself to be Great (4 Things to Do)
The stereotypes of what makes a great salesperson - a "silky charmer," a “smiler and dialer,” a “closer” etc. - are really not characteristics of top sales performers anymore.In fact, it probably makes...
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Wisdoms of The Pricing Man
“It is not the business that earns a profit adequate to its genuine costs of capital, to the risks of tomorrow and to the needs of tomorrow’s worker and pensioner, that “rips off” society. It is the...
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Primary Market Research: The Pathway to Great Strategy
I have written often about the peaks to valleys to peaks dynamic of a typical strategic planning process, and how without a Breakdowns leading to Breakthroughs flow it is difficult to attain truly...
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A Five Step Approach to a Great Financial Forecast
What makes up and how does one develop a great financial forecast for a smaller, privately held company?Should the forecast be “realistic” – i.e. feel “doable” and in line with past results or……should...
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Can Your Business Survive on a Handshake?
“Good businesses are ethical businesses. A business model that relies on trickery is doomed to fail.”- Charlie Munger, Wesco Financial Corporation Annual Meeting, 2009I am blessed as part of my...
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First Great Strategy, then Decisive Action
Every business needs a vision - a clear definition of what its leadership seeks the business to become.And every business needs a strategy - a road map of how the business will reach its vision.Once...
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Chopping water when you should be carrying wood?
Don’t chop water when you should be carrying wood.- Old Zen Proverb (updated for the 21st Century)Last week, I wrote about the connection between vision, strategy, and action in a business, and...
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Are You a Fox or a Hedgehog?
The fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing. - Ancient Greek AphorismIsaiah Berlin, in 1953, famously referenced this as a jumping off point for an essay on the relative importance...
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When Winning, the Right Way, is the Only Thing
People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring. -...
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What is a Business Intervention?
I recently moderated a strategic planning session for a Texas-based developer and distributor of specialty software for the financial services industry.For them, on the one hand it was truly the best...
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