While I travel a great deal and am a big believer in face-to-face business contact, the reality is that I make my living online. I say that, because over the last four or five years it's been my online activity that has driven the business I do offline and face-to-face. To drive that business … [Read more...]
There is no such thing as a launch
The obvious exception to the title above is if you're in the space vehicle or model rocket business. When talking about businesses, products, ebooks and the like, what is frequently termed a "launch" is just the beginning of another frantic work cycle. What launch really means in business terms The … [Read more...]
Automate it or stop doing it
If you're performing a task manually and can't justify automating the task, is it really worth doing in the first place? For several years I managed sign-ups and renewals for one of our web-based solutions manually. We convinced ourselves that there were always too many features to be added to … [Read more...]
A modern day barn raising
I've written before about Translator, the cool digital agency my friends, Mark Fairbanks and Cynthia Thomas, run. Last week, a group volunteered to help one of their clients, Milwaukee Brewing Co., package their new Pot Luck Pack. Yes, you read that right. A bunch of folks volunteered to help a … [Read more...]
Create the environment to create
You've faced big problems and opportunities in your life. Sometimes you've resolved the problems smoothly and capitalized quickly on the opportunities. Other times, the problem festered and the opportunity slipped away. The difference in outcome is determined by the environment you create to find … [Read more...]
The small business lifestyle
I probably have an advantage in small business that you just don't have. I grew up in a family that owned a small business. Okay, there's nothing you can do about it anymore than I can do anything about being 5 foot 6 inches tall. I'd love to be taller but it is never going to happen. I'm just not … [Read more...]
Social Business – Are You Doing It?
Three years ago, I had a pretty solid traditional network. I had about a thousand names in my personal database. These are people I'd met at some point along the line and collected a business card from. It would have been easy for me to say something like, "I'm close enough to the end of my career … [Read more...]
Enough with the win-win cliche already
If I hear one more person say that this will be a win-win relationship without taking the time to define win-win, I am going to scream. Having a professional editor, has made me painfully aware of my own overuse of cliches. Some are cute, but plenty of them are just plain stupid and overused. So, if … [Read more...]
Picking Partners To Grow With
When you realize it's time to grow, you also need to realize you can't do it alone. You need partners who compliment your strengths and other partners to evangelize what you are doing. The best and brightest companies in the world have holes in their capabilities; and the best products and services … [Read more...]
The value of systemizing business processes
For a while now, I've been working with a business process just begging to be systemized. The problem is systemizing a business process requires two things many small businesses are short on: owner/manager analysis time and resources (people or equipment) to implement the system. What I noticed … [Read more...]