My friend Cindy shared the following on Twitter recently. What does best really mean? Obviously I already tipped my hand in the title of this post. Clearly what Cindy does is deliver the goods at a fair price. That price may not be the lowest and based upon Cindy's track record I'm guessing it's … [Read more...]
Find Yourself and Your Message Will Materialize
Take the time to find yourself and your message will magically materialize. How do you make your money? That's what you do. If you are trying to find yourself, start there. I'm a Small Biz CEO. Yes, take a peek at the tag line up above (below my name). It's only been "Small Biz CEO" for a few days, … [Read more...]
Goals Define Choices
Everything you do in life takes you closer to your goals, or further from them. Without clearly defined goals you have no standard by which to judge your choices. Yesterday I shared four of the key choices I have made in my life over the past year. Each of those choices has brought me closer to my … [Read more...]
Trust as Currency
Today I experienced first hand what if feels like to hold the currency that is the trust of another human being. Early in the day I learned that a new customer has chosen to go with my proposal based upon the recommendation of "Fred," a customer I wrote about in my Regaining Trust post. Later in the … [Read more...]
Blogging is How I Live Real, Authentic and Sustainable
It's real because writing is the doing part of thinking. It's authentic because my writing comes from the heart about what's going on in my life right now. My life is sustainable because my thoughts turn into words which in turn become actions. Earlier this week I had the privilege to speak at … [Read more...]
Fit Milwaukee is Real, Authentic and Sustainable
I have these three friends Anne Munkwitz (@bananza), Tracey Gessner (@tmgessner) and Brennan Stehling (@BrennanMKE). Together they started Fit Milwaukee. Yesterday two teams of four people (who did not even know each other one year ago) ran a marathon relay together. Some people ran and some of us … [Read more...]
Life at a Conference the Real, Authentic and Sustainable way…
If you follow me on Twitter you know that recently on a moment’s notice I spoke to about 150 people on the topic of social media...what follows are my speaking notes.... 1. I am Jim Raffel and most of you know me as a "color guy," after all, my company ColorMetrix does sell the best color … [Read more...]
Q: Work More or Less? A:Yes
I suspect the title of this post leaves you thinking "huh, he wants me to work more and less, how does that work?" Well, let me explain how this works. My friend Joe, who has only known me for a few months, somehow managed to crawl inside my brain and figure out what makes me tick (perhaps even … [Read more...]
Color & The State of Printing Industry 2010
Color & The State of the Printing Industry 2010 also appears on the ColorMetrix Color Conversation blog. It never ceases to amaze me how integral color knowledge is to the graphic arts industry at large, yet how few people in the industry really understand the topic. The problem is that color, … [Read more...]
Real, Authentic and Sustainable
Incidents over the last nineteen months have lead me to a new philosophy of life that spreads across my family, spiritual, and business existence. This philosophy is so obvious I sometimes forget to look at situations utilizing this new and powerful tool I have at my disposal. Ask yourself if what … [Read more...]