For years now Black Friday has been the best sales day of the year for a lot of small businesses. This Thanksgiving however, what I noticed were not the great deals or the savvy shoppers. I noticed the grumpiness and discontent of the people that had to work, the increased security in the malls and the general cynicism of the average shopper. So what can small business learn … [Read more...]
How Leadership Misses the Mark
Today I had an occasion to really explore something about myself that I already knew. I knew it, but I didn’t know what to do about it. You see I am nothing if not up front about what I like and don’t like, but I often skip conversations that are not productive. The end result is that the irritation builds and then you have a blow up. I learned that this is really passive … [Read more...]
From the World Series to the Boardroom
On Wednesday night, the umpires in the World Series gave the business world a lesson in quality. If a call is the right call, it’s the right call. The call was new, upset some people and could still have repercussions but the spirit of the call was spot on. The umps did what all entrepreneurs should do and here is what I learned from the call. Confer with your colleagues This … [Read more...]
Business the Carmelo Anthony Way
Carmelo Anthony is supposedly toying with the idea of being a free agent, definitely a gutsy move for a Knicks player. Here’s why I think it’s the right move and how his thinking can help move your business to the next level. You have to assess your worth Carmelo likened his choice to an evaluation exercise. While this may not make sense to some, for me it’s a brilliant … [Read more...]
Ch..Ch..Changes
I know that I’ve spoken of this before and I hate that I am writing about it again, but if I just had this situation chances are that many of my readers are struggling with something similar as well. I have a colleague that I worked with and the relationship crashed and burned. To me it was a part of business, while we did not work well together I didn’t see it as anything … [Read more...]
Why Consultants Suck
I know what you’re thinking…I’m a consultant so either this is a self-loathing mea culpa or I have a point. Bear with me because I do in fact have a point. The thing about consultants is that we generally are really skilled at something, that’s why we’re consultants. But we are workers, fixers, problem solvers. We aren’t business owners and that is something that I have come up … [Read more...]
Play Ball!
There is a theory out in the world of baseball that everything you need to know about life, you learn in the outfield. I think there is some truth to that. Baseball is a game of knowing when to swing, learning about the other team and waiting for the right time to steal the bases. Sounds an awful lot like business right? We all know that we have to be strategic and … [Read more...]
The Small Business Owner Blues
In the silence of the night when everyone else has shut down and you are left with your decisions, that’s when you become an entrepreneur. Someone said to me once that to be an entrepreneur you have to have a spouse with a full-time job and while that anecdote is funny it’s also a bit sad. The very essence of an entrepreneur is a risk-taker, however unfair that risk is to the … [Read more...]
Buy and Get Out!
As entrepreneurs sometimes we get so preoccupied with making sales that we forget to take care of the customer. Sadly enough that seems to be the rule rather than the exception the bigger the company. I had one such experience with the vendor Verizon Wireless chose to insure their devices. My company moved to Verizon less than a month ago and as a consultant I get paid by the … [Read more...]
Marketing Your Company, Not You
As I stumble through this minefield of entrepreneurship, I have learned that there has to be a significant switch in your thinking. We start businesses for a variety of reasons, mostly because we are really good at something specific. What happens is that you quickly realize that you cannot be the person that runs the business and the person who does the work. There has to be … [Read more...]