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...]
Lead by Numbers
I used to be petrified of failure, but being an entrepreneur cured me of that. I used to think that business owners knew some magical formula for success, but being an entrepreneur cured me of that too. The secret is in knowing that separation breeds indifference. When you aren’t close to your customers, you don’t care how they are treated. Or if you do care, you care too late … [Read more...]
Are you the reason you’re business is failing?
It has taken me 15 years, an MBA, starting my own firm, acquiring and firing partners and staff to understand one infinite business fact. Your gut is always right, no matter what situation no matter who the players. That knot in your stomach that tells you something isn’t right, never lies. So as I come out of a difficult situation I find that I am not doing something that I … [Read more...]
Business Advice for Dummies
As a business owner particularly when you are starting out, ‘constructive criticism’ is something that you get in spades. Some of the criticism is great, it tells you things about yourself and your company that you didn’t know. Other times it can feel like a direct attack, so how do you know the difference and how do you find the silver lining? Consider the source Sometimes … [Read more...]
The Ties That Bind
In the past year I have found myself talking about partnership an awful lot. As one partnership crashed and burned this week and several other began, here is some advice I have learned. Understand your value When you are starting out I don’t care how much you think you know, you don’t know as much as someone with 10 years of experience on you. If you don’t have all of the … [Read more...]
The Business of Deceit
We all know that a sweet lie feels better than a hard truth, but in business it’s supposed to be all about the facts. In a world where perception can be skewed as quickly as a tweet is posted, how can you make sure that your business is telling you the hard truth all of the time? The truth is that you can’t. You can’t make sure that everything that reaches your eyes is beyond … [Read more...]