There is an absolute truth in being an entrepreneur that you will be out of your depth on many occasions. Knowing this fact makes it easier to shift your perspective from a defensive stance to a position on learning from unexpected sources. I recently encountered a similar situation with a younger member of a board for a national organization, here’s what I learned. While it’s … [Read more...]
Are the Costs Worth It?
Being an entrepreneur is hard and the sacrifices you will make will grow as the company does. I’ve encountered a lot of losses on my road and I was having an interesting conversation this morning where this question was asked. ‘Was it worth the costs?’ I didn’t have an answer then, I just knew that when I thought about doing anything else, I got this really heavy feeling in my … [Read more...]
The view from the top
Let’s face it, we all went in to business because we were really good at something and thought we could do it better. A couple of years later, we have learned some new things and are a little less willing to listen to someone else’s advice. But what if that advice is coming from a client? I recently had a situation where some unwanted advice led to a deeper understanding of my … [Read more...]
Where’s the help?
In every city across the country scores of small businesses are encouraged to seek help at small business development centers, with SCORE counselors and attend small business workshops put on by their local economic development office, but where is the help? Routinely I’ve heard that the advice given was generic and general and really didn’t help them run their business once … [Read more...]
Dealing with Difficult Personalities
Leadership is one of those jobs that no matter how good the pay, it is never enough for the amount of personality issues you deal with. Well this morning as I had the honor of dealing with a difficult personality, I managed to garner a few nuggets of wisdom. Remember they have a point While this nugget is hard to swallow when the difficult personality has decided to … [Read more...]
To My Business With Love
This column has given me the venue to talk about a lot of the little quirks we face when running a small business, but I realize the one thing that I haven't fully addressed is the sometimes dysfunctional but always loving relationship I have with my business. Yes, I admit it. I am in a long-term relationship with my business, for better or worse. So SPC my love, here are the … [Read more...]
The Small Business Underdog: How to go head to head with the big dogs of business.
The big corporations of the world seem to have endless resources to force smaller companies into submission. They have in-house marketing teams and hire advertising agencies to create marketing collateral, websites, messaging, advertising, direct mail, and email campaigns. They test and retest, conduct quantitative analysis to measure market share, develop new creative … [Read more...]