Category —
Growth
Written by Paul on October 20th, 2008
It’s interesting to note that many of the people that handed out business advice when the going was good have strangely gone quiet now that things aren’t looking so good on Wall Street. The reality of the current situation is that entrepreneurs still have to wake up every morning, head to work and pave a path to a better future.
Most small businesses are already focusing on aggressively cutting costs by streamlining their current business processes and focusing on cash flow …
Written by Paul on October 13th, 2008
John Kotter, a Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School, has a new book out (A Sense of Urgency) that explains why some organizations seem to be able to leapfrog ahead while others just seem to have a hard time staying afloat.
I decided to stop by a local shopping mall the other day. It was still early in the day, probably around …
Written by Paul on September 29th, 2008
Seems like everyone’s talking about innovation these days — isn’t it pretty much a requirement for doing anything that people are willing to pay for? Ditto that for quality, teamwork and strategy. Well, I guess it’s to be expected: it’s much easier to talk about hand-wavy things than to actually get into the bowels of the business and actually measure the stuff that matters so you can actually make educated decisions.
Call it what you want: customer loyalty, customer retention or …
Written by Paul on September 22nd, 2008
It’s interesting to think about how many small businesses get suckered into “branding” themselves before actually doing anything. The sad part: I was one of them. I had incorporated my first company many years ago and was feeling great. Nevermind the fact that I didn’t have a single sales prospect yet — I had to have a business card and other sales collateral. A few days later, I was a couple of hundred dollars poorer with boxes of shiny new …
Written by Paul on August 28th, 2008
The most common phrase I hear from entrepreneurs is, “Get me to the next level.” Within a few minutes of chatting with them, it’s usually very obvious that they have a very real feeling of being stuck.
What “the next level” actually is varies depending on who you talk to but the good news is many of the factors that block reaching it are surprisingly the same. …
Written by Paul on August 19th, 2008
A column in this month’s Inc. magazine describes what it was like to work for the world’s most successful entrepreneur, Bill Gates:
Bill came in. I thought about how strange it was that he had two legs, two arms, one head, etc. – almost exactly like a regular human being.
So, maybe Bill isn’t the right person to compare ourselves against but the point is that the people around you need to easily recognize that you are a real person, just …
Written by Paul on August 5th, 2008
This is a guest post by Diana D. Jarvis, a single professional currently located in Metro Atlanta, GA.
When we’re in a miserable situation, the logical thing to do is to get out of it, right? So why do many of us stay in jobs we despise? Or maybe you have a friend who drives you crazy complaining about his job while making excuses for not sending out his resume. Why not do something about it already?
In a word: energy.
Dragging yourself …
Written by Paul on July 23rd, 2008
Over the years, I’ve picked up a number of contacts – people I’ve met and perhaps even worked with. The problem is that I’ve utterly failed at keeping in touch with most of them. Chances are, so have you.
Unfortunately, networking simply doesn’t work this way. Relationships take time and getting to know people requires patience.
Here’s how I spend …
Written by Paul on July 13th, 2008
In this month’s Inc. magazine, A.G. Lafley, CEO of Procter & Gamble and Ram Charan took on a toy company with $4 million in revenue and 30 employees. The result was a seven-step routine for innovation:
- Select the strategy: Looking for an underserved market.
- Connect to customers: The social network as idea collector.
- Generate ideas: Brain-storming done right.
- Select an idea: Time to separate the good from the great.
- Prototype and test: Bring on the customers.
- Go to market: Cookies versus cookie dough.
- Adjust for growth:
…
Written by Paul on July 9th, 2008
Putting all of your eggs in a single basket is never a good idea – the problem is that too many of us do it anyways. Worse, many people seem to think that all it takes is “one good idea” to make millions. These people are crazy – you should ignore them.
On a side note, it always makes me laugh when Indian people use Bill Gates and Donald Trump as the standard by which success is measured. (Anyone that grew …
