Goals for 2012
I told you’d I’d be back with specific goals for this year! And you doubted me! And with good reason, since here it is, nearly the end of January, and I’m just now getting them done. That’s my secret–if you procrastinate long enough you only have to keep your resolutions for eleven months instead of [...]
Book Review: Great By Choice – Jim Collins & Morten T. Hansen
As a business-owner of sorts I am very interested in new findings in business and leadership. I recently was recently talking to my brother about my company and how we need a guiding vision going forward from our first successful year. He recommended “Great By Choice” as a book he had recently read and thoroughly [...]
The science of self-discipline
It’s still January, and many people have already made, or are about to make New Years Resolutions (I’m in the ‘about-to-make’ group). So it’s helpful to find this article by John Tierney from the New York Times on how to improve your odds of keeping your resolutions. He goes to the science behind it all. [...]
New Years Goals: Carpet time
Last year I did some guest posting on my brother’s productivity blog, including listing my goals for 2011: Goal 1: Exercise 4 times per week Goal 2: Write 4 posts per week Goal 3: Make $10,000 from a personal business idea Goal 4: Write 150 pages of a novel Goal 5: Develop the behavior of [...]
Playing to your strengths
As I’ve written before, much of the marketing ideas that come through our door have to do with offering coupons, discounts, or other promotional specials, either as the main point of the marketing, or as a means of measuring the response to the marketing. Everyone wants to be free with our money, it seems. And [...]
Risk management: The master of plan B
I’ve likely written about this before, but I can’t stress enough how important it can be to engage in risk management in any size business. Things will go wrong. It’s a given. And while you can’t plan for everything, you can identify the most likely and most critical risks and plan for those. This was [...]
Be ready for opportunities
As I mentioned in my previous post, when my business partners and I first opened our store we purposely did not try to do everything our competitors did. As part of our beginning analysis we looked at each of our competitors and evaluated ourselves against them. There were some things at which we knew we [...]
When to pull the plug on projects
At one point or another every business will try something new; a new product, a new service, a new process, a new marketing idea. If you don’t I suspect you’re not really growing as a business. And you’ve got your doors locked so no salesmen can come in. And you’re not listening to your customers, [...]
Why the bank wants to see your business plan
A few posts ago I mentioned that a business plan may not be necessary unless you plan to pursue financing.If you do plan to go for a business loan or venture capital, however, you should make sure you’ve done your homework. Here are some of the key components of a business plan lenders will be [...]
The three people to have in your business’ corner
I was talking business with a dentist friend of mine the other day, and we got on the topic of starting a business. In my case I started one from scratch. In his case he bought an existing practice. But we both quickly agreed that regardless of how you approach owning your own business, there [...]
keep looking »