Donald Sull, a current management thinker, describes a condition that occurs when large corporations are stuck in a rut. Much like cars, it makes no sense for companies to keep spinning their wheels and much more sense to find a way to get traction or to push the car out of the rut. Dr. Sull calls this, “active inertia.”
What do you do when your business is stuck; do you?
Have your salespeople call on every lapsed […]
Whether you inherited or bought your business, you’ve turned it around and reignited profitable growth. You’ve broken through to seven figures of annual sales revenue. Are you proud? You should be! Only 10% of all businesses become million-dollar businesses. So where do you stand?
Is your relationship with your bank solid? Or do you still worry that you could lose your line of credit?
Are you still dependent on one or two large customers, and losing either […]
It was a typical hot midsummer day. Bob and Tom were arriving at their college alma mater for their 25th class reunion. Bob was anxious and nervous. He hoped this weekend was a good idea. He needed to find an investor, someone to partner with or out-right buy his family firm. Tom was excited about connecting with classmates he hadn’t seen in years and receiving the honorary doctorate from the business school.
In so many ways, […]
As a business owner you have so many assets and resources at your fingertips to create profitable growth, but your most important resource is your brain. Just like you are the chief executive of your firm, your executive functions of your brain need to align with your executive company functions necessary to create profitable growth. Why? Because profitable growth happens when you are thinking strategically. You are constantly thinking about your firm and how to […]
The movie, Failure to Launch, starring Matthew McCaughey tells a humorous story of a man so comfortable living with his parents that, despite having a beautiful girlfriend, he is unable to leave his home and begin an adult life.
Are you watching the 21st century and still feeling more at home in the 20th century?
Here are 10 ways to tell:
Your website is a billboard, disconnected from your target market and any communication with customers or prospects.
You […]
Joe, a friend and client, told how he and his sister convinced their little brother to hold his pencil in his right hand. Decades later, his sibling is still right-handed, yet remains a lefty when it comes to sports and chores.
What makes us cling to certain mindsets while changing others?
If you’re like most business owners, you may remember the days before the great recession of 2008 as a time when you understood what it took […]
For years, we’ve gone to the school of hard knocks and learned by doing. In private business, this is often the most practical and affordable option. We’ve learned in the following sequence:
Our jobs,
The company culture,
Additional jobs,
How to manage,
How to lead.
These steps work particularly well when employees do several jobs. Cross training is also critical, especially for businesses with unpredictable sales levels.
But now, with the profound changes of the 21st Century business, outside skills, such as […]
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In the hit TV series, survivors of a worldwide plague prevail by staying one step ahead of infected zombies who feed off the living. The “living” outsmart their fallen brethren or fall victim to the walking dead.
In the 20th century, smaller companies survived by scampering around large corporations with their “walking dead” bureaucracies and decision-making. Private business thrived by offering excellent customer service, responding to emerging customer needs, and customizing solutions […]
Recent research shows, employees don’t take other jobs for money, but rather for reasons like “it’s too stressful” or “nobody listens to me”. Everyone says, “You have to provide your employees an open, empathetic and appreciative environment.” So how do you do this?
Step out of your ego and work in the spirit of enabling their success.
Respect those who don’t fit into your company and offer new stories, reasons and ideas
Walk the talk! Immerse yourself in […]
As you look forward and you think about your business. It’s probably been successful for a long time
Reflecting on the miscarriage of so many businesses, is your company exposed as Polaroid? Despite it’s inventing a new technology for a market that wasn’t there, the company watched its business disappear to Kodak who subsequently saw it taken by the iPhone.
And why didn’t RadioShack succeed by selling cables required by most wireless devices? Unfortunately, it did not […]
