Haste Makes Waste: Do It Right the First Time
Haste makes waste is a common saying. Another common saying is time is money. Time, like money, is always in short supply in organizations. Every moment is precious, so the question is: “If you don’t have time to spare, how do you have time to fix a problem when you...
Where is Your Business Located? Realist Road
Normally when I am writing about the location of your business, I am focused on the physical or virtual locations of the business. Today I want to focus on the mental or psychological location of your perspective on your business. In working with clients, the success...
Strategic Plan: Your Five-Year Roadmap to Success
Too often, the owners of many businesses of all sizes and industries don’t see the need for a strategic plan. They make critical decisions on which deals to do, what systems to put in place, and who to hire based on the current vision of the business. They focus on...
Is your Business Performance FINE?
or your business to succeed in the face of complexity and external pressures, it has to be focused. By focusing on what you do best, having a core customer, product, abilities, market, and so on, you can maximize the impact of limited time, money, and talent. You can target your market message for maximum impact to a core group of prospects, enabling you to intensify your impact on them.
Motivate Change to Get Desired Performance
How to Motivate Change One of the most basic things we need to understand about change is that it is personal. People must choose to change. People can be influenced to change by external sources (e.g., other people, events); however, for true change to occur and be...
Business by the Numbers: Financial Oversight
Internal Controls and Financial Oversight When it comes to growing your business, you can't afford to not understand the financial perspective of their business. Whether it is the day-to-day performance, budgets, taxes, or other aspects of accounting for your...
It IS About the Customer! Know and Serve Them.
Whether our organization is for-profit, not-for-profit, or a government agency, what we do is about the customer. Sometimes we forget that. We get so caught up in "the business" that we lose sight of "the customer." What’s worse is that sometimes we aren't really sure...
Is the Glass Half Full? Half Empty? Or is it the Wrong Glass?
Whether you need to downsize your operations (get the right size glass) or increase your activities to fill the glass you have depends on your goals, resources, and plan of action. So, is your glass half full, or do you need a different glass?
Sales Capacity and Constraints: Do You Have Operational Capability?
Don’t Turn on Sales Without Operational Capability “Vision without capacity is a recipe for collapse, not success.” Several years ago, I received a call from a marketing agency seeking help from a struggling client. Ironically, the issue wasn’t failure—it was success....
How to Grow Your Business, One Relationship at a Time – Network!
Grow Your Business — Build Relationships Previously published in MWorld, The Journal of the American Management Association Volume 8, Number 3 Summer/Fall 2009 In today’s economic uncertainty, having a solid network can help your organization. However, it isn’t easy...