Blogs

These days, as consumers, we expect the businesses we frequent to be concerned with more than just their bottom lines. Sure, we still demand top quality products and services, but merely satisfying our demand for materials, things, and know-how just doesn’t cut it anymore. Businesses need to stand for something, preferably something bigger than just their bottom…

Each New Year brings mystery, uncertainty, anticipation, excitement, and even nostalgia for what has come and gone. You name it. The switching of the calendar from December to January is a literal grab bag of emotions. How did 2012 treat you? Was it a good year for you personally, professionally, or just sort of ho-hum?…

The Holidays are fast approaching and the season of giving is upon us. It’s also a time for service and reflection. Last year around this time, I wrote a Blog about the “art” of serving and honoring others, which seems an especially fitting theme again this year. My wish is that we could all serve…

The key to jumpstarting our sluggish economy isn’t to bury the competition. The key is to recognize there’s enough business and opportunity to go around for everyone. We just need to create it. And once everyone gets involved in the recovery and has a stake in the outcome, we all win—us, our competitors, customers, and…

Everyone likes to get a bargain, whether it’s on a big ticket item such as a new car, a great cut of meat, or some knick-knack at a rummage sale across town. But when does getting a great deal begin to back fire on you? Do you ever reach a point of diminishing returns? I…

We’ve all had those projects/business ventures that just don’t feel “right” from the start. They seem to make sense at conception—they may even get us jazzed—but once they get underway, the momentum just sort of fizzles. For every one step forward, you seem to take two steps back; for every one hour billed, you seem…

I hurt my back recently and the outpouring of support from friends, family, and colleagues has been amazing. THANK YOU everyone for your well wishes and your empathy. At times like these, I often like to step back and see if there’s some underlying message I only have to open my eyes and mind to…

Entrepreneurs are quite often the prototypical “last man (or woman) standing.” We’re the first to arrive for work, the last to go home, and we’re never really off the clock. We think we can do it all—from CEO to Sales Director to Marketing Guru to Maintenance Worker—and we often feel we must, either out of…

I am always being approached by friends, colleagues, and sometimes even strangers who are thinking about starting their own small businesses. They want my advice, my insight, a glimpse at whatever “secret sauce” I’ve been cooking that’s allowed me to start-up several successful small businesses in the last decade. On one hand, I want to…

Learn from the past. Apply lessons in the present. Create a better future by looking six, 12, 18 months ahead. The above seems like a good formula for success—a no-brainer, really—whether you’re talking strategic marketing, engineering a project, building better relationships, or simply living a more balanced life. You’d be surprised, though, how many people…

Small business owners simply can’t seem to catch a break. Just when the economy seems poised for an uptick, something always seems to come along and knock it back down. Specifically, I’m talking about actions like Bank of America’s (BofA) decision to sever lines of credit for some of its small-business customers. (For more on…

I’ve had my iPad2 for less than a year and already I’m hearing talk the iPad3 is likely to make its debut this spring. Heck, I’ve barely explored all my iPad2 features  . . . and now this, on the heels of a similarly timed transition for the iPhone 4 and its iPhone 4s successor.  Was such…