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Business success is as much about timing as it is about having good ideas and working hard. In my “world” timing encompasses things like pace and execution, of knowing when to “hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em” as Kenny Rogers would say. Most of us—at least those of us NOT in retail—try to take…

Not so long ago, if you had a great idea for a business, some personal initiative, and the willingness to work hard, you could usually find accessible dollars and/or investing partners who could set you on your feet and on the path to success. These days, with the economy still lackluster on the heels of…

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…

I actually find myself breathing heavy as I begin to write this blog. Could it be stress and anticipation as I slip into “trip preparation mode” and my mind starts going a million miles an hour trying to think of all the possibilities, all the eventualities, all of the contingencies I need in place for…

Some days, the work never seems to end. You’re going 100 miles per hour and getting nowhere, trapped in a whirlwind of activity. Other days, idle time leads to pacing, anxiety, and lack of focus—there must be something I could be doing! You find it hard to relax, to take advantage of downtime. How can…

There’s something energizing and renewing about the long daylight hours of summer. Sure, if you were among the unfortunate millions in the mid-Atlantic recently basting in the blazing sun as utility crews worked to restore electricity and air conditioning, you may think otherwise. But I know for me that come the long days of June,…

In an ideal world, success would be determined by what you know and how hard you were willing to apply that knowledge to solving problems, innovating, and making a difference in the lives of others. Of course, we live in a world of people, so life doesn’t always unfold in ideal ways. With people come…

In my end-all, be-all of monkey sales dreams, the ideal transaction would go something like this: I grow a great crop of bananas; I tell my fellow monkeys how awesome the bananas taste and how good they are for them; and then my monkey “prospects” literally fight over who gets to buy the bananas 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…

Back in 1600, when Shakespeare penned Juliet’s now-famous line “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” I doubt he ever imagined it would be used in a 2012 business blog about “branding.” But here it is. And with my sincere apologies to The Great…

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…