Recent Articles
Monthly Tips for the Top Executive
Business and Sales Growth Secrets for 2009
If you have been reading the news headlines, many CEO's are focused on cutting costs and laying off employees. This does help short term profitability, however these actions are precisely the wrong strategy to take if you want to grow your company in a bad economy. CEO's who want to increase sales, profit margins and drive new business growth in 2009 should consider the following top 5 business growth success secrets. .....more
Competing Against Offshoring
Recently, we evaluated a project where an Indian offshore engineering firm successfully won a local contract against several small US engineering firms. The interesting thing about this project was that the customer was a small local startup firm and not a multinational corporation. The Indian company also had a sales office in Colorado. .....more
Go Take a Vacation
As entrepreneurs and business executives, the mere thought of taking a vacation away from our responsibilities can stress many of us out. What between preparing to leave, worrying while away and facing unknown disasters upon our return, is really it worth going? Of course it is, but just as much for business reasons as for personal reasons. Time away breaks up your routine and can offer you a fresh chance to practice more control over both your professional and your personal life. .....more
Hitting the Ceiling
The inability to delegate, to “let go,” to trust that others can do a job well, puts a ceiling on the size of many small businesses. These firms grow rapidly, driven by the supercharged overachieving founder. They are profitable because control is tight and well within the span of the founder. .....more
How to Get Control of Your Organization
Over the years, we have enjoyed meeting with CEO Forum members to share what we have learned about building healthy, “high performance” organizations. Quite often, we have learned a great deal from their experience. During one Forum session, members were asked to list their biggest issues in running their respective organizations. The overriding theme from the responses was a feeling of “lack of control.” The Forum members were frustrated with many aspects of their enterprises such as weak leaders, ineffective sales, poor service, and inappropriate systems. For many, the business they had started as a dream was rapidly becoming a nightmare. .....more
It All Starts With a Sense of Urgency
In a turbulent era, when new competitors or political problems might emerge at any time, when technology is changing everything, both the business-as-usual behavior associated with complacency and the running-in-circles behavior associated with a false sense of urgency are increasingly dangerous. In bold contrast, a true sense of urgency is becoming immeasurably important. Real urgency is an essential asset that must be created, and re-created, and it can be. .....more
Lease Negotiations: The Six Biggest Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Who is your best friend when it comes to lease negotiations? Well, it’s not the friendly landlord. Did you know that last month alone an estimated 70% of the tenants that signed leases in our town of San Ramon, California did so without any representation? And the balance was represented by companies that have close ties with landlords. Would you hire a double agent to protect one of your firm’s biggest dollar commitments? .....more
Making Effective New Year’s Resolutions
Most of us have just finished the New Year’s resolution season. It seems that on January 1 we make a whole series of resolutions such as eating better, exercising more, or losing weight. And what happens? We try for about a month and by February 1 we return to our old habits. Why does this happen every year? Are we are comfortable with the status quo? Are these changes really that trivial to us? .....more
No Need to Starve for Top Talent: Lessons on How to Eat Cake
It’s no wonder companies have trouble finding and keeping top talent when even the business experts didn’t know until recently that compensation isn’t the biggest motivating factor after all. Not that compensation is irrelevant; it needs to be competitive. But it’s only one of many things people consider when deciding whether to accept employment with your company, or whether to stay. .....more
Reinforcing Your Brand When Recruiting
Your brand is your company’s public image. As business owners we invest time and effort building our brand, yet often times business practices aren’t consistent with our brand promise. Imagine the benefit to your business when you live up to your brand promise and all internal actions reinforce it. .....more
Sales Tips for Small Business Startups
You have a dream and you are transforming it into reality by starting a business. You have a great product or service and a small but mighty staff. You worked day, night, and weekends to get the business up and running. Now what? As a sales consultant and small business owner, I’m often asked to suggest what the small business startup should focus on most. My answer? Focus on becoming profitable as quickly as possible and sustaining that position, not to mention your sanity, through consistent business development practices. Here are three sales tips I wish I’d known years and years ago. Good luck and super selling! .....more
When Brands and Technology Collide - Understanding the Fusion Factor
When we think of examples of great creativity at work in business, whether it be a hot new product, new service model, or new type of business altogether, we often sit back and wonder, how did they do it? .....more