Busyness is Not Productiveness
Somehow a packed calendar/agenda seems to be an indicator of our “success.” We live in a 7/24 world, we have more work than we can manage, and we constantly fill our calendars with activities. It impacts people at all levels. I’ve told this story before, but it bears telling again. About 15 years ago, I…
Read MoreIncrease Sales by 30% Using Your Basic Business Data
The media often highlight companies that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on big data solutions that reveal patterns and trends in customer behavior and interactions. “Big data” is a buzzword, but only large businesses actually have enough data on which to do scientific analysis and apply it to their marketing automation. Meanwhile, small and…
Read More6 Tips for Staying Energized in Your Business
Being a small business owner is tough work, trust me on this one. There are a multitude of tasks that need to be done every day to ensure your business stays running smoothly and efficiently. In order to keep up with your business and the high demands of being an owner, there are quite a…
Read MoreHow to Think Like a Growth CEO
Growth CEO’s differ from those who merely station—keep their way into the status quo, protecting the enterprise by reducing risk and cost, without creating a vision and action plan for growth. Here is a way to test yourself with a tool useful for any leader seeking to create positive change. Authors Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Oglivie…
Read MoreOutsource Your Crazy
Two realities are colliding in business today, and they’re changing the way executives must think about creating new sources of growth. The first has to do with the ticking time bomb attached to large, conservative businesses. “In the next 10 years, 40 percent of the Fortune 500 companies will be gone,” according to research done…
Read MoreCustomer Experience Versus Customer Service
One of the latest phrases that is being used is the customer experience. There is certainly a customer experience anytime a customer or potential customer interacts with the company. The following paragraphs outline some of the relationships between the customer experience and customer service and some of the differences between the two. The first similarity…
Read MoreStandard Mileage Rate Falls Again for Tax Year 2017
Self-employed professionals who use a vehicle for business trips were likely not thrilled when the standard mileage rate on deducting business mileage plummeted from 57.5 cents per mile in 2015 to 54 cents per mile in 2016. While the rate for 2017 is not dropping as much, it is still lower than the 2016 rate…
Read More3 Ways to Boost Social Media Presence
Social media is the great new marketing landscape. In fact, if you don’t have a social media presence yet, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Studies have shown that 84% of Millennial consumers check out business profiles on social media and company websites before they make a purchase. That means that if they can’t find…
Read More8 Inspiring Guerrilla Marketing Examples
Guerrilla marketing, true to its name, is one of the sneakiest little strategy toolkits that small businesses can pack into their marketing arsenal. And in terms of return on investment (or put more plainly, bang for buck), you would have to look hard to find a more effective approach. Still a little in the dark…
Read MoreA Good Resolution: Schedule Regular Management Meetings
It’s not too late to schedule your monthly management meetings for this year. Use some regular meeting schedule such as the third or fourth Thursday of every month. Review your business plan milestone dates, deadlines, tasks, plan vs. actual results, and upcoming milestone dates and deadlines. All the managers committed to the plan will know way…
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