I'd like to say I've taken advantage of every great opportunity that's come along — but that wouldn't be true.  Not for me and not for you either, I would guess.  Sometimes the opportunity came and we didn't recognize it until later.  Sometimes we just weren't in a position to take it.  Sometimes we were [...]

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I've been thinking about time management lately (doesn't everyone begin to do that when it seems there isn't enough time get anything done?)  I recall a discussion I had with a manager a few years ago who asked, “Do you do the easy things on your to do list first, then the hard ones, or [...]

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Over the last couple of weeks, I have had to call three different service centers, all of which asked for some information before letting me talk to a real, living, breathing human being.  I dutifully and faithfully entered my phone number, account number, etc. only to have the living, breathing (supposedly) human being ask me [...]

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Deciding how much to charge for your product / service can be a daunting task.  You don't want to get it so high it slows sales, nor do you want to leave anything on the table.  In many cases price is driven by a supply and demand scenario.  If there's very little supply and high [...]

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Everything we do in life requires some type of communication.  We communicate at work.  We communicate at home.  We communicate when we recreate.  In fact, the only time we're not communicating is when we're sleeping.  Most of us, I'd say, are expert communicators by the time we're in junior high.  We've had years of experience [...]

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Over the years I've decided that one of the most difficult (and certainly the most vexing) things every manager will deal with is what I call the “no man's land” employee.  This employee is that person who performs at a level low enough that you really don't want to keep him, but not low enough [...]

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I got a call from a friend the other day asking if I thought $800 was too much for his business to pay for a monthly phone bill.  Of course the answer could be yes, and it could be no.  It's depends on where you're coming from.  I have worked with companies where, if they'd [...]

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Unless you were on the moon this last week, you probably sat with the rest of America and watched Bob Costas interview Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz after Phelps equaled Spitz’s record of seven swimming medals in one olympic games.  The thing that struck me (like a ton of bricks) is when Spitz said, “Champions [...]

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I'm a big advocate of keeping an informal written record of what happens in your business.  I'm not talking about a “dear diary” daily entry of all the mundane details.  I'm talking about recording what you've learned when you go through a difficult situation.  It can be any situation that teaches you something.  Just write [...]

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There are two people I know well who each started their own businesses about 10 - 12 years ago.  One just sold his very profitable business for $4 million.  The other has yet to break $250 K in per year in sales.  One person grew his business to $18 million a year in gross revenues [...]

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