Exit Strategy
There’s only three places to plan your exit strategy, and they’re all tables: Kitchen table, Boardroom table or operating room table. If not, someone else…
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It Only Looks Easy
Sailing well requires managing complex and diverse systems in coordination with resources and the environment. When resources such as the wind, shifts, or environmental factors…
Woody Allen’s Success Secrets
Woody Allen is often credited with saying that, “80% of success is showing up.” But do we really want to base our plans for success…
Everything I Need to Know About Niche Marketing I Learned in Key West
When you think of Key West, Florida you probably think of recreational activities or Ernest “Papa” Hemingway. During my recent visit, I discovered that Key…
Strategic Alliances Offer Considerable Advantages
Avis Car Rental’s announcement that they are buying Zipcar is a great strategic alliance example. Avis’ value-add is offering on-demand, short-term access to personal transportation…
Reading Children’s Books Taught Me How to Run a Business
In Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice is meandering through the woods when she comes upon a cat and asks, “Would you tell me,…
The 2-Percent Solution
The difference between first and second place in a yacht race is often less than 2 percent of the total elapsed time. The difference between…
Stop Wasting Half of Your Marketing Budget
John Wanamaker, the Philadelphia department store merchant, famously proclaimed, “I am convinced that about one-half the money I spend for advertising is wasted, but I…
5 Steps to Increase Your Profits from Existing Customers
While other businesses slash prices and downsize, you can actually increase your profits, weather economic downturns and position your company for long-term profitable growth. These…
Benefits of Forming an Advisory Board
An Advisory Board is the perfect fit for a CEO or ownership team that wants wise judgment, counsel and advice from others on how to…
Great is the Enemy of Good
We over-analyze, over-plan and over-think, but get nothing done. We explore an endless stream of information that give rise to new questions—new possibilities. These lead…
5 Ways That Knowing What Business You’re in Can Help You Survive and Thrive
Company executives don’t always know what business they’re in. And in this case, what they don’t know can hurt them. It is important for every…
