Business Goals
You don’t have to be an entrepreneur to be entrepreneurial
Have you ever thought to yourself: “I wish my employees were more entrepreneurial?” Immediately followed by the question: “If they were entrepreneurial, wouldn’t they start a business instead of work for me?”. Not necessarily: there is a difference between the words entrepreneur and entrepreneurial. Let’s explore it. Know how to spot opportunities Let me start…
Read MoreBusiness Continuity: Why and How
The following is a recording of an online conversation I had with Tanya Osensky about business continuity: what it is, why it matters, and how to do it. I shared this as part of my Events list, but I am receiving always more questions about this subject matter, so it is worth highlighting as its…
Read MoreHow to always learn from failure
It is a common trope that failure is a lesson. The question is: are we learning it? In school, we had lesson plans, curricula, lectures, and homework. To truly learn our lessons from failure – or mistakes, or problems, or imperfections – we need a lesson plan. When you find that something has gone wrong…
Read MoreHow Rocky Balboa Handles A Crisis
In the first four Rocky movies, he fights three different opponents. While, admittedly, the narrative arcs of the movies follow similar lines, the training plans differ significantly from one movie to the next. In each film, he has different strengths and weaknesses. Most notably, a hit to the eye damages his peripheral vision for the…
Read MoreStart New Habits Today
Goals, Success, and Growth don’t come about with plans alone: they require good habits. Habits — or behaviors — that produce the right results. But habits, we all know, are hard to break. This means they are also hard to form: for every new habit we must break an old one. Here are a few…
Read More2 Key Lessons From A Global Crisis
“Will our current self-isolation change business forever?” The question everybody is asking. People want to know if things will ever “get back to normal” and what life will look like when it does. Will it be a new normal? In two particular ways, we can hope that it will. One: Risk is real The next…
Read MoreFrom Risk to Opportunity
Risk and opportunity must coexist in business every day. Focus only on risk, and your business will become stagnant. Ignore the risk for opportunity alone, and you will outpace your resources. Somewhere in between Kodak and Pets.com lies the successful business. Right now, COVID19 is doing its part to highlight the risks. Let’s also address…
Read MoreBranding: Personal or Business
What are you branding when you brand your business? Is it the product? Is it the culture? Or is it you personally? Yes, yes, and yes. There are degrees to branding: all of what I mention above deserves separate consideration in terms of branding. When you are a small business owner, it starts at the…
Read MoreStrategy – (Not) Using A Template
The most challenging part of planning in business is reviewing our own assumptions. We take a lot for granted about our business and we struggle to examine our situations in detail or see them from new points of view. This is human. What is a business leader to do? Templates to the rescue: something with…
Read MoreHow To Find KPIs
Here is an excerpt from written notes I sent a client (shared, of course, with permission). “As we refocus on growth, I am working to get a list of KPIs we need to track. What are the numbers that will show our growth?” It’s not about the KPIs… Don’t start with the KPIs: start with…
Read More