Posts Tagged ‘guiding principles’
The three pillars of a sustainable business
When you search for images of an ancient Greek temple, most of what you see will have at least a foundation and columns remaining. This image springs to mind when I think of a sustainable business. The foundation is the mission. The columns are the business pillars of happy employees, loyal clients, and business goals. …
Read MoreYour next employee is exactly nothing like you
There are so many theories about how to decide who to hire. Only hire somebody you’d want to hang out with on a weekend. As well as Hire people who are completely different from you, and that you wouldn’t otherwise connect with. And everything in between. What’s a business owner to do? The hiring balance…
Read MoreTo find success, define success
A few weeks ago we established that “failure” is not a moment in time, an ending, or an event. But what about success? Success, it turns out, is also not final. It isn’t like a movie we are watching, with a defined endpoint, when success has been achieved, the music begins, and we fade off…
Read MoreThe one question that will transform your performance reviews
You can throw company happy hours, host team dinners, buy pinball machines and eliminate job titles all you want. But once you put an employee in a performance review, there is a strict hierarchy of who reports to whom. And that hierarchy is what makes it challenging to get good feedback: the employee knows you…
Read MoreFix your marketing: add your brand
Pretend, for a moment, that you are in the business of pens. Now pretend that you are planning your marketing efforts for your pens. And you come up with the message you want to get out there: We sell pens With that message, what makes somebody buy your pens rather than somebody else’s? Price, proximity,…
Read MoreHow to pick the worst clients
If a strategy is about knowing what not to do, then client profiles are about knowing who not to target. Much of this will happen as a process of exclusion as you build your Customer Profile. But that is not enough. There are certain traits you want to look out for, that make universally bad…
Read MoreYour employees don’t know what to do
Job titles are great for algorithms in job search sites; job roles are better for managing your business. Following my March article explaining this difference, I received some great feedback from people writing roles for their own business. The next step is to instruct your team. Does everybody know what they should be doing? It’s…
Read MoreWhy are you managing your business?
This blog talks about business management. Indeed my whole business is about the craft of business management. And if the business is the idea, management is what turns the idea into action. But what are you managing, exactly? How do you manage an “idea” into a “reality”? The best way to answer this question is…
Read MoreAre you making your brand work for you?
What’s in a brand? More specifically: what is a brand? The varied definitions you will find always describe how people know and recognize a company. Whether it is a logo, a slogan, or a design, the visual brand is a symbolic representation of your company. But humans are complex beings, and to every symbol, we…
Read MoreAnything worth doing is worth doing badly.
Is it worth doing? Then do it. In any way that you can. Nike figured this out long ago. Want to get into better shape, want to learn a new sport, want to start a new fitness habit? Just do it. Buy the shoes and do it. Because if it is worth doing, it is…
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