So the time to break ways with your business partner has finally come, huh? Those early start up days where you and your partner were both going to “do whatever it takes,” has now turned into “whatever I can take!” That equity split of 50/50 made total sense back then. But now its ridiculous! You [...]
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You Don’t Get It, Because You Don’t See It. You don’t really get it. Nor do I. Nor does any entrepreneur. We think we know what it takes to build buildings. To write books. To fix computers. To do what we do. Yet we don’t. You don’t get it because you make it. You don’t [...]
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Does your company make pillows? You’re a manufacturer. That’s obvious. Does your company clean rooms? You’re also a manufacturer. That is not so obvious. But you in fact are. Every company makes something. The pillow guy makes a physical thing that gives the consumer an experience of comfort. The cleaning guy provides a service, that [...]
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Simple is not easy. Complex is. Simple requires that you do the same thing as the complex, but with less. A lot less. Simple is hard, but when you master it, it lasts forever. Consider the Rolex watch for a moment. It is simple (as much as a watch can be). It does a few [...]
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At age 13 I bugged my Dad about getting a guitar. He supported it. He actually insisted on taking me to the store to get one. When we got there, he immediately marched us over to the used section, and asked the salesman which guitar was in the worst condition. Which one was the most [...]
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I have heard dozens of definitions of money. “It is a tool for freedom.” “It is the source of happiness.” “It is the root of all evil.” All those definitions are wrong. Money is neither good nor bad. Ultimately, it doesn’t offer freedom or manifest evil. Money amplifies your character. It is that simple. It [...]
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Dusting off your high school yearbook may be the last thing you want to do this fine day, but its faded pages hold clues to entrepreneurial gold. Seriously. Whether you look back on them as the glory days or the worst four years of your life, during that time high school taught you an essential [...]
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I want to ask you something. Be forewarned, this is a really edgy question. Who do you think is a higher “quality” prostitute, one that charges $10 or one that charges $10,000 dollars? No experience sharing please. Chances are (I hope) you have no way to gauge the quality of a prostitute, yet you did [...]
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Systematizing your business is the key to unlimited success and growth. I know you know that. But many people struggle with the “where to get started” part. Do you need to systematize everything first and then cut the business over? Or do you simply automate the stuff you are doing already? The answer is no [...]
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Andrew Mason, 32, the charismatic, but controversial CEO of Groupon, has been fired. After a rocky leadership, profanity laced memos to the SEC, fuzzy accounting practices, SEC investigations, and a whopping 77 percent decline in the company’s share price, Mason now joins the ranks of the unemployed. The firing wasn’t a surprise. It came a [...]
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If you aren’t familiar with split testing, it is the closet marketers (that’s you) can get to omnipotence. In other words, it is the scientific method to discovering customer demand. Instead of guessing what customers and prospects will react to split testing gives you complete clarity by measuring their real world actions. Do you sell more of [...]
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For Those Who Can’t Read My Handwritten Note I admit, there is one downside to a handwritten note. . . sucky handwriting can’t be understood. So, just in case you can’t understand what I wrote, here is the text: Doing the expected is easy. Every single competitor of yours is doing the expected. [...]
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Say goodbye to the status quo. The past economy was about industrialization. If you could make the same thing, consistently the same way, you won. The new economy is The Creativity Economy. The money is now being awarded to the most innovative companies, the most creative people, the rule breakers. Are you breaking the rules [...]
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If Only It hit me like a ton of bricks yesterday. A prospect for my business growth consulting group decided to go with a competitor. Egads! I mean how could they pick someone else? This is when I started analyzing the situation, and came up with all the possible ways I could have prevented this. [...]
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Earlier this month I posted my first “Break to Fix” blog post , in which I shared a little fictional story about how to fix a common business problem – in this case, how to stand out amongst the competition – by breaking the “rules.” I received a request in the comments from Dennis, who [...]
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Who is the best competitive swimmer in the world right now? Michael Phelps. You knew the answer, I’m sure. You might not even follow the Olympics, or any sport, but you still know who Michael Phelps is. We remember him and his record-breaking eight gold medals (and maybe we remember him for another, slightly less [...]
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This is the first in a series of posts I call “Break to Fix,” in which I give you examples of how to fix a common business problem by breaking something—breaking with convention, breaking the rules, breaking the way things “have always been done,” breaking up with people you think you need but really don’t. [...]
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