Mike's Blog

How To Be Positive About Something Negative

frown to a smile

I am not sure if this applies to entrepreneurship as much as life itself, but here it goes.  I was at the gym yesterday, and the woman on the treadmill next to me was clearly cranking some Phillip Phillips in her headset. Her squeaky, ear warping, horrible voice was singing “cause I am going to [...]

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Why You Need To Ask Better Questions

Thinking Through Questions

As entrepreneurs, we ask ourselves questions all the time – how we can get more customers, how we can get more money, or how even how we can get more expenses to qualify as a legitimate tax deductions (come on, we’ve all done it). But when it comes to asking ourselves questions, we would be [...]

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The Entrepreneurs Addiction: Top Line Growth

Top Line Revenue

When we focus on the top line, any sale is a good sale. Any paying client is a good client. Anything that makes money is everything we want. Top line addiction results in a single need: sell, sell, sell. Sell everything and sell anything. That’s a problem, since all sales are not the same. The [...]

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See It Through The Eyes Of A Client

The Eye

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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What Passion Is Not

What Passion Is Not

I saw this billboard in New York City.  It totally misrepresents passion.  Passion is not the feature – what we do. Passion is in the benefit – why we do what we do.   A person isn’t passionate about supply chain management, but a person could be passionate about the benefits that supply chain management provides. [...]

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Marketing To Psychographics

The Thinker

Psychographics are used to define persons by their interests, immutable laws, attitudes and experience. Too often we market to demographics alone, the quantifiable parameters of persons such as sex, age and marital status. Marketers get trapped selling to what is going on outside (demographics), ignoring what is going on inside (psychographics). Just because your top [...]

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How To Break The Generic Label Trap

A broken record

Integrated Counsel Trumps Lawyer When you hear the word lawyer, what do you think? Costly. Paperwork. Stressful. Reserved. Antagonistic. When you hear integrated counsel, what do you think? Probably nothing comes to mind, since you never heard it before. If you are asking yourself what does that mean. . . I just broke the generic [...]

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15 Stupid Business Ideas, That Are Actually Super Smart

“Your idea is stupid.” Has anyone ever told you that your business idea won’t make it? That your idea is too odd, too unique or too different? That you need to stick with what is proven? Here is the dealio, your entrepreneurial success is almost exclusively determined by following your passion, servicing the living hell [...]

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How To Take Advantage Of Being A Micro-Enterprise

micro enterprise

How To Take Advantage Of Being A Micro-Enterprise If you’ve been calling yourself an entrepreneur, yet feeling more like a freelancer and less than a business owner, stop for minute. You may actually be a micro-enterprise. Okay, if you’re like most people, you may not even know for sure what a micro-enterprise is, or if [...]

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The 35 Ways To Find What Your Real Talent Is

Find Your Secret Talent

What are your secret, real talents?  Secret talents are those special skills you have that you may not use on a regular basis. Everybody has at least one secret talent. It doesn’t matter what your secret talent may be. What matters is that you know it’s there. The talent is yours to use as you [...]

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People Buy Experiences

People buy experiences

I don’t care if your business makes a product or delivers a service, at the end of the day, people buy experiences. That soap your company makes, may be delivering the experience of cleanliness.  Your competitor’s soap, assuming it is marketed differently, may sell the experience of wakefulness.  Another may sell the experience of confidence. The [...]

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7 Ways Bad Economies Are Good For Business

bad economy is good

7 Ways Bad Economies Are Good For Business I got the memo, but I chose not to attend any of the, “The economy sucks and my business is ruined,” pity parties people are throwing around me. I know all too well that economic issues have beaten businesses in this country with the ugly stick for [...]

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The Best Business Voicemail Greeting

Business voice mail

There is a 97% chance that your office voice mail greeting stinks. That’s because there is a 97% it sounds exactly like this: “Hello, this is (insert your name blurted out too quickly to understand). I am unavailable to answer your call at the moment, but if you leave your name and number, along with [...]

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How Passion Leads To Success

Passion Leads To Success - Smiley Face

A guest post by Rodrigo Laddaga of EMyth en ESPAÑOL   Passion is a topic that is covered by many authors and gurus in these past decades, but I still see that many people “don’t get it” yet. When we talk about entrepreneurship and small business success or any kind of success we find that in each [...]

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Welcome To The Creativity Economy

Color Splash - Creativity

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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