Giving Blood I recently received a notice congratulating me on donating a gallon of blood. I quickly did some research on Wikipedia and learned that the human body has slightly over a gallon of blood pumping through it. Clearly, if I gave a gallon of blood in one sitting I would be a goner. Shoot, [...]
Read more
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 [...]
Read more
GAAP Accounting Is Kinda Useless Here it goes: The GAAP has it all wrong. Now, before you click the little X at the top of the screen to close out of this article or look for the comments button to sound off, hear me out on this. As an entrepreneur, you may just find what [...]
Read more
I received a call a while back from an entrepreneur who was thrilled to have landed the “big fish.” He pulled in a client who just signed a six digit deal, the biggest his entrepreneurial startup had every seen. A couple months later, the entrepreneur wasn’t so happy any more. The money for all the [...]
Read more
The formula is simple. You fix your bottom line by increasing revenue or cutting costs or both. Yet, most entrepreneurs put all their efforts on the sell side only. They try to “sell their way out” of an unprofitable business. Its not necessarily the best thing to do, and not even logical at times. Selling [...]
Read more
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 [...]
Read more
For a small business, one great client makes a difference. One big project makes a big difference. One more rock solid deal makes a rock solid difference. If your business’s success only requires that a few things go your way, the economy is irrelevant to you. If you hustle, you will succeed. The economy affects [...]
Read more
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 [...]
Read more
Bankers need to play it safe. When they make a loan, they need a high degree of confidence that they will make the money back (plus some). A banker is most confident in a business plan that points to others already successfully doing what you intend to do. But entrepreneurial success doesn’t come from repeating [...]
Read more
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 [...]
Read more
Surfside Bagels was wiped out by Hurricane Sandy. The MSNBC Your Business Rescue Team was called into action. In this episode we share recommendations and strategies for recovering from the devastation.
Read more
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 [...]
Read more
If you are located outside the US, you probably already get this. If you are here in the US, like I am, you may not. You need to start doing international business immediately, and (the good news) its damn easy. Thank you, Internet! Why the urgency? The world isn’t coming to an end. But, the [...]
Read more
Entrepreneurs seem to confuse “angel investors” with givers of free money grants. They’re not. An angel investor is an investor. Just like you buy Ford stock with an expectation for return, angel investors do the same. Instead of buying Dow Jones stock, they buy your company’ stock. And they too expect a return. Angel investors [...]
Read more
Money is like oxygen. And the flow of money is like breathing. You need to breathe to live. And you need the flow of money to keep your business alive, right? Pretty simple. But what happens if you get too much or too little air? Too much oxygen can make you delirious or light-headed. Too [...]
Read more
Financial Freedom? I love money. It is a powerful tool for getting lots of things done. And it provides that all so valuable financial freedom. But I’ve learned that it’s not the only kind of financial freedom there is. For instance, take the popular parable about “The Tourist & The Fisherman.” It goes something like [...]
Read more
The Customer Might Not Get It There is a danger in simply sharing a one or two word title of what you do. The reason is your customer may already have defined what that means in their head, and it may be totally different than what you really do. In this MSNBC interview with Mike [...]
Read more
I don’t know about you, but it’s not Halloween for me until the Halloween costume guys move into the empty retail space at the mall, hang a couple of spiders the size of Volkswagens off the building, and set up shop for a month. When they open their doors I know I’ve only got 30 [...]
Read more
Sometimes I think terms like, “night and day,” or “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” were coined to describe business people. So often what we see is not what we get or who we are. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt like I had to put on a more professional “business face,” to [...]
Read more
Most entrepreneurs have two basic goals: (1) make money and (2) make more money. Considering the fact those are pretty simple, well-defined goals, not everyone seems to have the same amount of success achieving them. However, there are several tried and true models for changing that curve and helping you increase your revenue. In addition [...]
Read more
A simple strategy to grow a remarkable business in any field.
The tell-it-like-it-is guide to cleaning up in business, even if you are at the end of your roll.