One of the most interesting things I have learned during the past ten months is that people are actually doing better work by not physically going to work. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is ultimately no substitute for being at work, but then again, many people have found that they could be much more […]
Why Market To Our Own Customers?
One of the things that always seems to come up when we are working with a company, especially when we are sending out their newsletters is this, “We want new customers, so why are we sending the newsletter out to our current customers? We have their business already.” This is one of the most serious […]
Trains, Planes, and Automobiles
As we do every year on the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving we watch the old classic Trains, Planes and Automobiles starring Steve Martin and John Candy, and just like we do every year we all end up shouting suggestions at the characters, ideas for making better choices. This movie came out in the late […]
Words Of Wisdom From Bezos
There is no mistaking the fact that Jeff Bezos is a pretty smart guy. He saw things years before the rest of us did. Many of us sat by and laughed as his company lost money year after year while he invested in the future. In fact, that is one of his many premises: “The […]
Here We Go Again: How To Handle Pandemic Shut Down Round Two
“Just when I thought I was out; they pull me back in” Michael Corleone For a number of reasons, which I will not get into here, we are entering the second round of shutdowns, and this one promises to be more severe than the last time. This situation is leading to more frustration than […]
It’s The Small Things
The great companies always pay attention to detail. I have read numerous times that Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ives would spend hours working on the boxes their products came in. They would hold the cover of an I-Pod box over the bottom of the box and just drop it seeing how long and how elegantly […]
How Great Leaders Find Great People
There is an old saying that goes if you want someone to climb a tree don’t hire a horse, hire a squirrel. Kind of an inelegant quote but you get the message. To prepare for this column, the third in the series on leadership, I again looked through my library of business books to see […]
Real Leaders Care
Continuing our series about leadership this week. I went to my library to find a book about leadership. Perusing one of those books I came across this. I read a story about General Earl Hailston, the commanding general of Marine Forces Central Command. The general was interviewed while he and his troops were a few […]
Doing The Right Things In Tough Times
More people than ever are calling me for advice on how to spend their days. Frankly pre-Covid I would have been put off by this question. Really, a salesperson asking how she should spend her days? I would have thought she could have figured that out by now. But now, well, these are not normal […]
Tom Brady’s Great Leadership Tips
Okay, for those of you who hate Tom Brady, hold your nose, because we’re going to talk about him in this column. Not so much Tom Brady the Patriot, or the Buc, but Tom Brady the paragon of leadership. I just read this new book titled 12 Lessons in Business Leadership from The Championship Career […]