My friend owns a chain of car dealerships. Due to the chip shortage, getting cars to sell has been a challenge. However, the limited supply has caused car prices to skyrocket. My friend’s peers are selling cars far above sticker price. As his team discussed this opportunity, they decided to take a longer-term view. In fairness to their local ...
Kathy and I were visiting a new city and wanted to experience local food. The hotel concierge recommended and called a restaurant for reservations. At first, the restaurant refused to take our reservation. Our concierge pressed on until we were finally promised a reservation at precisely 6:45, not earlier or later. The next night we were excited to try ...
CNN hired 700 people and invested $100 million to launch their CNN+ subscription service. Three weeks later their new leadership terminated CNN+. It didn’t take a lot of math to realize this venture was likely doomed to fail. CNN’s new leadership made a wise, but difficult decision to take their losses and terminate CNN+. Many failed ventures linger too ...
In the 1990s, I competed with banks that were violating banking laws to secure more loan customers. Many borrowers were being threatened, or even blackmailed, into doing business with these other banks. As a competitor, it was frustrating to lose deals because of illegal or immoral practices of other banks. Eventually, bank examiners shut down these banks for unsafe lending ...
Years ago, a family came to look at a used car I was selling. I decided that my bottom line was the car guide’s stated book value. The father was determined to get a great deal and tried to negotiate the price even lower. I considered his offer until I heard this man’s daughter say, “I love this car, Daddy.” ...
On inauguration day, President Biden proclaimed he was going to administer 100 million vaccine doses in 100 days. The day of that pronouncement, the former administration administered 1.5 million vaccines and the previous week’s average was 966,000 doses a day. Many might call this “sandbagging.” Sandbagging is when you lower expectations so that you can exceed your goal later. In ...
Like many organizations, we subscribe to multiple software services. Recently, our team was researching a variety of competing software providers to determine the best application for our purposes. When I research these provider’s websites, I may gain some insight, but it’s limited. I’ve discovered that the software review websites like Capterra or Software Reviews give me a different and ...
Equipping Others to Do Work Differently
