Poor communication is a big challenge for small businesses. Recently, Kathy and I met with a team of our son’s caregivers. We were shocked to learn that Jeremy had experienced multiple incidents of anger, resulting in destroyed property and harm to others. Jeremy’s team assumed we knew of these incidents. We discovered that we’d not been included in the ...
Over the years, I’ve worked with people who grind towards perfection, only to be stress-ridden and still disappointed in the end results. The Wall Street Journal recently wrote about a better approach – aiming for 85% completion vs. 100%. Some research and many expert’s observations have discovered that striving for 85% produces better overall results. Many perfectionists don’t realize that ...
Over the years I’ve heard people say, “I don’t listen to Christian music, because it all sounds the same, or, I don’t like Christian movies because of their poor quality.” When Christian’s attempt to mimic secular approaches, the result often ends up being cheap imitations. When God’s in the middle of our projects, however, they will likely be unconventional. God ...
A young budding entrepreneur contacted me recently about a new business she is working to start. Her first step towards entrepreneurship, however, was somewhat surprising to me. Rather than researching her potential customer’s needs and why they would pick her product over the ones they currently use, she formed a corporation. She could have waited years before incorporating. In ...
As a new father, I found it difficult to consume five hours of family time just to play golf. Twin brothers, Steve and Dave Jolliffe, from the UK, also noted these barriers to golf. They also realized that new microchip technology could make golf more interesting. In 1997, they courageously launched TopGolf to address these issues. For twelve years ...
In this series we’ve been discussing five advantages of small businesses. The third advantage is rapid response to customer desires. When the pandemic began, UBN had primarily hosted live events with no real experience in hosting virtual events. When one of our live events had to be cancelled due to local regulations, we prayed about how to continue to meet ...
My brother was once asked by his boss to obtain bids for a large database project. He received bids for $9 million, $7 million, and $950,000. The first two bids were from large companies, the final was from a small business. The small business owner told my brother, “My competitors could do it for this price, but they have huge ...
Stephen Covey in his book, Speed of Trust, says, “The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is today.” In business and in life, the fruit is the best part of planting seeds. Yet, fruit takes time to grow. In order for fruit to grow, it takes watering, tending, pruning and waiting. The ...
Equipping Others to Do Work Differently
