In this series we’re discussing seven keys to successful business startups. The sixth key is to know the condition of your business. The owner of a chain of retail stores hired my consulting practice years ago to help their struggling business. This was a $5 million a year operation, yet, when I asked for financial information, they had no answers. ...
One of the responsibilities of a CEO is to manage risks. Last month when United Healthcare’s CEO was murdered, this tragedy highlighted a risk that will probably now receive significant attention. That’s the risk of unhappy customers responding in unexpected ways. The bigger the company, the more removed CEOs can become from policies and decisions being made at frontline levels. ...
Jeff had a challenging habit: He tended to talk about himself. A lot. His penchant to steer any conversation to a monologue about his activities, interests, and opinions became company folklore. Unfortunately, Jeff’s ability to make himself the center of every conversation also caused coworkers to work hard to avoid him. Proverbs 27:2 challenges us: “Let someone else praise you, ...
When I was a banker I worked with hundreds of small businesses, most of whom never had a budget for their business. They sometimes pulled together projections to obtain a loan, but they rarely used them for comparison purposes later. Although a budget is simply a tool to help you compare your original expectations to your actual results, it ...
When I was a banker I worked with hundreds of small businesses, most of whom never had a budget for their business. They sometimes pulled together projections to obtain a loan, but they rarely used them for comparison purposes later. Although a budget is simply a tool to help you compare your original expectations to your actual results, it ...
After Bud Light’s misstep of spotlighting a transgender spokesperson, you’d think that most corporations would avoid making the same mistake. But recently, Doritos headed down the same path. Doritos Spain featured a transgender singer who supposedly had made past inflammatory and sexualized comments that were offensive to many Doritos customers. The backlash was swift as many conservative posts called for ...
My friend, Ray, is a senior executive in a national firm that relies heavily on hiring new college graduates. Ray shared that the pay and promotion expectations of these younger workers sometimes seem unreasonable. But since this next generation is critical to his workforce, Ray’s firm had to find solutions. By studying the problem, they came up with a creative ...
For about a decade, I spent each Father’s Day alone. My wife and kids went to Autism week at camp each year during Father’s Day. Kathy was a volunteer camp nurse, and my kids were campers. The dates were uncontrollable, but I still felt lonely and unappreciated at times on Father’s Day. Finally, the year came when no one went ...
Recently, Bud Light experimented and embraced the “woke” agenda in their controversial ad with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney. Their decision didn’t go well for their beer sales. Considering the point of advertising is to increase sales, the fact that Bud Light sales decreased over 20% for weeks afterwards, doesn’t bode well for their experiment. Bud Light should have known their ...
In this series, we’re discussing preparing for economic storms. With inflation and interest rates soaring and the stock market crumbling, the storm clouds appear to be rolling in. One of my favorite indexes is the National Federation of Independent Business Optimism Index. Because it’s a survey of small business owners’ perceptions, it has helped predict economic storms. In ...
Equipping Others to Do Work Differently
