How to Build a Fun Profitable and Rewarding Business
Competing in the game business should be fun, profitable and rewarding. Winning is a lot more fun than losing and while quantifying or qualifying what winning looks like is largely subjective, you can immediately apply a simple principle to improve business results immediately with less effort. Measuring the Smile to Frown Ratio One way to…
Leaving the Bubble of Lost Opportunity
Have you ever wondered how many opportunities are lost because of the desire to stay inside your personal comfort zone? It is human nature to stay the course because doing so is perceived as being safe and risk-free. The strange thing about human nature is that many times the riskiest thing you can do in…
Be Careful What You Say and Do
As a leader, your actions determine what customers say about your company. For example, a lot of people have been saying plenty about United Airlines in the past week and none of it is good. As it turns out, Flying the Friendly Skies of United is a #BrandFail and their CEO (so far) has earned…
Why Big Companies Degrade Their Brand and How Smaller Companies Can Benefit
What were they thinking? Requiring customers to comply with company policy is different than proactively committing to provide a positive experience. Are your employees empowered to delight customers? Or instead does your company have Terms and Conditions hidden in fine print written by attorney’s that are designed to put customers in a “We got you…
Are You Getting What You Paid For
There is an adage that, “You get what you paid for.” The basic idea is that buyers receive value commensurate with price. This ideal sounds nice until it doesn’t happen. Remember this before purchasing a company with lofty expectations; only to have bad things happen soon thereafter. The good news is that another adage, “An…
The Limitlessness of Possibility
Is your company running at its optimized best? Is there opportunity for improvement? If so, what’s holding your company back from realizing its potential? To transform unrealized potential into awesome results, start by asking, “What is possible?” You never know what is possible if you don’t ask the right person Last weekend, I was at…
What Small Business Owners Must Leverage to Beat Big Business
There is an economic war going on between small business and Big Business. The future weapons for Big Business are automation and artificial intelligence. This accelerating trend is not reversing. Are you ready for the future? Here’s the BIG PICTURE… Per the White House Big Business will increase profits by eliminating jobs. There is a…
A Simple Model to Grow ANY Business
A truism for life is that simplicity is better than complexity. To illustrate, when was the last time you used calculus in a practical way? Unless you’re an engineer, the answer is probably, “I don’t know.” At some point, math becomes too complex and precise to be helpful. When it comes to business, it is…
Heroes Like John Glenn
On June 3, 2003, John Glenn took this photo with the Bell family in the driveway of our old home on Mercer Island. His wife Annie watched with pride as John posed for the photo; like he did tens of thousands of times over the course of his life. As a true American hero and…