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CPA Leaves Number Crunching to Others to Start Ice Cream Shop
This story features a CPA and his journey into entrepreneurship. While every story is unique, this one is interesting in that once this conservative CPA caught the entrepreneurial bug, he took high risks to get his venture launched. Not exactly a strategy I would endorse, but I do •••
- April 16, 2008
Low-Cost Marketing Via Blogs
Public relations is one of the cheapest forms of marketing (click here for more on different types of marketing) and with the explosion of blogs, creating low-cost PR-like marketing has never been easier. Blogging is also a great way to build customer community as well. This •••
- April 16, 2008
8 Tips on How to Cap Your Workweek
If you operate your own business, you are most likely living out the struggle of trying to manage the demands of the business and shepherding your family. A frequent question for entrepreneurs of small businesses is the question of how to better manage their time. This article offers •••
- April 16, 2008
Do Your Employees Feel Just as Responsible for Your Business as You Do?
One of the struggles for family businesses is how to grow the business and whether or not to add outside employees. I've written on this topic before (click here to browse additional posts) and one of the most difficult situations you will face as you hire employees is the one of trying to •••
- April 16, 2008
Know Your Customers or Risk Losing Them
Landing a new customer is usually five times as expensive as retaining or up-selling an existing customer. Customer retention is key in my property management business where our customer relationships are contractual, recurring revenue types of relationships. The average contract losses •••
- April 16, 2008
Create New Markets That Render Your Rivals Irrelevant
Do you find yourself wrangling with competitors as you fight for market share? As you look over the strategic chessboard of your industry and your market, you need to look for strategic high ground that is as of yet uncontested. The following excerpt of a Harvard Business •••
- April 16, 2008
The Grid: The Internet at 10,000 Times the Speed
In case you haven't heard, there is a new Internet in the making called "The Grid." Although academics have designed the grid to search for the origins of the universe (of course they could know the origins of the universe if only God opened their eyes and if only they accepted the •••
- April 9, 2008
The Web 2.0 and Mashups Trend Gains a Giant Supporter
IBM's recent move to support mashups is a strong indicator from the technology giant that Web 2.0 and mashups will continue to dethrone entrenched licensed software and development business models and empower average users with little or no technical expertise: At IBM's 2008 IMPACT •••
- April 9, 2008
Marketing Malpractice: The Cause and the Cure
I talk to many would-be entrepreneurs that think they have a killer idea, but in most cases they have not adequately field-tested the need for their product or service. Understanding a customer's need and then helping the customer fill that need is the basic goal for any new product •••
- April 9, 2008
The Four Things a Service Business Must Get Right
If you are running a services company or thinking about starting one, this article is a must read... As the world’s major economies have matured, they have become dominated by service-focused businesses. But many of the management tools and techniques that service managers use were designed •••
- April 4, 2008
Six Negotiating Pitfalls to Avoid
One of the most memorable classes at Harvard Business School was in a negotiation class where two teams were involved in a negotiating exercise in front of the entire class. Those of us that were watching had been handed out a brief that outlined what each side wanted. Both •••
- April 4, 2008
Shackleton: An Entrepreneur of Survival
One of my favorite real adventure stories is about Sir Ernest Shackleton, the famous polar explorer. Shackleton's story is also the subject of a Harvard Business School case study. In this article, Professor Nancy F. Koehn discusses lessons for leaders from the case about •••
- March 31, 2008
How Strategists Really Think: Tapping the Power of Analogy
When I worked as a strategy consultant for the Boston Consulting Group, one of our methods of developing strategies for our Fortune 500 clients was through the use of analogy by looking at analogous firms or industries, usually calling them "just likes" as in "the strategy for new product •••
- March 25, 2008
Business Models Matter - Part 2
In a previous post, I wrote about why business models matter and highlighted key differentiators with some examples. This Harvard Business Review article summary sheds additional light on the matter of business models and offers some tips for entrepreneurs. The Idea The terms •••
- March 20, 2008
Children are a Blessing and Not a Curse
I came across this quote today, which was plastered all over the home page of a very popular business magazine website: "When you make the choice to have a child, you're deciding to slow down your career for 5 or 10 years. " – Inspired by Suzy Welch (former chief of the Harvard Business •••
- March 19, 2008
You Don't Have to Give Up Your Day Job
Are you considering launching an Internet business in the evenings and weekends while you hang on to your day job? Here are seven tips on how to do just that (with a bit of editing to clean it up)... In the beginning, it's not always practical to dive into a Web startup full time, though •••
- March 19, 2008
Q4-2007 Global Disruptive Technology Survey
This is an excerpt of the RBC Dain Rauscher's Global Panel of 11,000 leading-edge IT adopters within 7,500 companies: Shows Disruptive Threats To Technology Sectors [Companies will] continue purchasing "disruptive" technologies for Q4 2007 / Q1 2008. The survey suggests that traction •••
- March 12, 2008
A Better Way to Start a Business
Scott Shane is a professor of entrepreneurial studies at Case Western University, a researcher on new businesses for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and an angel investor with the Cleveland-area North Coast Angel Fund. He offers 10 excellent tips to improve your odds of startup success. •••
- March 7, 2008
The Questions Every Entrepreneur Must Answer
Launching a New Venture? Articulate Your Goals First Most newly launched business ventures never get off the ground -- because entrepreneurs often neglect to clarify their strategy. To chart a successful course for your new venture, start by articulating your goals for the enterprise. Do you want •••
- March 5, 2008
Forbes 2008 Business Plan Contest
Forbes recently announced this year's business plan contest with a $100,000 first prize: Boost Your Business In 2008 Buff up your business plans, entrepreneurs, because the second annual $100,000 Forbes.com Boost Your Business contest is getting ready to roll! Last year, nearly 1,000 •••
- February 29, 2008
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