Kick-off your business in 2021 on the right foot by starting at the foundation of every successful business: strategy. The strategy is even more important for your business after the year we all had last year, where many of our strategies went off course. Strategic...

In “normal” times, businesses often face the challenge of reducing expenditures while maintaining efficiency and productivity within their business operations. As we have noted before, “excessive costs—which also detract from funding new customer acquisitions or...

At some point, every business makes needless expenditures that sap valuable time and resources from other projects, and damage the bottom line. These excessive costs—which also detract from funding new customer acquisitions or product upgrades—often perpetuate...

Have more efficient meetings by removing secret time-wasters. For most businesses, meetings are an essential component for getting things done. At the same time, poorly led and organised meetings are a time-consuming swamp that bedevils business leaders at every turn....

"How do I make my business more efficient?" is question business owners or CEOs might ask themselves every day. While what constitutes "efficiency" might differ from one industry to the next, generally speaking, an efficient business is one that manufactures (and/or...

These days, employees are faced with an unprecedented onslaught of workplace distractions, chief among them all the apps and digital sideshows that now pervade everyone’s consciousness. With all of these productivity killers, it's no wonder employees complain that...

Depending on who you talk to, the use of email is one of the greatest advances in business communications or the worst thing to affect productivity in the past several decades. Every CEO and business owner knows what it’s like to open his or her inbox to a deluge of...

We hear a lot of talk about the importance of employee engagement, but how well do members of your sales team engage with current and prospective clients? Whenever a customer and salesperson talk directly, or a prospect reaches out to a business on their social media...

Businesses are often haunted by customers who consistently pay their invoices later than expected, or by those who don’t pay at all. A great deal of time, effort, and resources can be consumed by chasing after delinquent accounts receivables, while the effect on cash...

The Wall Street Journal's Future of Data: Encoded in DNA describes a project running at Harvard that is using DNA as a storage medium for digital information. The project team translated a book, a text on genomic engineering no less, into actual DNA. This article was...

I have had the chance to meet a lot of coaches over the years. Life Coaches, Business Coaches, Executive Coaches, Leadership Coaches, Law of Attraction Coaches, and even a Speaking Coach. You name a type of coach and I most likely know one. Coaching was touted as the...

Even at companies with great products and technologies, employees are invaluable. After all, someone needs to develop those new innovations and maintain your technology. It's no secret that a company is only as strong as its weakest link.  But even though employers...

At this point, not a lot can be predicted about how businesses will fare in 2021. But one thing’s for sure—innovation, the ability to come up with new products, upgrades, and other breakthroughs, will be critically important. That’s why companies should strive to...

I work on the creative side of marketing. When I tell people this, there are two responses, my more artistic friends, often repressed at their day jobs, usually respond with bitter jealousy, saying things like, “you don’t even have a job, you just play on Facebook all...

Building and implementing a budgeting and forecasting process is critical to revenue growth. In today's fiercely disruptive and competitive world, the importance of such an approach cannot be undermined. And during the volatile and challenging COVID-19 era, we need to...

As the first wave of businesses opened up these past couple of weeks, it is critical for business owners to cut through the noise and focus on the three things that matter most, to lead the way to preserve and restore revenue as well as profitability, rebuild and grow...

At this point, you’re probably tired of reading blogs about sugary snack rolls. If you humour me by reading this last one, I promise to keep it short, and I promise that this will be the last time that I mention Twinkies in a blog. English: Hostess Twinkies. Yellow...

Customers are a lot savvier than they used to be. With tools like the internet and social media at their disposal, they can do a great deal of preliminary research before embarking upon the purchasing journey. They also have considerably more expectations regarding...

Let's just cut to the chase:  if you're doing any B2B marketing or networking, you need to be on LinkedIn.  I'm amazed when I hear of professional consultants who just "don't see the need to waste time on LinkedIn."  If your pipeline is healthy and your calendar is...

Everyone wants innovators in their business, but finding employees who are willing to innovate is a very challenging task. As we discussed in my last blog post, the most innovative workers might have a non-traditional background for the position you're staffing. If...

While it may seem hard to be optimistic about the business landscape, inevitably things will improve, and businesses will re-open. For this to succeed on an individual basis, most companies will need to review and reassess their current business plan. (Many companies...

Your current and prospective customers spend a lot of time on their phones, so it’s logical for you and other small businesses to focus on different marketing strategies. Among the most popular now, depending upon the business, is text message marketing. According to...

I’ve been involved with small business leadership for longer than I care to mention.  If you’re trying to guess how just how long, I’ll only say that in the first peer advisory board that I led, we had to kick out a Stegosaurus, because she wasn’t paying her dues. ...

The Economist has long argued that innovation is one of the most important assets of a country's economic growth rate. Tom Kelly, of IDEO, has written a fascinating book titled Ten Faces of Innovation that focuses on how to innovate.  IDEO may be the most innovative...

In a small or medium-sized business, it’s common to be the only one making decisions about every aspect of your company—thus the saying, “it’s lonely at the top.” No matter how large or small your business is, being the sole decision-maker for the company can be...

I will not profess to know what is on the other side of this global pandemic; in fact, it would be fair to say that no one knows what is on the other side. What we know for sure is that not knowing specifics or a trend is not a reason for inaction. Now is the time to...

No one can predict what will happen to the business landscape in 2021 (look how far off the experts were about 2020, pre-coronavirus pandemic!). But one constant will remain in place next year, and for years to come: the primary importance of high-quality customer...