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The challenge of communication isn't to never miscommunicate, it's to cut down the time between the interaction and the realization that the communication didn't get through. Because the sooner we know we're not connecting, the sooner we can fix it.[read more]

We’ve all heard about putting lipstick on a pig – trying to make something pretty by just adding some surface enhancements. Too often employee programs fall into this category. Companies read about zappos (everybody drink!) or the new engagement wunderkind – google, and their “fact-based approach” to engagement – and say “Bring me one of those.”[read more]

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Even though small businesses collectively generate $5 trillion in sales in the U.S., the biggest challenge of an individual small business is survival. 80% of all new business start-ups are out of business within five years. And if that doesn’t get your attention, 80% of the 20% that survive the first five years don’t survive the second five![read more]

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Given the fact that small business employs over half of the private sector and contributes to half of the private GDP, a pessimistic small business community is not good for our economy. However, another survey claims that not everyone is pessimistic.[read more]

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Harvest ideas. Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.[read more]

Much has been said in marketing circles about target markets, demographics, psychographics and other ways to define who and what makes an ideal customer. The notion mostly implies that you determine the makeup of a market that your business seems suited to attract. The thing that’s always bothered me about this simple approach is that it sort of has a lowest common denominator element to it – who can we attract?[read more]

Let’s face it, sales is not an easy profession. If it was, there would be more people doing it and those that do it would be getting paid far less. However, there are ways that you can make sales easier. One of the best ways is through lead nurturing.[read more]

The Fed will continue monitoring inflation, but does not expect inflation to rise more than 0.50 percent above its target rate of 2.00 percent over the next one to two years.[read more]

Lots of people talk about business models these days, but what does it really mean? When it comes to starting or planning for business success your model is essentially your decision about how you intend to add value – which is another way of saying – how you intend to make money.[read more]

Earlier this year, AP reported “Some occupations are beneficiaries of the march of technology, such as software engineers and app designers for smartphones and tablet computers. Overall, though, technology is eliminating far more jobs than it is creating.”[read more]

Image credit: Complaint Department – Please Take a Number by Niven

Even the most zealous advocate of superior customer service will surely agree there is a limit to how far we should be expected to go with the old “customer is always right” principle. Because, objectively speaking, sometimes customers can be quite unreasonably demanding, or just plain rude. But it’s not good business to allow our initial or even abiding sense of annoyance or indignation to waste what is paradoxically a gift to our business by passing up the learning opportunity.[read more]

Jeff Cornwall interviews venture capitalist Vic Gatto. Gatto co-founded InfoTech, a software company in Boston, which grew from three to over 250 employees when sold in 1999.[read more]

A lot of discussion on engagement has focused on providing new and quirky benefits – foosball tables, unlimited vacation, and gourmet food in the cafeteria. Those are all great things. But in my mind, they are the “benefits” of working at a particular company.[read more]