Business Transformation

Do you still believe the negative and contracting assumptions that have been our guidance system for the past few years? You're not alone. Yet those assumptions won't drive growth in 2013. Here are 3 simple mind shifts to get yourself thinking out of the box and your business growing.[read more]

One of my pet peeves in local advertising is that these ads – radio, TV,  Cable or Newspaper – are usually not very good. The company that is advertising has spent their entire budget on buying the media, and did not leave any money to actually figure out a good advertising strategy to use the media with. They really did not spend...[read more]

Today’s often unfriendly attitude towards business reinforces the need for strategic agility. Here’s how to get it.[read more]

The year 2013 has begun, and with it a new year of scrutinizing CEO performance. It’s worth taking one last look at 2012′s poor performers to see what we can learn for this year. In case you haven’t seen one yet, here’s a compilation of the 2012 lists: 1. The Bloomberg Businessweek Worst CEOs of 2012 Sydney Finkelstein, a professor at...[read more]

How much could failing to keep your customer service promises cost you? Quite a bit it seems.  From losing customer goodwill to possible legal costs – so goes Subway’s lesson from last week. When a customer in Australia measured his sub sandwich and learned to his chagrin that it was only 11 inches, he posted a picture of the...[read more]

If your small business offers more mobility in 2013, you could see it pay off with more customers and better sales.[read more]

Being a good entrepreneur means being able to effectively convince an investor that you have a great idea, persuade partners that your approach is right, and convince potential customers that the solution is right for them. If all your ideas are intuitively obvious to everyone, you probably aren’t thinking outside the box, or don’t really have the next big thing.[read more]

What is Google Attribution Modeling? Do you need it? Let's start with the definition of Attribution Modeling for those who are new to this concept: Attribution Modeling is the science of determining the value of each customer touch point leading to a conversion.  It helps you understand the customer journey and justify your...[read more]

I read the announcement today that Canada has just launched a Start-Up Visa Program. By doing so, they are saying to the world “welcome immigrant entrepreneurs – please come start your business in Canada.” It’s brilliant, well executed, and modeled after the Startup Visa movement that a number of us have been trying to get started in the...[read more]

No one is in charge. The airport doesn’t appear to have a CEO, and if it does, you never see her, hear about her or interact with her in any way. When the person at the top doesn’t care, it filters down.[read more]

Why do people have so many personal things on their minds? In my experience it’s because they are better set up to handle things at the office, because that’s where “work” happens, and productivity is expected. Personal things are allowed to take a back seat. But here’s the rub: If the personal open loops aren’t handled appropriately, they are just as likely to generate stress, relationship problems, and mental distraction, both at home and at the office.[read more]

Towards the end of last year I wrote a post on the eight variables to evaluate enterprise collaboration vendors which you should read before continuing with this post.  Today I want the vendor evaluation discussion a bit further with something that I actually wrote for CMSWire a few weeks ago on scoring and comparing...[read more]

With all the hype around content marketing and with the development of great new tools like marketing automation, many companies have lost track of some of the basics that drive revenue growth.  Probably the one I see most in many content marketing campaigns is a lack of call to action, or such a weak call to action that it does a...[read more]

It’s unfortunate, really, that meetings get such a bad rap. You gotta have them. You gotta to meet with your team, stay on track, find out what’s happening, communicate, and all that stuff. Can they be made into something better?[read more]

Let's think creatively about how we do good in our communities. I just ran across my notes from 2011, when I heard Alon Nir (@TheKotel) explain his project, Tweet Your Prayers. He called his talk "The Anti-Startup," and he proceeded to tell us how he ignored all the "rules" of business to make a difference.   Alon Nir...[read more]

As the person doing the interviewing and hiring, you may not think that what you say matters as much as what your candidates tell you. But a good interviewer knows which questions will reveal the most useful information about a potential employee, as well as which questions are useless or even harmful.[read more]

Multi-screen experiences are crucial but they aren’t just for the consumer that has his tablet open while watching TV. The multi-screen experience is just as important for employees within organizations and is a necessity for the future of work.[read more]

Last month, JWT released their eighth annual “10 Trends Report”, a compilation of research performed in the preceding year in a variety of areas that “point to trends that will help define and shift the near future.” Topics range from “Peer Power” to “Predictive Personalization”, but all address the continued convergence of business,...[read more]

Rebrands usually happen when we have a big business problem we can’t solve. We turn to the corporate comfort food of colors and logos to distract us from the overwhelming issues that most likely stem from being stuck in our status quo. Rebranding is expensive. It’s wasteful. And it’s rarely the solution to the problem the business is facing.[read more]

What is your process for staying in touch with your customers? Believe it or not, most companies only send newsletters or special offers to existing customers. And 95% of the time, those newsletters and email are about a company pounding their chest or about what else they are trying to sell. Then, when business is down and you need...[read more]