I love this story of Jim Collins meeting Peter Drucker in their first encounter and Drucker’s respective challenge to Collins: “My first meeting with Drucker is one of the the ten most significant days of my life … “ “… At the end of the day, Peter hit me with a challenge. I was onContinue reading “How to Be Useful”
Category Archives: Entrepreneurship
Teams and Lanes
Anyone scaling businesses knows that building teams is highly challenging. You can have the best laid plans but the wrong people in the wrong seats will make any of your intentions elusive, much less achievable. We are working on defining the lanes individuals run in using a matrixed approach around responsibility. It can get confusingContinue reading “Teams and Lanes”
Market Validation
Sell something. Then do it again. That’s how you know that people want what you have to offer. You can look around and see competitors selling what you have to offer before you launch your venture. That’s not a bad position, Other people selling what you offer tells you that you have a valid productContinue reading “Market Validation”
Level Up
What does one more deal or one more customer really do for you? You may have been working your job or business for quite a while and are quite good at it. That’s great. The money could be good. It might be worth sitting tight and be a machine. Maybe the next 100 deals orContinue reading “Level Up”
Showing Up and Not Breaking the Chain
I was encouraged by Anne Handley’s recent newsletter and her reasoning to dismiss the idea of being inspired before you write: 2. ‘Write only when you have something to say’ doesn’t work. The problem with that approach is that you will find excuses to not write. It’s an out. An alibi. You will decide that whatever youContinue reading “Showing Up and Not Breaking the Chain”
Direct Clear Advice
I love Neville Medhora’s tips. It means being reflective, strategic and sensical. It’s valid for wherever you are at. Sometimes, we can fool ourselves or walk around in a fog. The 9 pieces of advice are pithy and his explanations are compelling: Do lots of “experiments.” You’re gonna die. Plan life backwards. Start a blog.Continue reading “Direct Clear Advice”
What to Do
For anyone trying to discern what to do with their life: PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU PAY ATTENTION TO. That’s pretty much all the info you need. – Amy Krouse Rosenthal With over 20 million unemployed from the COVID-19 crisis, the decks have been shuffling hard for both employers and employees. The last thing youContinue reading “What to Do”
Clarity Comes from Engagement
Spending time designing a system, message or business requires getting clear about how something should work, flow or connect. I have not found that this can be done in isolation. I need to bounce ideas off of others and work to get insights to integrate into the design. Socially, we understand this. We have friendsContinue reading “Clarity Comes from Engagement”
Get Rid of the One-off Projects
A simple way to think about whether you are growing a business, in addition to productizing your services, is to stay focused on repeatability. There is no end to one-off projects you can likely get involved with and provide solutions for. However, there’s a lot of cost when you work on one-offs: Energy. You haveContinue reading “Get Rid of the One-off Projects”
Productize Your Services so You Can Scale
When you are starting a venture, and you don’t know what people will buy, it is a great strategy to say, “Yes,” to everything. I consider this part of research and development. The cost is that you get spread out and may have to work on projects that extend your energy or cost you inContinue reading “Productize Your Services so You Can Scale”