Posts Tagged ‘business processes’

@maurilio:

13

4 Gauges Every Entrepreneur Should Monitor

As a business owner, I’m never “off.” The mind of an entrepreneur is always working on opportunities, challenges and next steps. Of all the many thoughts that go through my mind on any given time, there are 4 areas of business that I’m constantly monitoring because I have learned that if they begin to deteriorate, so does my business. The Brand. That’s the promise every company makes to those it serves. Whether you sell widgets, services or an experience, your brand promise needs to be monitored. The A Group is a high-end marketing, technology and branding firm. Everything we do is based on strategy and best practices. I’m always monitoring the output of both products as well as services. Are we delivering on our promises? The Model. Is the current business structure a sustainable one? You’d be surprised by the number of busy businesses that end up failing. I remember…

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10

3 Reasons to Fire a Client

Sometimes you have to fire your clients. That sounds almost wrong until you give it some thought. Early in entrepreneurial career, I would say “yes” to anyone willing to hire me. The reasoning was simple: I needed to eat and someone was willing to pay for what I had to offer. However, over the years I have lost a lot of money and opportunity courting and working with clients who were not strategically a good fit for my company. Until I realized the true cost of working outside my sweet spot, I continually jumped on every opportunity that came my way. What I did not understand for a long time is that for every less-than-ideal client or project we pursued as a business and took on, we gave up the ability to find and work on the projects that were the most enjoyable, most profitable and, therefore, most successful. The…

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18

Managing the Decline

“She was hired to manage the decline.” I heard those words over a year ago and they have haunted me ever since. I have lived a life where advance, growth, opportunity, were the words used to describe the next idea, product or ministry. I was hired once to turn a money-losing summer day camp around and within 2 summers we had tripled the enrollment and had enough profit to cause an internal fight on how to spend the excess cash. But I could never imagine being told to manage the decline. The more I learn about people, businesses and ministry, the more I run into people who are managing the inevitable death of their organizations, product lines or even entire industries the best they can. These are not lazy or bad people. While some are smart enough to know that the end is inevitable, they are either powerless to change…

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