Posts Tagged ‘business’

Your organization’s brand is more important than you might realize. Branding is not the “voodoo of marketers” but the sum total impression of everything you are as an organization. In a nutshell it is the essence of who you are organizationally. Communicating it properly is essential; not doing so can (Continue reading…)

Your organization might have a good grasp on its vision: you know where you want to go. Most business or ministries I have worked closely with have a very well-defined vision statement. Some talk about their calling, and some still have what I have heard described as a “sense of (Continue reading…)

In our pursuit of improvement, of becoming our very best, we can find ourselves always looking for the negative in every situation.  As a consultant, I’m paid to figure out how to improve communication, technology, and create new and better systems. Being critical is part of the skill set that (Continue reading…)

The difference between success and failure in any venture often cannot be attributed to a single incident or cause. It’s usually a culmination of factors including timing, execution, assumptions, economic factors, and more. While much has been written on the success of start ups, one factor usually sticks out in (Continue reading…)

Some believe happiness comes from finding themselves in the right places, relationships, job, or income level.  I don’t believe that, and in recent years there is enough evidence from the field of psychology in what I have believed all along: happiness is not a byproduct of success. The opposite is (Continue reading…)

Partnerships are important part of business as well as ministry. Great partners can help you grow while a bad one can be the death of a dream. While we can easily form a partnership, it takes a long time to break one apart, sometimes with dire consequences. Here’s what I (Continue reading…)

Life is a series of negotiations. We negotiate our way through traffic, we negotiate with family, with our boss,  with a car salesman, and with our clients. Some of us are better at it than others. But whether it comes naturally and easy or whether negotiating is hard work, your (Continue reading…)

“We priced it low because we wanted the exposure.” Every young, and even some seasoned entrepreneur can fall on the trap of the “exposure” temptation. In the search for legitimacy and clout, entrepreneurs want to have the recognizable “big fish” names in our portfolios.  After all, that means great PR (Continue reading…)

I need encouragement. For someone who sees the glass half full and opportunity during the tough times, I am not a natural encourager. That’s not an excuse, however. If I need encouragement, why shouldn’t those around me need it as well? They do. We all do. Here’s what I know (Continue reading…)

Eventually all our assumptions need to be either validated or disproved. In the world of business, the sooner we have clarity on foundational beliefs the better decisions we make with increasingly better results. Entrepreneurs have a sense of timing and intuitiveness that allow us to take calculated and yet successful (Continue reading…)