I help leaders grow organizations that matter.
Practical thinking on marketing, leadership, generosity, entrepreneurship, and growth.
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Thoughts from a Church Secret Shopper
I often walk through a church service as a secret shopper. It’s my way to assess how aware and prepared a church is for a newcomer–specially one that might be outside of the faith. As I experience a weekend service for the first time, I try to answer the question that every first-time guest asks…
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How Should We Manage Technology?
How far into the future should your technology plan look? That’s a question I am asked often these days. Technology can be a capital expenditure for businesses and not-for-profits. It seems like yesterday I was sitting in board meetings considering investing in technology, websites, servers, and productivity tools that we expected to be useful for…
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QR Codes and the Costly Price of Marketing’s Cutting Edge
In marketing, as in life, just because it’s new and popular, it does not mean you should do it. One of the latest trends in consumer marketing has been the use of QR Codes (short for Quick Response Code). The two-dimensional matrix was first created by the automotive industry but has now become popular with…
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Sometimes Failure is Inevitable
Some risks you cannot mitigate. Some decisions you can take all the right steps, speak to the right people, do all the research and you still end up with a dud. Sometimes a very costly dud. A few years ago we hired a technology consultant who came to us highly recommended by a high-end technology…
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Excellence vs Perfectionism and the Cost of the Impossible
No one will argue that we must strive for excellence. After all who wouldn’t want a life, a business, a team, a ministry built on the best we can do and become. It’s the ultimate calling of a believer: to give our best to God no matter the task at hand. But those of us…
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The Trap of the Critic
It’s easy for me to be a critic. I grew up in a family that prided itself in finding what’s wrong with the world and each other. It was sort of a sport around the dinner table to see who would outwit the rest and deliver the best put down. We all laughed, but someone…
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Smart Casual or Business Casual? What’s the Difference?
As if there were not enough ambiguity in trying to define “business casual” in the workplace, we now have “smart casual” showing up in magazines, invitations, and office policies. Wikipedia’s vague and convoluted description of “smart casual” is evidence of there being no real standard for the term: It has been suggested that smart casual for…
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Selling and The Art of Persuasion
Often the difference between success or failure in a meeting lies on how to read or work the room. The best presentation tools cannot overcome the dynamics that often come to play underneath the surface. While there’s an art element to persuasion, there are also some skills that can be learned. Next time you are…
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Managing Expectations: The Importance of the Weakest Link
Managing expectations is critical in every organization. But it is especially important in the service-oriented businesses where one’s last experience can ruin years of a strong reputation. I was just reminded of how important that is during dinner out last night. Sometimes it is not the big things that can ruin an experience, but a…