Preserve, Destroy, Create: Your Only Path to Breakthrough Growth
"If it's not broken, why fix it?" We've all said that as a justification for not moving forward with a difficult situation or decision. The question is, what if the status quo is broken and we're just ignoring the need for repair? What if we lack the awareness, clarity, courage, or strength to take painful action to get to a better place? Business activity falls into three buckets: Preservation, Destruction, or Creation. To move to the next level, a business must go through all three phases.
Are You The Gatorade of Your Market? "No one else has the ability or right to do what we do in our market."
When you hear "Gatorade," what do you think? While the name may conjure up seemingly simple ideas such as "sports drink" or "flavored water," the science behind the Gatorade brand is actually very complex, and is focused on something much bigger, bolder, and specific.Sarah Robb O'Hogan, North American President of Gatorade and Global Chief Marketing officer of Sports Nutrition for PepsiCo, shared how Gatorade's brand weakened during the bloated economy, and how the recession brought the brand back to its core consumer. Gatorade's global mission is "to be the world leader in innovative sports nutrition." Says O'Hagan: "No one else has the ability or the right to do what we do in our market."
15 Ways to Be a Lousy CEO
Leadership isn't just about knowing how to do the right things. It's also about being hyper-aware of behaviors that can quickly alienate your employees and bring down your organization. In a position of leadership, everything you do counts. All eyes are on you, even when you aren't there. Employees feel your presence throughout the day because you set the tone. This is what it means to be a leader - to be aware of how your actions and decisions impact others even when you are physically absent. My 17 years of business leadership have taught me 15 ways how to fail at leadership.
Strategies for Evaluating and Building a Solid Banking Relationship
One of the most important strategic relationships a business owner has is with his/her banker. Yet so often, we treat this relationship as a commodity.Switching banks is not something that I would recommend lightly. As veteran business owners know, the process is cumbersome, stressful, and time-consuming even under the best circumstances. However, sometimes you have to know when it's time to make a change.
My Eight Wishes for You in 2012... From Courage to Contentment
My wish list for everyone in 2012. Happy New Year, and may this year bring you health & happiness, laughter & learning, inner peace to appreciate where you are right now, and just enough restlessness to propel you forward.For 2012, I wish you…Courage. I wish you the gift of courage to make difficult decisions. Courage to pursue a road less traveled if it is where you need to go at this point in time. Courage to submerge yourself in sadness without hesitation when your soul requires it. And courage to claim your own happiness no matter how much others may resist your choices.
Status Quo Bringing You Down? Our Obsession With Being Better
It's that time of the year when we tell ourselves that we're going to be better next year. There's no shortage of experts to help us achieve "better" or "more." Is it just me, or are we experiencing an obsession with how-to-lists, habit lists, and steps to a better place?
Group Dynamics: Small Stones Cast Big Ripples
Throw a tiny pebble into a pond and watch the ripples reverberate. They cascade outward beyond the point that our eyes can see. The effects occur on the surface and beneath it. Have you ever thought about this change principle in the context of an organization? One of the most disruptive actions regarding a group's dynamic is the addition of a new member. In an organization, bringing in just one new employee into a company can potentially affect the chemistry and interactions of existing employees, and therefore compromise productivity. Consciously or subconsciously, employees are thinking, "How will this change affect my job?" "How will this person affect how we do things around here?" Their sense of organizational trust may be challenged.
"Always." "Never." "Every." A Guaranteed Path to Failure.
Always, Never, and Every are the easiest ways to set yourself up for failure. There's no room for error. Everything is presented as an all-or-none... an absolute. Who wants to live life with no wiggle room for error?The quest for perfection is too exhausting and completely self-sabotaging.Be a little kinder to yourself. Show some self-love. Lower the self-expectations just a notch.
Getting to "I Love What I Do and I'm Great At It."
How much valuable time do you expend on activities that don't fuel your passion or make you struggle? That's the question I considered as I listened to David Siteman Garland talk about the activities that fill our time on a daily basis. David was a special guest at an event hosted by one of the most remarkable networking communities in the DC region called Cadre
As an Entrepreneur, I Am Thankful
It's always the right time to live life from a place of gratitude. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, today I reflect on what it means to be thankful as an entrepreneur.
Creating a Culture of Fanatical Belief: The Most Brilliant Marketing Campaign. EVER.
What if you could generate about $1.6 million in sales every year by filling a room with people that pay you to stare at them? Meet "Braco" (pronounced Braht-zo), a "gentle man from Croatia" who apparently has a remarkable gift that has helped countless lives. Each year, 200,000 people pay $8 each to stare at Braco for 30 minutes. In silence. He tours the U.S. and Europe to reach people who are "seeking help from life's difficulties, health problems, relationship issues, and more."
Five Strategies For Time Management RIGHT NOW (Who Has Time for More??)
I'm trying to get a grip on my schedule. So I did what any overwhelmed, process-oriented, analytical overachiever does. I googled "Time Management Strategies." I found HUNDREDS of articles, white papers, and lists on time management. Seriously - who has time to write, read, or remember all of that information?After wasting 15 minutes, I realized that - as usual - all of the answers we need and solutions we seek actually reside right inside of ourselves. I took a deep breath and a long sip of my herbal tea, and I came up with a simple list of really easy strategies
Can't Get a Loan or Investor? No Problem. Crowdfunding To The Rescue!
Today's entrepreneurs view the world and the future through a different lens than that of current or past generations. If the conventional system won't accommodate them, then they will build an unconventional system. That is exactly what they have done with crowdfunding.
Building Past The Million Dollar Mark: Will It Work for Your Life?
Building a multi-million dollar company can take over your life.Expanding a business requires careful thought about the lifestyle implications, access to money, and a thorough business plan that maps out the path to go from your current state of business to your desired state of business.
The Dangerous Myth of the Magical Million Dollar Mark
"Million, million, million." It feels good when we say it, doesn't it? Especially when we talk about growing our businesses. "I'm going to hit a million dollars." "I'm going to be a millionaire." "I'm working on my goal of $1 million in sales."
Pushing Through Obstacles: Six Strategies to Tap Into Your Powers of Possibility
So how does a leader keep going - with a smile on her face? I've developed several strategies to continue moving towards my goals, and I'm happy to share 6 of them with you. Reach back to these as you move through your challenges.
Joining the Club: Five Strategies for Selecting Networking Organizations & Communities That Deliver ROI
Do you ever feel like a lazy slacker because you're certain you're the only person not attending various networking events, or not a member of an organization? It's easy to get sucked into the networking vortex.There are so many events that you could attend a breakfast, lunch, dinner, and reception event every day of the week and still not make the rounds to every event out there. Wherever you reside, you have to choose wisely.
Three Things Business Leaders Must Constantly Do To Remain Extraordinary
Leadership is hard. Vision, strategy, financing, legal, IT, HR, operations, management, sales, marketing... and staying strong through it all. Tough.If you don't absolutely love what you do, if you don't believe in the positive difference you are making in the world around you, you can fatigue very quickly.
Employees and New Hires: Do They Get It, Want it, and Have the Capacity to Do It? (GWC)
One of the most critical elements of any organization is hiring the right people. Whether you are an employee or an employer, chances are you have your share of nightmare stories about the fallout of hires that were not the right fit for a position, or the organizational culture.
"It's Not You, It's Me:" Evaluating Prospective and Current Customers for an Organizational Fit
We’ve all been there… we’ve all met people at times in our life and thought that a relationship was going to work out, only to discover after you’ve peeled back the layers that perhaps it just wasn’t meant to be.