Doing a Personal SWOT Analsis

Anita Bruzzese has written a post called “Do People Draw a Blank When it Comes to Your Personal Brand?” at her 45 Things blog that made me stop and think.  Having worked in the corporate world in marketing and sales, I’ve often done SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analyses for various products and programs.  Anita [...]

Buy American-How Can We Help?

There’s an interesting article at Embarq.com reporting on the “Buy China” rules that Bejing has imposed on government-funded stimulus projects.  China has instituted the rules, similar to the “Buy American” provisions of our own stimulus package.  It doesn’t take a degree in political science to expect other countries, especially China, to retaliate against US policies [...]

The Art of Listening

I was speaking to a friend the other day.  He was very excited by his new hearing aid.  He said he can carry on a conversation now, without having to ask the other person to repeat anything.  He can hear birds singing and even crickets chirping.  He said “I can actually hear a pin drop.”  [...]

Small Business Imperatives

Charles Brad Reynolds, a Warwick Business School MBA candidate asked the following question on LinkedIn.
What do you see as the top 5 innovations that businesses can access, cost-effectively, today that will be imperative for survival and profit maximization in the future.
My vote goes to
1.) Internet facilities for communication, marketing and purchase ordering
2.) Online and electronic [...]

Post Card Marketing for Small Business

As important as it is for small businesses to get involved in social media and web advertising, sometimes you just have to go to the Postal Service to deliver your message.  Computer-savy types like you and me may forget that there are a lot of folks who just don’t use a computer.  If we focus [...]

Small Business–The 3/50 Project Is Taking Off

I hate to repeat myself (I hate to repeat myself) but I wanted to update you on something I wrote about a few weeks back (Saving the Economy 3 Stores at a Time),  The 3/50 Project.  In case you missed it, the idea of the project is to support local business by choosing three locally-owned [...]

Small Business Retail–More on Store Hours

As a follow up to Tuesday’s post, “Small Business Retail–Setting Store Hours” some readers have commented that it’s just too hard to find qualified employees and that they probably wouldn’t be that good anyway.  In other words, it’s better to be closed than to disappoint the customer with poor service.  While I can appreciate the [...]

Small Business Retailing–Setting Store Hours

The idea for this post comes from another private forum I follow and a discussion about when an independent retailer should be open.   By their nature, many indie retailers are one or two man (woman) operations.  That means store hours = working hours.  It’s only natural to want and need some time off so a [...]

Gratuitous Self-Congratulations

I know it’s a business blog and this may hold no interest for you whatsoever, but it’s my blog and you might get some motivation from this, so here goes.
On Saturday my son, Tim and I took part in a 50 mile bicycle event called the Tour de Cure.  It was a fundraiser for the [...]

Complacency

“self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies” [Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary]
Now that you and I are in the automobile business thanks to our government’s investment of our money into General Motors, maybe it’s time to look at some of our preconceived ideas.  (I wonder when I’m going to get my company [...]