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Based on my experience as a business advisor, most businesses don’t think about the need for change until a crisis occurs. This might be the recognition that competitors are surpassing your own results, financial growth has disappeared, or the pandemic has eliminated loyal customers. Only then do t Read More

As a long-time business advisor, and an investor in startups along the way, I’m always on the lookout for an entrepreneur who is responding first to a problem in the marketplace, rather than bringing a new technology to the market, assuming it will find a problem to solve. I assert that problem sol Read More

Most entrepreneurs start their company with the highest of ideals, and wouldn’t dream of building one with a culture of indifference or downright unethical behavior. Yet all too many succumb to the pressures of survival, driven by demanding investors or a cutthroat competitive environment. How does Read More

Any entrepreneur with a vision can postulate a new business, but it takes a collaboration of many people to make it a success. Today the complexity of forces required for success include multi-disciplinary skills, competencies, and experiences in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts Read More

Every entrepreneur wishes that he could predict whether his idea could be the “next big thing,” before he spent his life savings and years of energy on it. Investors, on the other hand, typically don’t even look very hard at the product or service, but prefer to evaluate first the entrepreneur, and Read More

Not so long ago, business leaders operated behind the scenes, and even long-time employees rarely heard from them or saw them in the news. Today, with the Internet and social media, if you aren’t visible in a positive way to everyone, including customers, your leadership efforts will be lost. To be Read More

Every entrepreneur and every business I meet in my consulting and mentoring role has great intentions of bringing real innovation to the market, yet I find that most ideas are merely small extensions to existing solutions. I believe we need more non-linear “out of the box” thinking, to come up with Read More

Making the decision to start your own business is a major commitment, with huge implications for skills and lifestyle. Yet there is no standardized testing or certification required or available anywhere to help you decide if you are a good fit for entrepreneurship, or founding a business is right Read More

As a business advisor, one of the most disheartening things I see in business today is a serious lack of engagement at all levels, consistent with Gallup’s global engagement survey from a while back, finding only 13 percent of workers fully engaged in their job. I see people walking around every da Read More

One thing is certain in any business – not everyone you have to deal with will be like you, or will like you (and vice versa). These people may include one of your business partners, an investor, a key vendor, or even one of your best customers. In my role as a business advisor, I see more and more Read More