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Many startups and entrepreneurs I advise still default to growing their business via the traditional top-down, order-taking culture. I’m convinced that you can’t stay competitive that way with today’s customers, and today’s employees. It’s time to push decision making down into the organization –in Read More

Running a business is not rocket science. As a long-time business advisor, and occasional investor, I have seen many successful businesses lead by college dropouts and people with average intelligence. Investors don’t look at CEOs for advanced degrees, but they do look for experience and emotional Read More

With the advent of the Internet, social media, and instant communication via texting, customer expectations for service, as part of their entire customer experience, have changed. They expect you to be there, to know their history as a customer, and to treat them with priority and respect. They tel Read More

Every new business or product owner wants to attract the broadest possible audience, so they are prone to adding more features, multiple sales channels, and appealing to every demographic. Unfortunately, often the result is potential customers who are confused, the limited resources of your busines Read More

Based on my years of experience as a new business advisor, I always find leadership to be more important to business success than any new technology or innovative solution. The challenge is to adequately define leadership in terms of everyday activities. Most entrepreneurs believe they are leaders, Read More

o be successful as an entrepreneur, you don’t have to be a fabulous person, but it helps. Some people, and some entrepreneurs, have that something extra that you can’t quite put your finger on, like Ryan Seacrest is searching for on American Idol. But the entrepreneurs that have it, including Elon Read More

Success in today’s rapidly changing and highly competitive business environment requires a total alignment between the needs of each business function and the priorities of all team members. If you see signs of internal misalignment, such as too many meetings, overload of emails, or lack of engagem Read More

As a new business advisor, I am no longer surprised that every new entrepreneur believes the hard part is creating the first product and the business. Perhaps luckily, they have no idea that scaling the business and maintaining vitality as a mature business is even harder. What most often kills a c Read More

Not so long ago, training to meet the press and television reporters was a realm reserved for top business executives only. Now, even the earliest stage startup can rise to visibility or be forever lost by their first media spotlight, so it behooves us all to know the rules early. Most entrepreneur Read More

As an angel investor, I sometimes worry that all the viable unique ideas must already be taken. Entrepreneurs keep talking to me about the Internet of Things (IOT), autonomous vehicles, inter-planetary travel, and other exciting opportunities, but the majority of real plans I get seem to be “me too Read More