Today?s advice for business owners: be quiet and listen. You might learn something to improve your company.
Have you ever noticed how hard it is to take advice? I see this most clearly when I facilitate workshops that bring business owners and expert advisers together. I?ve convened more than 50 of these over the years, in one form or another.
Stories about people building companies may be inspirational, but what if your business is dying?
That was the message from a reader that brought me up short last month. He had read my column called ?sooty,? which urged business owners to find what they are uniquely good at and outsource the rest, lest they end up frustrated by banging away at the tasks they hate.
What if you?ve invested in expensive equipment, but it?s become outdated and impossible to sell? What if your industry has changed so much, you were left behind?
last October, 30 business owners gathered for an extraordinary morning: They presented their best tactics for growing companies at the first Upsize Business Builder Awards & Seminar.
Any business owners still doing what they hate to do, rather than what they love, what they?re really good at, and delegating the rest, please consider this cautionary tale about Eric.
I hired Eric?s company to repair my chimney in December. He arrived early one cold morning, and I greeted him cheerfully: ?How are you doing?? ?Well, I was doing fine until I saw your house,? he said. ?The chimney?s so high, and the roof?s so steep.?
I was puzzled. Aren?t most chimneys high, and attached to steep roofs? But I smiled politely.
All parents wonder whether the things they say and do get through to their children. At least two parents, who are also recipients of the inaugural Upsize Lifeline Awards, can know for sure.
Is 2006 going to be your company''s breakthrough year? Upsize has an offer for you to make it so.
Enter the third annual edition of the Upsize Growth Challenge, presented by Clientek, the Minneapolis technology consulting firm.
How does it work? Business owners tell us about their growth goals. Go to dev.divistack.com, and click on the Upsize Growth Challenge logo to get a nomination form. Do it today so you don?t miss the deadline: Jan. 10, 2006.
Liza Minnelli is not only still standing, but she also can still belt out a song.
This astonishing fact was revealed to me in September, when I saw her in person at a benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina victims in New York City?s Gershwin Theater.
There she was, boot-cut pants showing off dancer?s legs, glittery swing coat concealing ponderous upper body, big eyes made huge with a pound of makeup. Backlit, and fronted by the opening to ?New York, New York? played by the Liza Minnelli Band, she started delivering her number.
And I thought: If Liza can keep kicking after everything she?s been through, so can Upsize, so can any growing company.
I talked to two local CEOs in the same business, selling meals that customers assemble themselves, who are taking opposite routes. Their stories, in this month?s Informer, present a rare opportunity to consider a common entrepreneurial debate.
Like most people, I learned my first lessons about business (and life) from my parents.
“Do what you love and the money will follow,” my mother always said, good advice for an aspiring reporter pursuing an English lit degree. My first full-time reporting job paid $13,000, so it’s lucky I loved it.
Frustration was the leading sentiment expressed by last year?s three Upsize Growth Challenge winners when I reached them by phone in late June. So I was surprised to learn how much they had accomplished.
?I wish I could tell you we were going gangbusters,? all three said in one way or another.