As a small business owner or a solopreneur, business development relationships are among the most difficult to manage. To start exploring these challenges, we’ll need some common language to describe the types of relationships that exist. We’ll start simply (by clarifying terms) and add detail as we discuss how to make these relationships work (a… Read More
As your business grows, so will the ways through which you find and fulfill work. There will likely be people with whom you forge business development relationships. You may work on engagements together as partners. You may pass leads to each other. You may work as a contributor on their contracts and they may work… Read More
I have often told people (only partially tongue-in-cheek) that my favorite 20th century philosopher is Popeye. Why, you ask? What could be “deeper” than this? “I yam what I yam and that’s all what I yam" The English may not be perfect, but is that brilliance, or what? Wouldn’t we all be a lot happier… Read More
Easton Ellsworth over at Business Blog Wire started the practice of blog tipping several months ago. How it works: On the first day of the month you mention three blogs. You write three things you like about them and offer one “tip”. This month, I tip my blog to: Richard Charkin, CEO Macmillan Publishers… Read More
In Free Agent Nation, Dan Pink talks about the days when most people worked at home. They were farmers and blacksmiths and bakers, and they had everything they needed at home to make a living. There weren’t work/life balance issues. Work was life and life was work. The family was there and they all… Read More
If you believe that everyone is a marketer (or should be), as I do, then Seth Godin’s post today is a great reminder of our accountability. “Marketing (the use of time and money to create a story and spread it) works. Human beings don’t make rational decisions, they make emotional ones, and we’ve seen time… Read More
There are many though provoking resources we can read about management and leadership. They cover leadership qualities, attitudes, and perspectives in great detail (some of my favorites include: Tom Peters, Bob Sutton, Steve Farber, David Maister, Phil Gerbyshak, and Fast Company). But, if we were to focus on execution (assuming we have a team and we… Read More
The last three of Robert Sutton’s Weird Ideas That Work tell us to ignore sources that most people consider “good” counsel: customers, critics, financial experts, people that have solved our problem before, and our own past successes. There is a time and place to test new ideas and listen to these sources (see Weird Idea… Read More