8 Things We Learned About Small Businesses During the Last Two Years

It was nearly two years ago, in the final week of February 2020, when I received the first phone call that alerted me that something serious was afoot.  I had been monitoring the reports about COVID since December of 2019, when news on CNBC first brought it to my attention.  It seemed obvious that there

Case Studies in Leadership #Failures

Things I Have Learned About Leadership There are literally libraries full of literature on the subject of leadership. I would not dare attempt to corral the pearls of wisdom from the pages of those books or essays an try to regurgitate them here. What I have is far more pedestrian…learned experiences. I’m confident that others

Short Stories on Failures to Exit

Today, I would like to share a couple of stories. Part 1: The Missed Opportunity A few years back, I worked with the buyer of a reasonably successful business. It turned out that the buyer was a key employee, and the seller, after 30 years or so in business, had decided it was time to

Top 5 Marketing Priorities for Your Business in the New Year

New Year, New Marketing A focus on marketing priorities is often a difficult task, especially for a small business owner or manager.  As the New Year begins, a lot of businesses take stock of the year ahead.  Some have already done their planning for 2022, but many have not.  The hard part for business owners

Common Email Mistakes that Derail Success

I can’t tell you how many times I see emails with some phrases or grammatical issues that simply drive me nuts. Like the email writer who ends every sentence with a ‘?’.  Especially if it is a declarative sentence?  I just haven’t figured that one out yet? Or the person that goes to ALL CAPS BECAUSE

Why Influencer Marketing Makes No Sense for Small Business

I was reading this article from eMarketer about influencer marketing, and I was attempting to wrap my head around how a small business might utilize such a tool to help promote their business.  The article was primarily about disclosure, but I have been getting these kinds of questions periodically, about whether an influencer strategy makes

The Gift of a Championship Chili Recipe

More than twenty years ago, in the summer of 1999, I came up with the hair-brained scheme of running a chili cookoff as a way to raise money for the Owego Kiwanis Club Foundation. I had only been a member for a year or so, but saw an opportunity to bring a bit of my

Developing a Good Catalog

In my earlier career, I spent a lot of time and effort working on e-commerce for multiple locations.  Each of them had their own catalogs, each had their own pricing, implementation capabilities, and delivery systems.  No two was the same.  To make things even more complicated, they all had different on-site managers with different philosophies

Don’t Panic

One of my favorite books of all time is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy  by Douglas Adams.  Quite frankly, the book is ludicrous, which I guess is why I like it so much.  The book is a cult classic.  It’s essentially the story of how a normal Earth being gets entangled in this nutty story

20 Things I have Learned about Leadership

Let me start off by saying that I am no “expert” on leadership.  I’m no subject matter expert or thought leader on the topic.  Like many in management, I have not spent as much energy on studying aspects, theory or best practices of leadership as I would like. It’s on the to-do list.   I’ve

Framework for a Go-To Market Strategy

There are plenty of models out there for determining the proper approach for a sales-first or marketing-first strategy.  For a startup or a business undergoing a transformation those decisions may not be as clearly defined as one might think.  I have been looking for a simplified model with some straightforward examples to help better explain

7 Things I Love About Todoist

For years, I’ve preferred a mix of tools to manage my life, both private and professional.  There are simply so many methods out there, and no single method works for everyone.  We all think and behave differently, have varied  challenges, and it is impossible for any one tool or combination of tools to serve as a