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Jim Blasingame

Business futurist, award-winning author, speaker and columnist

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Archives for August 2023

The Golden Triplets Of Small Business Success

August 22, 2023 by Jim Blasingame

For most of the 20th century, Americans enjoyed what I call The Golden Age of Customer Service. Sadly, based on recent research, it appears we’re in the Plastic Age.

In a national customer satisfaction index, the average customer rating was less than 60%. Going six for 10 is pretty good – if you’re playing baseball. But any small business with that batting average is headed for the shower.

So how has such a level of unservice become a 21st-century norm? Because customers have become sensitized to what I call the Plastic Triplets: High volume/low price, impersonal e-business, and almost as impersonal face-to-face service.

For small businesses, the Plastic Triplets create both opportunity and danger. But seizing the former and avoiding the latter requires an understanding of two things: [Continue Reading]

Filed Under: Customer Care, e-business, Management Fundamentals, The Age of the Customer, Uncategorized Tagged With: age of the customer, customer care, management fundamentals, small business

The Problems And Perils Of Perfection

August 15, 2023 by Jim Blasingame

There are a million – maybe a billion – scenarios for how someone becomes the Founder of a business. But regardless of variability, there is one part of every venture that, almost by definition, will not vary: In the beginning, and often for some time afterward, the Founder will be the first to do all the jobs.

If you’re one of those Founders, you were the first receptionist, the first salesperson, the first accountant, and the first janitor. But you didn’t become a business owner to answer the phone, pay the bills or sweep the floor. You did those jobs because, at that moment, you were the smallest of business entities. An entrepreneurial quark. A team of one.

You have every right to look back on those days with great pride. Starting a business from scratch and growing it into a success story is a modern-day Herculean feat, accomplished against all odds. But there is one perilous byproduct of the Founder being the first to do all the jobs [Continue Reading]

Filed Under: Entrepreneurship, Human Resources, Leadership, Management Fundamentals, Start Ups Tagged With: delegate, employees, entrepreneurship, excellence, leadership, management fundamentals, small business

When Blind Justice Had A Good Day

August 10, 2023 by Jim Blasingame

As you likely remember, the question asked last week in our online poll was: “What do you think about Hunter Biden’s plea deal failing this week?” And we offered these four response options:

  • It’s just more Conservative/MAGA theater to divert from Trump’s assault on the Constitution.
  • Thank God something/someone slowed the Biden DOJ’s banana republic approach to justice.
  • Doesn’t matter. Our country isn’t going to survive as a constitutional republic for much longer anyway.
  • What if we presented both the Biden and Trump cases to a court without names?

Below, along with the other responses, you’ll see that three-fourths of our folks went for #2. They were relieved to see that there’s still some level of blind justice in America today.

Is Hunter Biden, et al, guilty of all of the things being alleged? Well, when allowed to work as designed, that’s what the architecture of the American system of justice is designed to resolve. But as we’ve known since Henry II’s 12th-century legal reforms spawned the immortal English common law upon which our system is modeled, the mill grinds pure when unimpeded by politics.

[Continue Reading]

Filed Under: Ethics / Trust, Government / Politics, Leadership Tagged With: ethics, government, leadership, politics, trust

Banks, Banking, And Brigadoon

August 1, 2023 by Jim Blasingame

As you know, the U.S. banking system has been challenged this year. Three large “regional” banks collapsed, and not a few experts have opined that there will be more banking-sector bloodshed going forward.

As you may remember, in our online poll last week (see below) we asked about concerns for your bank and the U.S. banking system with this question: “In light of the 2023 bank failures, have you been concerned about your own bank?” [Continue Reading]

Filed Under: Banking, e-business, Finance / Accounting / Taxes, Leadership, Start Ups, The Age of the Customer Tagged With: age of the customer, banking, banks, leadership, small business, small business owner

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