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Among the people I admire are those who have the courage to make bold statements based on their beliefs and experiences. Early in his book, The Road Less Traveled, the late M. Scott Peck endeared himself to me when he declared that the people he saw in his counseling practice essentially fell into two categories: neurotics and those with character disorders.

Peck wrote, “Neurotics are easy to work with in psychotherapy because they assume responsibility.” He went on to say, “Those with character disorders are difficult, if not impossible, to work with, because they never see themselves as any part of the problem.” Thus missing the invaluable opportunity for self-examination.

Contemplating Dr. Peck’s declaration was a true watershed moment, helping me better understand why some people – including me – behave as we do. Both types of Peck’s patients sought his help because they were experiencing difficulties in life. But if we’re honest, we don’t have to be dysfunctional to realize that each of us falls on one side or the other of this behavior coin. It’s an either/or default circumstance, where we’re either more likely to take responsibility for what happens in our life, or we aren’t.

How you would respond to these business scenarios. [Continue Reading]

This article was first published in The Small Business Advocate NEWSLETTER, Volume II, Issue 45, September 17, 2001, the first edition following the terrorist attacks of 9-11.

The NEWSLETTER is different this week from past editions. This week is different from past weeks. 

For days now, I’ve wanted to talk with you. I considered a mid-week edition. Uncharacteristically, I just couldn’t get the words down.

Only once before did my normal prosaic method fail me. Not being a poet – not wishing to be a poet – at first I didn’t understand that my thoughts would only come out in verse. But the return key proved stronger than the word wrap. At last I gave in to the meter, and a poem was born.

This week, again, the prose came with difficulty. But this time I recognized the pull of the return key and another poem was written with less struggle.

I have no small business thoughts for you this week. Nor do I claim to have inspiration for you. I don’t feel inspired. I feel numb. I feel angry. I feel frustrated. I can only tell you about my feelings. Perhaps you will recognize them. [Continue Reading]

Here’s an ancient marketplace maxim: Selling is a numbers game.

A maxim is a generally accepted truth and this is one because of two realities:

1. There are hundreds – if not thousands – of things that can cause a fully qualified prospect to not complete a transaction, at least not on your time parameters.

2. Regardless of how many bumps you encounter on the path to a signed contract, it’s still your job to produce enough gross profit from sales revenue to stay in business.

Enter the sales pipeline: a planning concept that helps managers and salespeople forecast sales for any given period – week, month, quarter, or year. Think of your sales pipeline as overhead plumbing with faucets positioned at the time intervals your operation requires. And from these faucets, you draw the mother’s milk of any business – sales revenue.

But there’s one pesky thing about sales pipeline faucets: they all come with screens that only allow sales from qualified prospects to pass through, while poorly developed prospects are blocked. So, if you’re counting on revenue pouring out of a faucet when you turn the handle on the day you need sales, you must load only qualified prospects into your pipeline to begin with. [Continue Reading]

When a partnership works, it’s a beautiful thing. When it doesn’t, it defines ugly.

Once, during a conversation with a mentor about partnerships, he made this declaration: “Partners are only good for two things: sex and dancing.”

My mentor’s personal experience led him to make that indictment. My experience has led me to be more thoughtful, but I still advise anyone planning a business partnership to consider his rude but worldly comment as a handy caution to purge their plans of naivete.

A business partnership should be entered into with a healthy dose of reality about the human element involved. My friend, David Gage brings sunlight to this reality in his book, The Partnership Charter, wherein he writes, “Business people are experts in what they do, but they’re not in how to be partners.” Boy, howdy, is that true!

If you’re considering a partnership structure for your business, Gage recommends asking yourself, and your potential partner, the three questions below, which are followed by my thoughts.[Continue Reading]

The classic financial benefits derived from small business ownership typically fall under two categories: 

1. Earned income: salary and bonuses reported on a W2 each year.

2. Unearned (investment) income: distribution of profits from the operation and/or sale of the business.

But there are other small business ownership advantages that I call “stealth benefits,” because they’re not as evident as operating opportunities. Arguably the most dramatic stealth benefit, which often has the most wealth creation potential, is for the business owner to also personally own the real estate in which that business operates.[Continue Reading]

Few contemporary prophecies have stood the test of time better than this one by John Naisbitt, from his 1982 watershed book, Megatrends: “The more high-tech, the more high-touch.” I’ve named that jewel, “Naisbitt’s Razor.”

The reason for Naisbitt’s accuracy is simple: High tech, by definition, means digital. But you and I are not the least bit digital; we’re 100% analog. And our analog nature manifests as a desire to connect with – or as Naisbitt says, “touch” – other humans. So the value of touch increases proportionally with the increase in the velocity of our lives.

Digital is fast; analog is not. We may transport ourselves virtually at the speed of digital, but once there, we touch –eye, ear, hand – at the speed of analog. So how do we reconcile the fact that as high-tech consumers who desire and eagerly adopt each new generation of digital, we’re still, and will always be analog beings? One word: trust.[Continue Reading]