Jim Blasingame

Business futurist, award-winning author, speaker and columnist

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Management Fundamentals

11 Reasons To Never Be Too Cool For THE School

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There has never been a time in the history of the marketplace when tried and true best practices – oft mislabeled “Old School” – are being so indiscriminately brushed aside by digital leverage best practices we’ll call “New School.”

While sorting out what part of properly labeled Old School to shed (like running a business without a mobile strategy) and which New School practices to adopt (like a digital transformation strategy), we must remember that there’s a third category of best practices that often get lost in the generational translation.

Those best practices are what I call “THE School” – aka the fundamentals.

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Avoid Scurvy And The Kraken With Professional Vitamins

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For centuries, prolonged service at sea resulted in ancient mariners contracting a malady called scurvy. Those so afflicted bruised easily, had joint pain, gum disease, tooth loss – you get the picture.

By the 18th-century, researchers discovered that eating citrus fruit, like lemons and limes, would prevent scurvy. Of course, you already know the active ingredient in this “remedy” is vitamin C, found in the ascorbic acid delivered by eating those fruits. But I betcha didn’t know ascorbic is Latin for “no scurvy.”

An unfortunate reality that small business mariners experience on their marketplace voyage is a condition I’ve named professional scurvy. This malady doesn’t cause your teeth to fall out, but it does produce symptoms like high levels of negative energy, low levels of performance, and an easily bruised ego resulting in an unfortunately high rate of professional shipwrecks.

The good news is, similar to the clinical kind, professional scurvy can be cured with a supplement I call Professional Vitamin C. You shouldn’t be surprised to learn that I’ve identified four of these. And you should be pleased to learn that, like limes and lemons, these marketplace nutrients are low-hanging fruit. Here are the four Professional Vitamin Cs, followed by a bonus nutrient.

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Beware The Law Of Small Business Numbers

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Over the hill and through the woods, a rabbit was barely staying ahead of a fox that was keen on having the rabbit join him for dinner.

Running for his life, the hare made haste across a small stream and hopped over a turtle. Tucking neatly and safely inside his shell so as not to become collateral damage in the rabbit’s emergency, the turtle inquired about his anxious neighbor’s prospects. “Hey, Mr. Rabbit. You gonna make it?” To which his hurrying, furry friend replied over his shoulder, “I GOTTA make it.”

If you ask small business owners which cast member of this little vignette they’re most likely to identify with, they will invariably relate to the cottontail. And that response would have been the same even …

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Eight Rude Truths Of Interfacing With Customers In The Digital Age

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For the list of “Most Annoying and Pretentious 21st-Century Terms,” surely “Let’s Interface” qualifies.

It’s annoying because it grates against the way most analog humans express connection requests. For example: “Got time for lunch?” “Gimme a call,” “Text me,” or “I’ll email you.”

“Let’s interface” also furrows the brow because it sounds pretentiously geeky, which is oxymoronic since the pretentious are usually not geeks, and geeks are typically not pretentious.

But who says that, anyway? Well, before you look around, indignantly denying you ever did, the answer is …

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Prepare for 2021: Five Critical Questions for Business Startups and Veterans

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Let’s play “What’s wrong with this picture?”

DATELINE: New York – December 11, 2020: Millions of small businesses hanging on by a thread after being shut down by state and local politicians reacting to the coronavirus pandemic.

DATELINE: Chicago – December 11, 2020: Thousands of small businesses closing for good after being shut down by state and local politicians reacting to the coronavirus pandemic.

DATELINE: Washington – December 11, 2020: “There’s a business startup boom. The third quarter of 2020 records the highest new business applications we’ve ever seen.” (U.S. Census Bureau).

That was a softball, wasn’t it? Next time I’ll throw you a real curve.

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Five Ways To Fast-Start 2021 – Even During A Pandemic

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Whether it’s a year when our reality was something we once knew as “normal,” or an unprecedented and unimaginable year of a global pandemic, the abiding management question for all small business owners is always the same: “What’s the best use of my time – right now?” And at no other time in any year are we more time-management challenged than in December.

The twelfth calendar month is the only one where two powerful imperatives converge against a hard stop, each demanding a full measure of your time, attention, and resources:

  • The perennial push to close out sales performance as strong as possible;
  • Simultaneously setting up the business for a fast and clean start when the New Year dawns.

Pardon the football metaphor, but in the marketplace game your business plays all year, December is the final goal-line stand of your two-minute drill. And in this tight transition period, now further compressed by a pandemic, that fierce competition for precious time and resources requires discipline and devotion to fundamentals.

Of course, focusing on sales is a year-end intuitive. Focusing on next year? Not so much. Consequently, let’s spend some time on the latter.

Our grandmothers practiced the fundamental of spring cleaning every year when the weather broke warm. In the marketplace, in order to kick off the New Year right, your spring cleaning should be done by January 1. Here are a few ideas to get you started with your December cleaning and preparation for 2021 performance and profitability.

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