How To Overcome Price Resistance: The Gentle Art Of Persuasion
As you know, I’ve gotten involved with a local Jiu Jitsu Academy. It’s run by several young people, none of whom has much business experience. Teaching martial arts is probably among the 10 worst businesses you can be in. Every year, thousands of new academies open up all over America.…
When It Comes To Growing Your Business, Stick To Knitting
“To do two things at once is to do neither.” – Publilius Syrus (Moral Sayings, 1st century B.C.) In a recent article in Newsletter on Newsletters, marketing pro Betsy Morris identifies “nine ways to market your product line on a shoestring.” Some of her ideas include using feedback forms (comment…
Three Powerful Investing Secrets From A Very Successful Investment Club
“Better one safe way than a hundred on which you cannot reckon.” – Aesop (The Fox and the Cat, 6th century B.C.) Whenever my friends ask about investment advice, I recommend they join the Oxford Club. It’s a membership group that has been helping individual investors for more than 20…
Capitalism 101
“The cement in our whole democracy today is the worker who makes $15 an hour. He’s the guy who will buy a house and a car and a refrigerator. He’s the oil in the engine.” – Lee Iacocca (Iacocca: An Autobiography, 1984) I ate breakfast this morning at a greasy…
Teach Your Employees To Teach One Another
“To teach is to learn twice over.” – Joseph Joubert (Pensees, 1842) If you spend a lot of time training and retraining your employees, you may be making a big mistake. You can change things for the better by passing on the responsibility for teaching new employees to your students.…
Develop Your Advertising Like A Blockbuster Movie
“Less is more.” – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe If you want to come up with breakthrough advertising ideas, it can help to practice a technique filmmakers use to develop blockbuster movies. The technique — which is applied to the movie’s essential idea — is called “high concept.” A movie…
Each Customer Service Call Is A Sales Oppurtunity
“Common sense is as rare as genius.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson (Essays, 1844) Most business owners mentally divide their work in half. On the one side, they put sales and marketing. On the other side, fulfillment and customer service. Often, these activities are separated physically, with different managers and divergent…
What’s More Important: Invention Or Imitation?
“We ought not to be over-anxious to encourage innovation in cases of doubtful improvement, for an old system must ever have two advantages over a new one; it is established, and it is understood.” – Charles Caleb Colton (Lacon, 1825) If you are lucky enough to work in a creative…
How Much Of Your Profits Should Go Into Your Pocket — And How Much Should Go Back Into Your Business
Sooner or later, you will run into the sticky problem of executive compensation: How much should a CEO/owner get paid? You might have to face this question if/when your business gets going. And you might face it if you invest in a business. Fortune Small Business magazine did a story…
Rate The People In Your Business Life
“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” – Bill Cosby Your success has a lot to do with people: the partners, employees, consultants, and vendors you choose to help you build your dream. If you are careful in choosing the…
Postage is Zero With Email Marketing
“Act quickly; think slowly.” – Greek proverbAre you using e-mail to sell? If not, you are probably missing a very good marketing opportunity — one that can add fast cash and bottom-line dollars to your business. I was never a fan of web-based selling. It always seemed to present the…
How To Get Unstuck When A Big Job Stymies You
I hope you have considered what we talked about Monday the enormous impact price has in any market, in any business situation even in any personal situation. And I hope you figured out your life goals yesterday. Today we are going to talk about something just as important a…