Contingency Planning for the Upside
Businesses need to plan for upside surprises almost as much as they plan for the downside. Although managers may say, “Bring on the sales,” they frequently are not ready for more business. Sales staff may …
Working at Home?
My state has more than our share of folks working at home, according to an article in the Oregonian. I’m wondering why, and have a "push" cause and a "pull" cause. High traffic congestion would …
Make It Easy for Your Clients
I try not to rant here, but the message is both simple and important: make it easy for your clients to do what you want. Example: I make a hotel reservation with a chain I’ve …
7 Steps to Better Employee Retention
Employees are quitting more often now: This is as high as we had back in the boom. If you have employees, you need . . . 7 Steps to Better Employee Retention 1. Track retention—if …
Customer Service, Customer Acquisition
The greatest global imbalance has nothing to do with trade deficits or petro-dollars. It’s the mismatch between dollars spent to acquire new customers, versus dollars spent to retain existing customers. The first is very big, …
6. Steps to Hiring in a Tight Labor Market
Unemployment is low and most business executives that I speak with report that it’s hard to hear. (Exceptions: manufacturers in the industrial Midwest). Here are the top 5 steps employers should take to find workers …
Business Networking Website
Business 2.0, which I find to be a very stimulating magazine regarding innovative business ideas, has an article about a cool networking site called LinkedIn.com It’s kind of like MySpace for business people. If you …
Peanut Butter Manifesto
The Wall Street Journal describes today an internal paper being circulated at Yahoo called The Peanut Butter Manifesto (subscription required). The paper covers a lot of ground, but one key point generates the name. Yahoo, …
The Next Election & Economic Policy
If you’re not totally sick and disgusted with politics yet, you may want to look ahead to Economic Stances of the Likely and Declared 2008 Presidential Candidates. Brian Gongol rates the candidates by combining his …
Business Cards
It’s about time for a new batch of business cards, so I downloaded an e-book on the subject, that I found well worthwhile. It’s called Business Cards Front to Back, available from Big Mike McDaniels …
What Can a State Do in a Recession?
What can a state do in a recession? I testified on this topic before the Oregon legislature today. Download OrLegTestimony200610.pdfIn the testimony I discuss the risk of recession, the nature of a recession if one …