If you’re going to manage, then you need to manage the right way. Certainly, managing a small business or SME is a difficult task, but that is no excuse for not being a good manager. Managing must still be done correctly in order to achieve positive results. At times, it might seem as though it…

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Have you hit a wall with strategy execution? You’re not alone. In most companies, the best-laid plans drop like lead balloons. For years, the word on the grapevine is that up to 90% of strategies crash and burn. The evolution of strategy in the last century holds promise. But, right now, effective strategic thinking remains an impossible…

No small business owner or manager thinks that occupational fraud can or will happen to them. Guess what? Business fraud happens all the time…every day in every city, small or large, and to any size and type of business. And what is occupational fraud? As defined by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, occupational fraud…

Sometimes the best business ideas are not really ideas at all. They are simply new ways of doing old things. For example, Melissa Kwan created a business to help real estate agents manage their open house contacts. As she described when I interviewed her on Built to Sell Radio, it was a “bloated” piece of software….

An overview of strategy formulation Formulating a comprehensive strategy sounds like a herculean task. But it doesn’t have to be like that. You just have to gather the right information and write a plan with a bias towards action. Let’s get into more details. What is strategy formulation? Strategy formulation is the process of developing a plan…

Strategy without action is pointless.  You can plan forever, but if you never put your ideas to the test, all the time and effort you spend on planning is for nothing. So, when you compare strategy vs execution, there is only one winner. Without execution, strategic planning is just a hypothesis. Business success comes from…

Loyal customers are the lifeline of any small business. They are needed for current survival and long-term growth. Acquisition vs. Retention There is no exact number, but most sources consider the cost to acquire a new customer to be approximately 5 to 25 times the cost of retaining an existing customer depending on the study…

An Overview of the Strategy Dictionary  Strategy isn’t a science. There are frameworks, guides, and common semantics – but ultimately strategy is the art of creating a direction for your organization, then doing whatever it takes to get there. Because of this reality, a huge body of work has arisen both online and offline that…

Satisfied customers return to purchase again, and it is returning customers combined with new customers that create business growth and long-term success. In a competitive business environment, there are generally numerous products and services of essentially the same quality available on the market at any given time; therefore, it’s all the little things that make…

Introduction to The Strategy Diamond There are no perfect strategic plans. Like practice, conscious execution makes better. Not perfect, better. But to have a truly successful business strategy, you need a well-written plan in the first place. Use this template to write your strategic plan and then apply the strategy diamond model the way we describe it…

It’s great to have a huge vocabulary of industry-specific terms, acronyms, and buzzwords, but the greater value is making sure that your listener (your customer) understands exactly what you are saying. It is not always the business that has the best product or service that makes the sale, it is the salesperson or representative who…