I’ve been consulting with and advising entrepreneurs/small business owners for over 45 years. In my experience, the most troublesome job to fill is the technical salesperson position. That does not mean there aren’t other positions that are hard to find competent skill...

If you read my prior blog relating to the same subject, but directed at Sales positions, you will no doubt recognize that a fair amount of what was said about getting the right sales people on your bus also applies to other positions. The sad fact is that most small bu...

If you have been reading this series of blogs, you already know the previous two blogs were concerned with hiring for some specific positions. This blog extends that more generically, but with much the same set of rules.

A Story

I had a long term consulting assignment wi...

I took the Strategic Planning Course in 2005/06; the impact on my company was immediate and dramatic. Over the next 6 years our sales doubled and our profit levels more than doubled. The course was exactly what I needed to help me understand the unique value that we of...

We all have goals. Sometimes we call them objectives. Whatever they’re called, setting the table for the coming year is something all business owners must do. If the goals are bold enough and complex enough, they are referred to as "strategic." The implementation is mo...

In the past 45 years, I have been involved in helping create Boards of Advisors for many entrepreneurs and have served on more than 50 such boards.  I serve on six for-profit and two non- profit boards. I have a lot of accumulated knowledge and experience in the develo...

Here’s how to set up an effective sales forecasting model for your business.

Sales forecasting can be simple. If you have an existing business, you pick a number which usually represents a gain expected over last year's sales performance. But we all know that simple isn...

You are the Majority Owner, so you are the CEO. Right? Not necessarily. There are generally three paths to majority ownership of a company. You started it. You acquired it from an unrelated third party. You bought or inherited it from a related party.

Each path has some...

In my last blog on this subject (The Magic of SBU Analysis ), I described how the typical income statement masks the real causes of performance (both good and bad) for all but the simplest of companies. I suggest you read that article before reading this blog.

So, let's...

Does your profit and loss statement look like this?

*If this statement were generated from your accounting system, the Selling, General and Administrative expenses (such as management salaries, rent, sales compensation, advertising/promotion, utilities, etc.) would be p...