What Story Does Your Past Tell?
Failure can be a great teaching tool. We see the results of people who have persevered in the face of failure after failure. There’s another type of person that doesn’t get near as much face time in the public eye. It’s the person who is controlled by the failures of their past. Your past doesn’t exist. It’s no longer real. The power that we let our past have on us is real. At best, your past is a great teaching tool. At worst, it’s a chain that bounds you from forward progress. Past failure is one of those areas that we try to control even though we can’t go back
A Manifesto For Start Ups and Business Who Keep Behaving Like Start Ups
Just a quick thought for the day. I had run across this manifesto a couple of months ago but I couldn’t remember who had done it. It turns out it is from entrepreneur Steve Blank. I don’t work with a lot of start ups but I do work with a lot of business who, after several years of business, still behave like they are a start up without the testing and analysis that allows them to move forward. At some point your business has to grow up. Find what your business can excel in, find out who loves what you do and start selling to them. No matter what
Who Says Money Isn’t Everything? Losers.
Let me get one thing out of the way right up front. You most likely got into business because you have a big vision that will ultimately create a lot of value for people. You probably didn’t start your business for the sole purpose of making money. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that but if you think that money isn’t everything and you run a business, be careful what you wish for. Dollars Follow Value The primary function of your business is to create value for the public through producing a good or service that people want/need. Primary function 1a is to make money. As a good
Taking Your High Level Vision To Ground Level Action
I am going to go out on a limb here and say that entrepreneurs don’t have a problem coming up with a big dream or vision. It’s what happens next that trips business owners up. How do you take your high level vision and turn it into ground level action? Having a vision, a why as well as values is an important first step to creating projects and starting businesses. For visionary business owners who already think high level, this is the easy part. However, when you start asking the question of what needs to be done and how they are to be done, this is where things start to
Make A Simple Plan For Your Business With Three Questions
If you’re reading this, you may not be much of a planner. In fact, for most people setting plans and goals sucks. So with that being said, thanks for reading this far. Planning can be difficult as you sit and try and figure out what the right goals are and not make those goals feel arbitrary. For you haters of planning, here are three simple questions to get you started. Answer these and you are well on your way to having a plan that will make your year better. These questions are questions that we ask ourselves and our clients frequently. It’s also part of our Alignment Blueprint that we
The Best Initial Products For Your Business
When it comes to creating new products or services for your business, a common roadblock for business owners is where to start. Should you spend a lot of money? Should you hire someone? The best place to start in the product creation business is to start with a product with low overhead. When we started The Business Blueprint, one thing that I wanted was a great intro video to put on our website. I felt like having a really professional video made us look good and was a great way to connect people to our message. We didn’t spend a ton of money on it but it was significant for
What Do You Stand For?
What do you stand for? When was the last time you asked yourself that question? That question is relevant for you, your business or any other organization you are involved in. When I talk about standing for something, I am talking about taking a stand but what I am really talking about is clarity. Having clarity, particularly as a new business owner, is critical. Without clarity you lack the ability to properly position the way that you create value for the world and solve problems. One asset that clarity gives you is the ability to differentiate yourself. Whether you are a business owner or an employee of a company, you
Do Something Worthy Of Being Noticed
“ I can’t get anyone to pay attention to my business.” “My business isn’t growing.” Have you ever complained about the above scenarios in your business? I know I have. There’s a funny thing about the above statements. The funny thing is the above statements are about ourselves. What’s funny about that? We don’t create a business for ourselves. This is where I also have an issue with personal branding. While I do think that you need to build notoriety in your particular field, what gets lost in the process is that you are in business to help other people. Thus the title of this post. Do something worthy of
The Easiest Way To Get Things Done
The easiest way to get things done….Don’t do anything….The end….You’re welcome. OK seriously, you can’t just curl up in your house and do nothing all day. Well I guess you could but if you are reading this, you are probably not the kind of person who would do that. So back to getting things done, more specifically the easiest way to get things done. I have a specific weakness in that at times I can burden myself with tasks that I keep in the back of mind. I know these tasks need attention but I don’t make the effort to address these specific tasks. Two primary things happen when I
Be Smart With Your Smartphone
Smartphones are great and smartphones are dangerous. It is estimated that 478 million units will be sold by the end of 2011. 478 million is a big number and a dangerous number. Smartphones can be a great help for your business and here are some of the ways that is true. As I have been sharing my online system for productivity, the hub for a lot of what you do online is available on your smartphone. Tools like Evernote, your online calendars, e-mail etc. all have apps made for smartphone access. This is all great stuff. The key to any effective system for productivity is to have a centralized hub
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