Truly innovative small businesses and startups create a bold vision of a future that doesn’t exist yet, solving problems that customers don’t even know they have. But they don’t pull that vision out of thin air — many inventive companies use a strategy called design thinking. “Design thinking is a problem-solving approach,” says Jeanne Liedtka, a design and innovation…
Producteev for Productive Collaboration “I highly recommend cross-platform toolProducteev for collaboration. It’s easy to set up, easy to use, and fantastic for team members who are working on many projects at the same time with others. There is space to comment on projects to maximize productive collaboration, and it’s all about getting tasks done.” – Doreen Bloch |…
The greatest lessons you’ll ever learn will most likely be from your own experience. But entrepreneurs can also learn a lot from the advice and experiences of others, as long as we allow ourselves to be teachable. Perhaps you were in grade school the last time you heard this but it’s as true today as…
Sara Blakely (Founder Of Spanx) “When I was growing up, my dad would encourage my brother and I to fail. We would be sitting at the dinner table and he would ask, ‘So what did you guys fail at this week?’ If we didn’t have something to contribute, he would be disappointed. When I did…
That’s one of the more memorable expressions I’ve heard over the years, and it’s a great reminder to always have a back-up plan – for strategies you’re pursuing at work, and for your career. The theme was brought to life in vivid terms by two leaders I interviewed this year for Corner Office. The first was…
you’ve launched an app before, you probably know how hard it can be to put many hours into development and promotion without necessarily making any money out of it. Or not enough. When comes your next great idea, you might hesitate in putting all the sweat and tears again. If you believe in your app’s…
The stodgy business plan—that multipage printed document that entrepreneurs used to hand out at meetings with venture capitalists—has gone the way of the typewriter and Rolodex. These days, entrepreneurs are expected to lay out their strategies in slick Power Point presentations, complete with colorful pictures and informative charts. But while it’s true that the format…
Running a small business is like conducting an orchestra. You have a collection of individuals, each with their own strengths and talents, playing a variety of instruments that have their own distinct sounds. The result could easily be a cacophony akin to nails on a blackboard, but when things go right, the notes flow together,…
One of the advantages of being a business coach is the opportunity to work with a lot of different businesses and business concepts, seeing what works and what doesn’t. I’ve been involved in a lot of different, unique and unconventional from ladies fashion to premium dog food. Unique ideas can work. But they need to be commercially…
Like death and taxes, one thing that you can rely on as an entrepreneur is that at some point in time, your biggest client will walk out the door. It could happen for many reasons, some reasonable and expected — like when a client’s new C-suite team chooses to bring in its own talent instead of inheriting…