Category Archives: Reality checks

Get Off Your Butt

The hardest thing about being an independent consultant for me is business development.  Not on behalf of others, but for my practice.  It’s not that I can’t do it or that I don’t know how.  After all, I spent a good portion of my early career doing just that for ABC and CBS with excellent results.  It’s more that I’d prefer to spend my time working on my clients’ business and not on my own, I’d guess.  Maybe I need to be more selfish.

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A good friend who has been on his own for 30+ years told me early on that this would be the hardest part and that there would be anxious months with not enough work.  He was right, as usual, but the remedy is something far simpler than anti-anxiety drugs or meditation and is applicable even to those of you that live in the corporate world and is something I want to share since it goes beyond business as well.
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Doing Well While Doing Good

We hear an awful lot about privacy these days, mostly about how there isn’t any. When it comes to us as individuals, that’s not a particularly good thing but today’s rant isn’t about you and me. It’s about corporations and how they don’t enjoy quite as much privacy either, which in many consumers‘ minds is a very good – and actionable – thing. You see, if a business is misbehaving, it’s hard to keep a secret and people are demanding higher levels of responsibility from those firms with which they choose to do business. This isn’t me speculating: I have proof! Continue reading

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Looking Past Preconceptions

Let’s play a little marketing game this morning.  I’ll throw out a series of facts and you put on your marketing hat and decide if the facts make you want to target this group.  The point I’m going to make is that the answers may surprise you, not because you will find them unbelievable but because I’m betting that you have some preconceptions which will skew your thinking.  As we’ve discussed before, I think that is a huge problem in business (and in life and political thought as well!).

Ready?  Let’s play! Continue reading

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