Tell Your Friends About ArticleMap.com

Sign-Up Free  |Member Login

Paul Lemberg's Articles Display Category|Title|Newest|Oldest Tracking For Profits If you can't track it, don't do it. Every high-performance venture needs a tracking system. A tracking system with well-designed metrics lets everyone know how well they are doing relative to their commitments. It is a guide to whether additional or extraordinary actions need to be taken. It is one of the first things I set up with my business coaching clients because without a clear set of objective metrics it is hard for people to be clear about their results. Esta... The Vital Few Back in the 19th century, an Italian economist quantified the general relationship between a minority of producers and a majority of output. Sound familiar? The simplified version of Vilfredo Pareto's ratio, known as the 80/20 rule or the Pareto Principle, says that in most cases, 80% of production comes from 20% of producers. Quality guru J.M. Juran referred to Pareto's principle as "The Vital Few and the Trivial Many". If you are running a company, the 80/20 rule has po... Strategy As Invention Rather than view strategy as a selection of options, here is another approach: creation or invention. Strategic planning is not strategy Strategic Planning, often synonymous with Annual Planning, details how you are going to get where you have decided to go. It is a description of how you will achieve your goals -- those milestones you established in structuring your business plan. Strategic Planning is operational in nature, it examines the particular actions you inte... Next Years Planning I'm amazed at how each year slips by just a little more quickly. Only a few weeks ago I was running the San Juan River in Utah - blazing sunshine and ninety degrees in the shade. Now it's Fall already. And hey, I live in Southern California - in some places it's almost winter. Friends of mine back East are talking about 30 degree temperatures - or colder. Even snow flurries. Blink - and it will be November, then Thanksgiving, and right its heels - New Year's. All of whi... Never Enough Time It's a cliche of executive life: you don't have time to do everything. Whether you use little slips of paper, a planner, scheduling software or a Palm Pilot, all attempts at time management fail. Rather than throwing in the towel, I suggest that you need a new frame of reference. Change your focus from time management to priority management. Create a list of priorities Your strategic plan should highlight your business priorities. If you don't have one, take a look at ... How To Make Mistakes Promoting risk taking and eliminating fear of failure. It would be a mistake to try to avoid all mistakes. Indeed, it would be a colossal blunder to attempt doing things right the first time, every time. In todays light speed economy, ("new" economy and "old" economy) if you don't fall on your face both regularly and painfully, you are likely to end up dead instead. The only people not making mistakes are ones playing their game without risk and without novelty - and I mig... How To Get Things Done: A Guide To Strategic Planning A step-by-step program for creating a strategic plan and tactical plan guaranteed to help you get more of what you want done. You are pursuing a strategy en route to your vision. Whether it is revolutionary or evolutionary, it does not matter. You are on the road, committedly driving your business in a direction of your own choosing. The important thing is that you have, in fact, chosen this course. And, once you have made this choice, how are you going to realize this ... How To Communicate Value Proposition And Return On Investment As part of my continuing series on Value and Pricing, the following article shows you how to position your company's value contribution to support the highest value-for-value exchange. Too many business owners, when asked about the value or ROI of their product or service, shrug their shoulders and say, "I can't really put a value on it." If you can't put a value on it, think how hard it is for your prospects and customers! And if they can't put a value on it, how likely i... 5 Ways To Beef Up Sales...Immediately Last week, one of my clients—we'll call him Rick—had a demo scheduled with a prospect. The standard "show up and throw up" they typically did early in the sales cycle. Trying to shorten the sales cycle, I asked naively, "Why does the customer want to buy? What are they trying to accomplish?" Rick couldn't tell me. I asked if he thought the salespeople knew. He said no. I gave him an assignment: he had to find out "Why," "Why now," and "What's it worth." Otherwise no demo. ... Equity: The Golden Handcuffs Last month, I wrote about positioning your company to attract and keep top performers. One very effective way to do both is to compensate your key employees with equity. Performance pay has become a critical factor in keeping top talent; combine it with a sense of ownership and a stake in the future of the business, and you've got a powerful set of incentives. That is what equity does. The basic theory behind equity compensation is simple: generously pay your people in ... Creating Breakthroughs "The world we've made, as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far, creates problems we cannot solve at the same level of thinking" - Albert Einstein Runaway success is never based on incremental improvement. I know this is a very bold statement, but bold statements and even bolder results are what breakthroughs are all about. What about in your company - what would constitute a breakthrough? Would you like to increase overall productivity by 40%? Of course ... Attracting (And Keeping) Top Performers Good people are hard to find, the saying goes. For example, by the year 2000 over 190,000 computer programmer and other information technology jobs will be vacant, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report. (This is now a bit out of date, and although the dot-com bustups and the 2000-2001 recession has eased things a bit, it is still difficult to lure top talent.) It may be easy to fill these empty positions if you are a software giant like Microsoft, but there is a tr... 7 Ways To Be Unreasonable First decide what you really want to do. What would make work worth working at and life worth living. Then figure out how to do it. Most people look to what they know they CAN do as a guide to what they WILL do; I think to get anything important done in the world, you have to look towards what you WANT to do, and then figure out how to do it. When most people think about what they are committed to, they consider where they can build a bridge to from where they already ... Thinking About More Business What does an old Russian joke have to do with getting new business? Did you increase your business in the past 12 months? Don't discriminate between more new clients or old clients spending more money -- count the increase either way. If you didn't, you really should be asking yourself why not. Yes, I know -- it all started with the Internet implosion. Then came terrorist attacks. Next, the global recession. And after that, a war that threatened to destabilize the worl... The Secrets Of Strategy - Part 2 Of 2 Of course you've heard that when you do what you've always done, you'll likely get what you've always got. In this case that means playing the tactical game: coming up with acceptable--or worse--comfortable options and executing them as time permits. Likely, what you'll get is business as usual, and things will be... well, they'll be fine. But "fine" may not be what you're after, and you are probably reading a series called "How to Create Strategies That Work" so you can d... The Secrets Of Strategy - Part 1 Of 2 A step-by-step guide to creating a growth strategy based on your current situation and future possibilities. I'll bet you think you already have a strategy. And well you may, but strategy as a concept is just like love: much used and little understood. Many businesses (and that includes small entrepreneurs, large corporations, non-profits, community organizations, governments, NGOs...the works) neither know what strategy really is, nor how to get one. And even if ... 10 Questions To Consider When Growing Your Business Here's a provocation for the coming year, decade, century or millennium. By now, you've set a working direction for the year, established clear-cut objectives. Your first-iteration plan to reach them should be in place. This now seems like an ideal time to rethink the whole thing, doesn't it? After all, one of the effects of internet time is that plans are subject to change just as soon as - or perhaps even before - they are written. Along these lines of thinking, perha... What One Thing? A few weeks ago I asked my readers what the most important issue was in their business. Hundreds responded with a variety of answers, but one of the most common was, "How do I get everything that needs doing done?" Happily, I have an answer for this question, but like many things in life, it carries both good news and bad news. The good news is, if you are one of those fortunate few with access to unlimited resources, you can get everything done. But that's really the... Higher Prices Lead To Higher Profits - Part 2 Of 2 In the first part of this series we looked at the effect prices have on profits. A change to the upside can have a wonderful effect on profits while reckless discounting and careless price reductions will surely have a disastrous one. If you don't fully understand the implications, or haven't read Part 1, go back and do so now. (http://www.paullemberg.com/higher-part1.html) By now you may be asking yourself, "What should my prices be?" Before you go start changing pric... What Stops You? Have you ever had a terrific idea which you didn't act on? Of course you have. I don't mean anything fancy either. Nothing earth-shattering. Just a plain old-fashioned good idea which would have made you more money. But you didn't get moving on it. Oh well. I have a friend I'll call James. James is an independent management consultant and a deep, creative thinker. I have great respect for his abilities to understand his clients and develop unique solutions for them. But... What Not To Do And How Not To Do It How can you get more done? Can you really do more than you already do? Is there still room left on your plate for even one more thing? The truth is I don't know anyone (successful) who has too little to do. Not one of my many clients--nor any of my friends, acquaintances, or people I meet on planes--none of them has ever said they have too little to do. Doing more to get more done is simply not an option. The answer to doing more is doing less. Less? Do le... Unreasonable Requests "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists It is probably the number two task of leadership -- asking. You ask people to do things, and when they do -- well, stuff happens. But what really extends your ability to make big things happen is asking for things that are "unreasonable." Wha... Whats Valuable About Having Values? Let's talk about values... Yours. What kind? Family values, personal values, corporate values. So what are values - and why are they important to creating breakthroughs? Values are things we strive to gain or keep. They are the expression of what is important to us. Values can be concrete things like money, gourmet food, and fast motorcycles, or they can be abstract things like contribution, challenge, or adventure. Values, along with our beliefs about w... Why Predict The Future? Do you ever try to predict the future? Are you usually right, or wrong? If so, then read on. Can you predict the future of your industry? Can you predict the future of your business? No one can say with certainty what will happen next week much less one year from now. And five years? Not a chance. Yogi Berra reportedly said, "It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future." Everyone agrees. Predicting the future is hard. It is so hard that a fifty percen... New Year's Planning - Critical Success Factors Whatever time of the year it is, you have probably set a working direction for the rest of the year, including clear-cut objectives. Your first-iteration plan to reach them should be in place. This now (whatever time it is - if you are thinking about it) seems like an ideal time to rethink the whole thing, doesn't it? In our sped-up 21st century world, plans are subject to change just as soon as - or perhaps even before - they are written. If you haven't already done so, n... Seven Keys To Get Out Of A Rut Rut -- a routine procedure, situation, or way of life that has become uninteresting and tiresome... And not surprisingly, unprofitable. They say a rut is a shallow grave with two open ends. The good news (good news?!) is that the ends ARE still open, which means if you act fast, you just might out of it. How do we get into these ruts anyway? Who would voluntarily lie down in that grave, shallow or otherwise? Dr. Edward Debono suggests that thoughts are pathways literall... How To Delegate: One Key Step Towards Leadership You've made an unusual discovery - there's not enough time left at the end of the day. The corollary, of course, is your list of important things to do never gets smaller. In any company, the CEO's to-do list has the potential to grow infinitely. What's a senior executive to do? This is not simply a personal problem. Your company's future depends on what you do next. As you drive your organization beyond its current plateau, you must change the way you relate to your wo... Which Is Better: Repeat Business Or New Customers? - Part 1 Of 2 Every management authority on the circuit says that loyal customers and their repeat purchases are the cornerstone of your long-term successful business. The reason is obvious: it is less costly to get your existing customers to buy more than it is to find new ones. The lower cost of sale leads gives you higher operating margins, which you can then invest in other business building activities, and so it goes. Since I'm bringing this up at all, you've got to ask yourself, ... Strategic Philanthropy Strategic philanthropy is a unique and powerful way to combine your company's marketing goals with a your desire to increase the well-being of mankind. We call it strategic philanthropy. Two of the more popular names are cause -related marketing or community partnering. No matter what you call it, strategic philanthropy is a positioning that connects your company with a not-for-profit organization or cause. In this way, while you are being helpful and working for the commo... Higher Prices Lead To Higher Profits - Part 1 Of 2 I know at first glance this sounds obvious, but it may be worth it for you to think about your prices. At least just for a moment. How did you decide on your current pricing? Did you conduct market research to understand what prospects would pay? Or did you compare yourself to your competitors and base your price on that? Or was it a crapshoot, and random shot in the dark? These are the ways most people do it, and they are all wrong. Because the price you set for your p...

Sign Up Free | Learn More Submit Articles Member Login iTop Authors Most Popular Articles Submission Guidelines Ezine Notifications Article RSS Feeds Press Release About Us Link To Us Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Service Highly Recommended: Sponsored Ads: Recommended Hosting Related Sister Site: Submit Health Articles Now

Copyright © and All Rights Reserved.
Use of Our Service is subject to Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.