Category Archives: Advisory

Many Southern California residents are Lakers fans, and we know that this year they are not faring so well in the NBA standings.  Currently they are 20th out of 30 teams in points per game, even falling far behind the Clippers who are currently ranked 6th.  This is clearly disappointing for Lakers fans everywhere. Let’s

I recently watched the movie Moneyball starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill.  The movie is based on the novel that was written about the 2002 Oakland A’s.  They had just lost in the 2001 postseason to the Yankees, and at the end of the season they lost their three top players.  The A’s General Manager,

I just returned from a conference in Sedona, Arizona, one of the most beautiful places I have been.  While I was there, I worked on my “why.”  Why do I go to work every day? For me this was not a new exercise, but a refresher.  I have been through this exercise countless times in

I am sitting in a conference session focusing on small business trends.  While the topic of the conference is based on revenue and hiring growth, I can’t help but to sit here and marvel at the way the other attendees are using technology.  Let me put some frame of reference around this.  We are in

In times of economic uncertainty we tend to focus on reducing our cost structure and keeping our prices low so that we don’t lose market share. While I advocate that businesses should always contain costs, I also advocate that they should be aware of their pricing structure and terms. Over the last couple of years

For several years I have heard successful business leaders say that profits are earned on the margin, meaning that profit is earned on the outskirts of your business, or not necessarily on the core of your offering.  It could be your competitive advantage, your unique core differentiator, or your value added product or service that

How are you progressing toward the plans you set for your business this year?  Most all business owners and management teams start each year with a set of goals/objectives that they intend to achieve for the year.  Those goals/objectives are supported by strategies, and those strategies are supported by action plans.  Now that we’re about one-third

I recently read an article in the Harvard Business Review titled A Radical Prescription for Sales, exploring the possibility that compensating salespeople with the traditional commission model  is based more on tradition than logic, and the model can sometimes do more harm than good to a business  by hindering growth and limiting profits.    The

I was recently listening to a leadership podcast.  The topic of the podcast was questions that good leaders ask. Questions are very valuable and good leaders learn from reading and asking questions. Early in the podcast there was a statement made that “the questions we ask communicate our values and what is important to us.”