Leadership and Joe Paterno: “Success with Dishonor”

What lessons can we learn about leadership and Joe Paterno? I’m a Penn State grad. I was a huge fan of Joe Paterno and had looked at him as someone to emulate. Like so many others who graduated from PSU, the Penn State child sex abuse scandal hit me hard. Jerry Sandusky truly deserves to be […]

Smart Companies Are Starting to Get Social

Businesses are just starting to use social media as a key strategy for growth. Some are hesitant, however. I don’t think social business is ever going away, although the tools are rapidly changing. Many small businesses aren’t clear which tactics are best for their company, and how to get the most out of their social […]

Bad Leadership: What Small Businesses Can Learn from Microsoft

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer seems to be taking the spot of Steve Jobs for bad leadership, but without all the charm and genius-like persona of Steve J. While it’s always easy to take pot shots at the biggies with billions, how are the leadership mistakes of Ballmer relevant to entrepreneurs and small biz leaders? Vanity […]

Can Your Business Growth Rapidly Accelerate?

What if there were some sort of Miracle-Gro to accelerate your business growth? Recently I came across some statistics, and I was really surprised. It was about athletes. When an athlete starts marking down his or her achievements regularly, his success gets at least 20% greater! No extra trainings, no new equipment… nothing else changes […]

The Risk of Social Media Marketing for Executives

You’ve more than likely known for some time now that social sites and social networking aren’t just for chit-chatting. Used wisely, they’re a gold mine for businesses: for sales and marketing, as well as for managing customer relationships and company reputation. Like many business leaders, however, it’s confusing to know just how to participate successfully […]

Time Management for Effective Leaders

Time Management – Getting a Handle on It Benjamin Franklin famously said (or at least is famously said to have said), “A place for everything, everything in its place.” Often, our busy moms and grandmothers quoted us this maxim in an effort to get us to clean our rooms. However, the saying applies to the […]

Feedback: 4 Tips to Turn Criticisms into Collaborations

Constructive Criticism for Business Leaders Constructive criticism focuses on what people have done and can do, rather than targeting their character or personality. If people believe their failures result from personal, unchangeable deficits, they lose hope and stop trying. Let them know that setbacks and mistakes result from circumstances they can change. It’s not easy […]

Strategy vs. Tactic: Important Differences

I think everything we do in business needs to have a strategy behind it. I notice sometimes people struggle with the difference between strategy and tactic. “Our strategy is to build up an email list through social media and webinars, then drive people to our webpages for web sales.” Those are all tactics, not strategies. […]

Email Etiquette: Do We Need a Few Rules?

Email Etiquette: 5 Tips To Stop Email Overload Information overload is an understatement. I hear complaints every day from clients: people are drowning in email. I’m wondering if there’s any sort of email etiquette for offices to follow. I read somewhere a statistic that the average 17th century Frenchman had as much information stored in […]

How Is a Rock Star Like a Business Entrepreneur?

It’s funny how you can pick up lessons on leadership and entrepreneurs from all sorts of people, isn’t it? Leadership expert Steve Farber (@stevefarber) sent me this YouTube video of Jay Jay French, founder of the band Twisted Sister. This so-called “glam metal” band started in New Jersey in 1972 and is still performing. Now, […]