Conan vs Jay – How Not to Plan for Succession

February 1, 2011

Bill Carter’s book The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy describes the wild ride NBC took when they tried to change hosts for the Tonight Show. The architect of the change came into it with the best interests of everybody involved, but in the end, everybody took a hit [...]

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Air Canada – Why do we let our country’s name go on such a poor airline?

January 26, 2011

Warning – rant enclosed! I just got back from a family vacation in San Diego. We spent a week going to the Zoo, Lego Land, Disneyland and Sea World. The experience was full of fun and we made a lot of great memories. This blog is about the trip there, and how our national airline [...]

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Is a Consultant Worth $170,000?

January 20, 2011

There was an interesting article in the New York Times about First Quality Music, which is owned by the Sullivan family and manufactures banjos, guitars, parts and accessories in Louisville, Kentucky. The company was having financial problems that had been intensified by the recent recession. One of the family members had read “Profits Aren’t Everything, [...]

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Finding Your Ideal Client

December 16, 2010

Are you sick and tired of dealing with disrespectful clients? Wouldn’t it be nice to have customers who value what you offer, pay on time, and do their part in the client/seller relationship? Well, according to John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing, “when you properly target your clients, you will discover that you no [...]

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The Road to Hell is Paved With Good (Advice)

December 13, 2010

Expert advice is a huge industry. Today, there is an endless supply of experts that promise to solve your problems in the most modern, elegant way possible. Many experts have their clients best interests at heart and work to solve their problems as they appear. Unfortunately, there are experts out there that view their clients [...]

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When to Can Your Superstar

December 8, 2010

I’ve seen many cases of this troubling problem. You have an employee that is excellent at his or her job, but is a nightmare to deal with. It’s easy to feel trapped by this situation. On one hand, you need your star for his high performance. On the other, his diva attitude is raising hell [...]

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In Defence of Business Plans

November 15, 2010

photo © 2010 Louise Docker | more info (via: Wylio) I think business plans get a bad rap. There’s a movement out there that says that business plans are a waste of time because they can’t accurately predict the future. For this reason, these people will tell you to not bother doing one. They’re missing [...]

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2 for $7.99 – Pricing Strategy

November 9, 2010

Last week, I read a few articles written by Paul Hunt on pricing strategies for companies. His view on pricing is interesting and I found some points that may be helpful for your business. Most companies have yearly growth ambitions. Lets say your goal in 2011 is to increase profits by 12.5%. Now, where do [...]

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The Scary takeover bid of PotashCorp by BHP Billiton

October 20, 2010

Since Halloween is just around the corner, it fits to have a scary story for a blog post. Anybody following the Canadian business scene is at least slightly aware of BHP Billiton’s takeover bid of PotashCorp. In Saskatchewan, the debate has taken a very political turn, with people dredging up arguments based on ideology. The [...]

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A Lesson From The Social Network

October 18, 2010

I recently saw The Social Network, which is the story of how Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook. The movie has a number of valuable lessons for entrepreneurs but I think the most poignant one involves Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra. They had allegedly hired Zuckerberg to finish work on the HarvardConnection, a social network [...]

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