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Category Archives: Growth!
Is your budget a forecast? When do you change mid-course?
Hold it! These are confusing terms. When does a budget become obsolete? Do we rely upon constant changes and call it a forecast? So, let’s spend a few moments defining this sometimes-confusing set of terms. A budget should be created … Continue reading
Posted in Growth!, Protecting the business
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Here’s the test: Can you create 5 strategies and 5 tactics to achieve your goal?
In past weeks, we explored the need for a tangible goal and strategies that are measurable as steps toward achievement of your goal. Today, we explore how to create tactics to accompany each strategy, and even suggest a number of … Continue reading
Posted in Growth!, Positioning
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Think like a general! Create strategies and tactics now.
If you have been following the last several weeks of these postings, then now we’re getting organized. There are many ways to express the road map for your enterprise. One of the most popular was used by the U.S. Army … Continue reading
Posted in Growth!, Positioning
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Please map your goal and USE that map!
It’s time to speak of some sort of business plan. As a professional investor in early stage companies, I have long discounted long, detailed business plans in favor of a concise “executive summary” followed by a believable spreadsheet-based financial forecast … Continue reading
Posted in Growth!, Positioning
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How to use metrics and a dashboard
Have you ever driven a car that had no speedometer? I had that thrill when a student at the Richard Petty Stock Car School of Driving at a motor speedway in California. With a wide track, angled aggressively at the … Continue reading
Posted in Growth!, Protecting the business
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Do you think you are flexible and coachable?
As an early stage investor, the first test for me is whether “my” entrepreneur is flexible in both the plan and execution of his or her vision (since from experience almost everything about a business plan changes over time), and … Continue reading
Control your euphoria!
One thing a senior manager can count on is that someday, something will go right, very right. Well, after all the disappointments, pressure and outright failures, this is NEWS. So we tend to go overboard a bit. As a member … Continue reading
Posted in Growth!, Protecting the business
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You name the price; I’ll name the terms.
I admit that my dad taught me this when I was just a fifteen–year old kid starting a business and negotiating with suppliers for the first time. But I learned it again and again in my various business lives. The … Continue reading
Posted in Growth!, Raising money
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Press release partnerships: Worth the effort?
Many of us make it a priority to find and partner with companies that can add to our offering or extend our reach. And we rightly celebrate each such pairing, often with a mutual press release. And sometimes that’s all … Continue reading
Can you pierce layers in supplier–customer partnerships?
I recently experienced an amazing effort of outreach by a vice president of a large national customer asking for a meeting with the product development team of a critical supplier, one of “my” companies. The goal, the VP stated, was … Continue reading
