Small Business

Jason Fried (37signals)’s ‘Out-teach the Competition to Beat Them’ Strategy

Jason fried of 37signals talks about how they sell more by out teaching the competition. He allays fears that if you put your ‘secrets’ out, your competition will copy them. Somehow, that’s counter intuitive but true. Out teaching the competition and building an audience is a nice strategy and strikes a chord with me. Our [...]

Spend or withhold? When should you spend? And how much?

I will raise more questions than answer in this post. Spending extravagantly is not good for a small business. That is clear in my mind. I have seen more businesses that spent liberally struggle, fail and die than ones that have controlled their costs. This is true even if you have venture funding. The funding [...]

Get gatekeepers on your side – get access to decision makers

How much time and attention can you devote to those who guard the offices of the CEOs and decision makers? They are a pain! Are they? There are “experts” out there who would advise you to bypass the gatekeeper to gain access to the decision-maker because time is money. I know of an editor of [...]

If You Want to Make It, Look for a Mentor

For me, thoughts about mentoring started from this article: “Everyone Who Makes It Has a Mentor.” (Collins & Scott. 1978, Harvard Business Review) Having a mentor is helpful because someone who has already been there and done that can shorten your learning curve saving you time, money and failure.  Because mentoring is a social relationship, [...]

(part-2) Building Trust with Your Customers Helps You Reach Your Goals Faster-2

In the previous post, (Building Trust with Your Customers Helps You Reach Your Goals Faster-1), I talked about benefits of building trust. Elements of trust Everyone wants to be trusted – especially sales persons and consultants. You want your customer to come and listen to you. However, not many achieve in being trusted. I was [...]