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The Courage of One’s Creative Convictions
When I think of the wondrous entrepreneurs that I’ve had the great fortune to know personally over the years, Mr. Marty Tibbitts truly stands out.
Marty, as the Founder and CEO of the Boss family of businesses, headquartered in St. Claire Shores, Michigan, has both built and acquired an impressive array of companies - ranging from telecommunications to security software, to web services and analytics, to digital media.
When I think of Marty, above all else I am inspired by his beautiful entrepreneurial mind.
Extremely well-read and with an array of personal, athletic, and intellectual passions and experiences, Marty is the master of the “non-obvious.”
He is able to connect the strategic dots between market and competitive trends with a creativity and panache that flows from a lifelong passion for the game of “business chess.”
This ability to visualize the impact of small moves here and there – like securing an incremental input cost advantage – and then translating that advantage slowly but surely into an unassailable competitive position – well this is an essential quality of great business strategy and one that Marty possesses in buckets.
As a successful entrepreneur, however, Marty’s skills go well beyond simply being a great strategist.
He also has great heaping platefuls of business guts.
Unlike far too many educated at America’s most prestigious universities (and Marty is a proud Stanford Cardinal), Marty’s career has been defined by the paths not taken.
No law school or business school. No
SOPA Blackout Strike Already Started; Why Major Sites and Blogs are Going Black in Support
If you haven’t heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) so far you are bound to notice today when you are unable to get to many of your favorite sites from Wikipedia to Reddit to WordPress to Mozilla to Craigslist.
SOPA LOSING SUPPORT VIDEO
Do not fall for the red herring that these bills – both SOPA (in the House) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) (in the Senate) are ONLY about stopping “renegade pirate sites”.
ANY site could be taken down!
MUST READ post: Click Image for MPAA Rant against SOPA Blackout
SOPA and PIPA are NOT only a threat to big sites. See this
Businesses welcome the coalition agreement
But the party leaders and MPs weren’t the only ones biting their fingernails, the impact of the result was also nervously awaited by small business owners.
Now, with a new coalition government in place, small businesses might be able to breathe a sigh of relief. But what can we expect from the new government in charge?
While the increase in VAT seems inevitable, employers should be pleased by the scrapped one per cent increase in employers’ National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and the income tax threshold increasing by £1,000 in April 2011. But with an emergency Budget on Tuesday 22nd June should we be counting chickens just yet?
The Federation of Small Businesses chairman, John Walker, welcomes the certainty that the Coalition Government provides to businesses and the markets and looks forward to working with the new Government ministers.
‘We are pleased that coalition negotiators have listened to the business community and plan to reverse the proposed one per cent increase in NICs for employers,’ he said. ‘A healt
Bank of America Putting Pressure on Small Businesses
First appeared in the LA Times
Pronouns The Window To Your Soul
They are the words that you use the most. “I, me, and, that, he, with, the” and so on. Pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions and articles. They are essential. They are the glue that ties sentences together. You need them, but what meaning do they actually transmit? Surely the words that provide meaning to a sentence are the big guns of grammar: the nouns and the verbs. They are the words that actually transmit information from one person to another. It’s nouns and verbs that tell you the object and subject and the action. Indeed, within search, it’s nouns and verbs that considered relevant and other words are routinely discarded. Google thinks that “I”, “me” and “and” just get in the way. They’re a whole list of stop words and by ignoring them, the search engines get more meaningful results more quickly. Google thinks that these function words are irrelevant.
Oren Klaff’s Pitch Anything
The #1 book on business development in the world today is Oren’s Klaff amazing Pitch Anything.
It is hands-down the best book on modern selling and deal-making I have ever read, and I have read a LOT of them.
And it is driving a quiet “turn the tables” revolution on the relationship between buyer and seller.
But don’t just take my word for it. Here are what some of Oren and his method’s thousands of devoted followers say about his revolutionary approach:
“If you’ve ever come out of a meeting, conversation, or sales appointment with a “no”, or “unfavorable” response from your audience or prospect AND didn’t know why, then you may want to check out this book.”
“Oren cuts through old patterns of boring conversation that we all despise and breathes new life into the art of business meetings, presentations and pitches.”
“Oren Klaff has a dazzling ability to clearly describe totally new methods for presenting ideas.”
“Pitch Anything teaches you a series of strategies that you can easily employ to shape your pitch, get it heard and close the deal.”
“Now THIS is the “Art” of the Deal – Trump’s got nothing on Oren Klaff!”
This Wednesday Meet Oren Klaff
I am pleased to invite you to an invitation only, live web workshop with Oren Klaff.
On it, Oren will share with you his ground-breaking STRONG method of pitching, which can be put to use immediately:
Setting the Frame
Telling the Story
Revealing the Intrigue
Offering the Prize
Nailing the Hookpoint
Getting a Decision
Strictly First Come, First Serve
To allow for intimate audience interaction with Oren, we are limiting attendance to the first 35 registrants.
Staying Warm ~ Which Heaters Work Well and SAFELY?
The best gifts – whether you buy them for yourself or someone else buys them for you – are practical gifts that make life more comfortable and help you help others.
Image Credit: Dereck Willis Photo Restoration and Preservation
There are key products that those who work at a desk really need that can greatly increase productivity.
In this post I’m going to start laying out what they are as the first step into researching the very best products of each type.
The first thing a blogger or other worker at a desk needs in the winter is to stay warm.
Cold fingers are simply not conducive to typing – and cold feet affect overall well-being.
Staying warm is a greater challenge because many of the heaters being sold today are junk.
We must stop focusing on “cheap” and go instead for quality and safety!
Move into mobile advertising
With today’s launch of the iPad, the competition within the mobile marketing world is getting even fiercer. Not only are we looking to smartphones to receive the latest information, but now we’re looking towards next generation notepads to keep us up to speed with the world around us.
The summer launch of Apple’s iAd platform will allow many companies to embrace mobile marketing, and with 60 per cent of the ad revenue going back to developers this could mean big business for small firms.
But with all this new technology and the potential to target customers on the move, what does it mean for small businesses looking to take marketing to the next level?
Luckily small firms have an advantage over big brands because they already have a relationship with their customers. Unlike larger companies, customer data is often better in smaller firms and because of this capturing their attention should be easier.