Business Accelerants Blog
Tech-I-M enVISIONing Process™
It’s the middle of the year. First half has gone okay. But, you need to make a difference in the second half of the year. It’s not over yet. You’ve still got a chance. And, you need to get ready for the next year or two. What are you going to do? You need a short term order/revenue plan, and a longer term operating plan, and an even longer strategic plan. These are all parts of the Tech-I-M enVISIONing Process™.
10 Tools for Leading People, Developing Products and Improving Processes
People, Products and Processes are three legs of the proverbial stool on which the assets of your business sit. Take care to carefully assess each one and plan the steps to take you where you want to go.
R/E: Your Profit Quotient
I firmly believe in the principle of KISS — Keep It Seriously Simple. Why do we make business more complicated than it needs to be? We have profit margins with percents — gross and net. We have operating ratios for truck fleets and other businesses. People generally have enough trouble with multiplication and division without adding the complications of percents and negative numbers–whether they are in red versus black or put into parentheses. Let’s make it simpler.
P’s & Q’s — The Power of Persistence
No matter where the phrase “Mind your P’s and Q’s” comes from, it has occurred to me that, in business, there are many useful words and concepts that start with these two letters…Thomas Edison is credited with saying, “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration” and “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” PERSISTENCE…It takes passion inside an individual, a team or a company to be able to persist and achieve success.
i-Matter Discovered
The brain sciences have recognized that gray matter is not the most important part of the human brain. While images of the brain using advanced medical equipment are wonderful to look at, it is the behavioral sciences that have rediscovered what Plato and Aristotle discussed over two thousand years ago. Let’s call it i-Matter.
Beware the FAD — Favorite Advice of the Day
Get on the band wagon. Give in to peer pressure. Be like a lemming and go over the cliff. Follow the crowd. Go along, don’t rock the boat. Doesn’t sound like good advice does it. So often we can convince ourselves that we need to be doing what everyone else is doing.
Get It Right!
Understanding what the customer wants a product to do, to look like, to feel like, even to smell like, is important. Design people can make the difference between a sleek looking car exterior or a lackluster one. … And, what about the ignition switch on a car? Obviously, someone did not get that right.
Assessing Future Technologies
How do you predict the future 5-10 years in advance? Can you? Could someone have predicted the Apple iPhone in 1997, 10 years before it was introduced? Or in 2002, 5 years before it was introduced? I say it was possible. Good thing, because part of strategic planning is doing just that.
Reach Out and Touch Someone!
How effective are your sales people? You spend money to create marketing materials and buy booth space at a trade show. You pay for air travel, hotels, taxis and food. And, what do they do?
The Power of Many
We’ve all heard the phrase, “Two heads are better than one.” But how many heads are too many? How do you avoid a “follow the crowd” mentality like a bunch of lemmings plummeting to their demise over a cliff?
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