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No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or 'get rich' in business by being a conformist. - J P Getty In the short term the market is a popularity contest; in the long term it is a weighing machine. - Warren Buffett Why do two of the foremost successful businessmen in recent times believe that following the crowd is not a good idea - yet the average Joe follows the popular belief[...]

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In our daily work lives it is so easy to get swept away dealing with time-consuming tasks that seem urgent. So we procrastinate and often do not attend to, or do not give sufficient consideration to the really important projects. How many times have you looked at your watch at the end of the day and said “where did the day go?” and realized that you have not done any or most of, what you [...]

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I recently saw a poll that was posing this intriguing question.  Indeed, while the organization's they led are world's apart, this question certainly raises the issue of the importance of a charismatic leader that departs and potentially leaves a huge void at the top. While this poll may be somewhat theoretical, it does pose the following question: how important are you to your business, and [...]

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One of  the biggest misunderstandings about marketing is that it is all about communications: things like social media, advertising, public relations, brochures, websites, telemarketing, blogs, newsletters, e-mail, TV, radio, etc (I could go on and on).  If you believe this, then you are missing out on the really important parts of marketing - those parts that will probably be able to set you [...]

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Are you one of the many people that set pricing for their products and services instinctively?  If so, you may be missing out on an important opportunity.  Pricing can actually differentiate you in the marketplace so it can be used as a useful (positive) marketing tactic. Price setting can actually be quite complex, and knowing that you may have options could just help you find the right mix. [...]

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Every so often I find it useful to read a book about business and, in particular, entrepreneurship.  Over the past few weeks, two books in particular (not new, but good oldies) have caught my attention.  I would encourage everyone who is running a business (even a one-person sole proprietor) to enlighten themselves with some fresh thinking and would recommend these two books highly: 1. The [...]

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I bet you see a marketing idea sometimes and say, "wow, why didn't I think about that?" It's amazing, but the number of ideas is endless, and very often these ideas are not really new - they often spring forth from an old idea that has been adapted, one way or another.  And most often, they are really simple. So how do you generate these ideas?  One way is to have regular brainstorming ideas [...]

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In many small and medium sized businesses the head of the accounting dept. (let’s call him or her a Controller) is perceived as an overhead, or even a necessary evil and the Controller often then does everything in their power to live up to that perception.  This is exemplified by the Controller’s business associates calling him a bean counter. It is relatively easy for the owner/President [...]

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If there are a bunch of people in a room and you are asked to identify those who are visionary what would you do? Would you talk to each person individually to find out who is visionary and who is not? Would you assign them some tasks in order to watch them and identify the visionary ones? Would you divide them in groups and observe which ones act as visionary leaders? Visionary leaders have some[...]

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Cash management is essentially the process of managing working capital. One way to get a high level view of your business is to calculate its cash conversion cycle. This is the time that it takes to convert cash outflows that are needed to produce goods into cash through sales and collection of accounts receivable.  An example would be for CN Railway using their 2010 annual financial statements:[...]

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