“Teach a highly educated person that it is not a disgrace to fail and that he must analyze every failure in order to find its cause. He must learn how to fail intelligently, for failing is one of the greatest arts in the world.”— Charles F. Kettering small biz rural entrepreneurship success failure
Motivating real and lasting change is a huge challenge, whether you are trying to change yourself or bring others to change. Change is simply hard. Is there any effective tool? Logic doesn’t work. Threats don’t work. Fear doesn’t even really work. What does that leave? Joy. Really. Joy. “Joy is a more powerful motivator than…
Why talk about failure? Long ago, I wrote a presentation on failure, and gave it for several local business groups. Everyone loved it. The blogging started when two posts collided at Stupid Mistakes and Lessons Learned. Then there were More Lessons Learned. I was excited to share what people have learned through their own experience….
Andrea Wilson has written a terrific guide to providing great online customer service when a customer complains. She works through ten effective tips, including: In emails, use “exaggerated courtesy.” Since the person can’t see your expression or hear your tone of voice, your words must do everything for you. Read emails at least three times…
Zane Safrit is thinking about the role of failure, posted at the Duct Tape Marketing blog complex. I’m a fan of failure. Maybe it’s because I’m so familiar with it. That familliarity has taught me great lessons like humility, compassion, patience, perseverance, planning, flexibilty. And it’s taught me that no success comes without failure. In…
Want to build a billion dollar company from your small town? David Thomson wrote the book on it, Blueprint to a Billion, profiled on Fortune Small Business. (Brought to our attention by Be Excellent.) Here are the seven principles Thompson postulates: 1. Create and sustain a breakthrough value proposition. Create an entirely new market for…
“Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.”–William Saroyan Your business will go through cycles of success and failure. Some days you will be toiling away in the valley of hard work, with little reward in sight. Later, you will find yourself on…
Naming your business is important. Sometimes, businesses end up with names that can project a bad image. Examples: George E. Failing Company. Despite the Failing name, they are celebrating 75 years, after having changed to the initials GEFCO. Glitsch Construction. Greif Brothers Trucking. Quality Prevention Company. I used a couple of these examples before, and…
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