Business planning

Recently I had lunch with Tommy Thompson. Tommy has run the daily operations of our 1,000+ member church campus. In that job he uses all the skills and experience he has accumulated in 40+ years of working in a variety of jobs in Corporate America. In his career, Tommy has held several positions, such as corporate safety manager for a major energy company, which required him to be a top-notch strategist as well as a…

The hiring process for many small businesses is a daunting task. Most lack a HR department or person to manage the process. Instead, the business typically relies more on what I call “gut instinct” than a well-designed process or procedure. This means that many of the basic steps necessary to making a good hiring decision are not considered or taken. The result is an employee turnover rate that is way too high and that impairs…

How much does your business spend annually on marketing and advertising the products/services that you offer? How much does your company spend annually on customer service? Which of the two, marketing/advertising or customer service, give you the biggest bang for your buck? The chances are that you cannot or do not calculate how much you spend annually on customer service; therefore, you cannot answer my question about which gives you the biggest bang for your…

You finally have made the decision to go into business for yourself. A big step in anyone’s life to realize their dream to be their own boss! The decision does not come without risk and your ability to reduce or mitigate risk can make the difference in being successful or not. The fist step to finding the success that you are looking for is writing down a plan. In building your plan, you should look…

Technology purchases have become increasingly more challenging, and in some cases more expensive and in all cases more important to the success of a business. Each time a business introduces a new technology into their business, there is a chance that the technology will have a negative impact verses a positive impact. This risk of failure makes the selection, implementation and maintenance of all-important business technology even more critical. The risk of failure of choosing…