Congratulations to Vince Albano, CEO and member of the CEO Round Table, and his entire family and team. They have just been awarded Business of the Year by the Sonoma Valley Chamber of Commerce.Vince was elected as CEO in June as part of a realignment within the Mary's Pizza Shack…
I have written and spoken extensively on the topic of building leadership teams and how those gaps hang like an albatross around the neck of the CEO ... or any leader of an incomplete team. The President of the United States is not immune to this condition and the gaps…
There is increasing interest in the subject of employee engagement these days as more businesses realize the value of highly focused and committed employees. Business Week recently published an article touting the value of a highly engaged workforce, which emphasizes the strength of this connection. It's can be accomplished with…
You've heard much of it here before ... Take Action, Plan Carefully ... so take a minute to reinforce that mantra by reading a short article from the Harvard Business web site from Jeff Stibel, brain scientist and entrepreneur.As we know, small businesses employ more than half of our private…
In his fascinating book, Freakonomics, Steven Levitt remarked that “Incentives are the cornerstone of life” … yet so many companies don’t pay more than cursory attention to them, and invariably, only with respect to the most mundane, traditional sales compensation plans.
There’s probably nothing you can do to more powerfully drive the performance of your employees than to carefully consider your incentive plans. If you think yours are working beautifully and don’t need any attention, check in with Steven Levitt to see how easily they go astray. (more…)
Small-business owners applauded when the Small Business Administration unveiled a lending program in May. But ... no surprise here ... the program is off to a slow start. With $255 million, the program is prepared to make about 10,000 loans of up to $35,000 each. As of Monday, the agency…
The Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal research organization in Washington, recently published a study looking at the rates of small business employment around the world.
The finding: “By every measure of small-business employment, the United States has among the world’s smallest small-business sectors.” This is the chart they published showing the self-employment rates in industrialized countries: (more…)
CFO Magazine recently included an article entitled “Imperfect Futures“, describing the growing challenge of forecasting in an uncertain economy. It’s never been easy but maybe never before, this hard.
There is a valuable perspective in this article worth considering. (more…)
Disappointing sales are the number-one problem afflicting America's small businesses, and few business owners expect consumers to start spending again any time soon, according to the National Federation of Independent Business's latest monthly survey of its membership. As we know, sales declines have also forced businesses to shut down. In…