Business Strategy

What is a better investment:

1. Investing $1 million to make $10 million, or

2. Investing $30,000 to make $50,000?

Certainly, $1 million is way bigger than $30,000. Let's say for the sake of argument that you have both sums of money to invest and your spouse will not kill you for doing so. Also assume that you are an entrepreneur and will have a significant influence in the outcome of both scenarios, i.e. similar chance of a positive outcome.

Worst case you could loose it all, $1 million or $30,000. Best case you would earn $9 million or $20,000.

I think it's pretty obvious that if you are going […]

A while back I wrote a short piece on Fortune Telling.

Well hindsight says the negative forecast was more correct. Stock markets are plunging due to the sub-prime meltdown and other factors, the price of oil is dropping, real estate prices are dropping, there is a federal election in Canada, and a presidential race in the US.

Uncertainty is the word of the day for businesses.

It’s at times like these that leadership is truly tested. It’s easy to be a leader during good times. Everything you do is likely to turn out ok… even going with the crowd works.

During uncertainty, stress […]

What are you trying to accomplish with your business?

Making money is every business’s objective so that doesn’t count.

What are you creating that will create value for others such that they are willing to give you money? How are you going to make a difference in the world, or at least a part of it? What is your vision? What are your short and long-term goals to achieve that vision?

Everything that you do that does not take you closer to your vision is a distraction.

Don’t try to fluff up a distraction to look like you are achieving your goals […]

As they say, "to err is human". To procrastinate is definitely a human error condition.

Yes, I am human. In fact, that is why I am writing this post, I just had a recent incident caused by waiting too long and then running into problem. I lucked in and had a really good experience with a very helpful service desk. It doesn’t always work out like that.

It’s interesting that about 40% of our PenForms (an application we built) users were completing their annual returns to the government in the last week (or later in some cases), even though they […]

A week ago I read a forecast saying oil is heading to $200 per barrel this year. Today I read a forecast saying that oil is heading below $100 per barrel this year.

Reality… the only thing guaranteed about the future is we don’t really know what it holds. The past is easy and hindsight is 20/20.

So make sure your business vision and model support both up and down markets. I predict lots of both in the future.

The other day I watched a program on TV where they took a look at people who were extremely “messy”. The people they interviewed were the opposite of everything the Martha Stewart brand stands for. Picture rooms stacked to the ceiling with vast accumulations of “stuff“. In some cases the rooms were so jammed you could barely move around. One guy had four apartments just like it in different cities.

Some made the argument that the time others spend cleaning and tidying they spend on being productive or creative. Others claimed they were highly visual people and needed to “see” […]

In business, you have to realize you cannot control everything. You cannot control your employees, suppliers or customers for example. All you can do is put the culture, systems and processes in place to attempt to guide things to your chosen destination.

Most businesses are actually organized chaos. Lots of things going wrong all the time but somehow things generally work out in the end. There is a point of diminishing return for effort invested in perfection (reducing problems to zero). Ideally the system is built to deal with the things that derail and then to get things back on […]