There is a man named Carl who works in the grocery store. He shows up early every day. He bags the groceries and gathers the carts from the parking lot. He is a sweet man and he is 74 years old. I feel sorry for him even though he certainly doesn't ask for any sympathy. He says, "I've been a hard worker all of my life." It's true that he has.

Does your attitude stink? The following is a check up from the neck up. 1. On a scale of 1 - 10, how would you rate your attitude and your life, overall, right now? (1 means not so good, 10 means better than great!) 2. What is one thing you think you should be doing that you are not doing right now, to make something in your life better?

Yesterday was one of those days that made me stop and think for awhile. The ISP that provides my internet connection had an "unscheduled" service outage, and there was no service for most of the day. Seriously, I felt a bit lost. What did we do before the internet? How did we do business? It seems very strange, and yet the internet is really not

Whether you are an entrepreneur or you work within a large organization, marketing is a life-skill essential to your survival. Muzzling the mean, menacing marketing (and sales) monster can be a daunting task . . . but a task that must be dealt with in every business on a daily basis. Fail Marketing 101 and no matter how passionate you are abo

As I've said before, every business on the planet is in the business of MARKETING. Yes, that includes you. First and foremost you are a marketer, second you are an investor. You must know how to get leads in order to even have a chance to put your investment knowledge into action. So, to get private money lenders for your real estate inve

The green movement has created a plethora of buzzwords. One of the more popular phrases is renewable energy. And for good reason. Businesses, traditional and emerging, will soon be affected by how they will respond to the reality of renewable energy depending on where they fall in the supply chain. Renewable energy is a term that refers to thos

When you first started your business, the excitement was raw and tangible. With every step forward everything in you wanted to jump for joy, though you contained yourself (most of the time). Your dream was becoming reality. Your business was seeing success. Life was just plain good. Fast forward a few years. Same dream, same business, but with a

You may have found yourself in this position. You had hoped for it, planned for it, envisioned it and in some weird way feared it. It is called "expanding your business." It is called "growing your business" and seeing it do things that you were not really sure was going to happen. That is where we have found ourselves. In the last eight months

A start up loan is a type of loan utilized to start a new business. For most aspiring small business owners, it is essential to obtain such a loan to gain the resources needed to operate their business. It is used for a great deal of purposes. As with all businesses, the cash resources are used to acquire equipment, property, pay employees, and oth

From time to time I am asked by business advisors, senior level managers, and successors in privately held or family owned companies, if I have any special insights that will magically get the owners of their company to lighten up. Why aren't they willing to delegate some of their authority, upgrade their technology to take advantage of cutting

Every successful entrepreneur has at one time or another spent time setting goals. Goal-setting is one of the most valuable activities anyone can do. People without goals don't know where they are going and they don't know how close or how far away they are from their desired destination. Would you attempt to drive from New York to California witho

I recently met a colleague I had not seen for some years. His life work has been in a somewhat esoteric branch of the financial industry. We had a pleasant chat which eventually turned to the discussion of each other's work. He freely brought me up to date on what he had been doing the past few years. He inferred that his business had

For many, a work-from home arrangement is somewhat like a programmed working scheme wherein all you have to do is to see things happen. Best of all, they believe that after quite some time of managing their so-called home business, they will be reaping better results without having to sweat out or take a little pain. Would you go for that? Think

If you are in any financial discomfort where a loan might be your only hope, then you need to convince the bank and other people that you deserve the loan and that you will be able to pay it back. A loan is never an easy thing to secure and that is why many people might be denied it on the grounds that they don't have the money or if their past see

A vote is the voice of an individual making a choice. A vote can be given by ballot or voice. They can be delivered personally by the voter or by proxy. A decision on a submitted question is made by the majority of the votes delivered. An agreement is an understanding reached by two or parties about their rights and obligations relating to