Archive for the ‘Business Principles’ Category

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Thursday sported an episode of The Apprentice that was absolutely fantastic while at the same time pretty depressing. It was, in essence, classic reality show material. While that makes for good TV, you know it’s just not worthy of a show like The Apprentice. The behavior of Omarosa and Piers (mostly Omarosa) was so vile that Trump really should have fired both (or at least Omarosa) on the spot, regardless of how the team performed on the task.

Omarosa stooped to new lows in an attempt to save face but really did nothing more than show how unfit she is for the corporate environment. Amazingly, she made herself look worse than when she was booted off the show several seasons ago. Don’t tell her to go while she’s ahead! She wants to come back and destroy any residue of respect that may have remained. It really is sad. But on with our lessons…

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There are times in life when you see many parallels to yourself in all the things around you. Maybe you’re going through a rough spot or made some decisions that you regret, but whatever it is, wherever you go, you see that reflected in other people’s situations and actions. I found that to be true watching Thursday’s episode of the apprentice. Every few minutes, I could see something and think “Yeah, I did that.”

Sometimes its easier to see the faults in others before you see your own. But when you can see the faults in others and reflect that upon yourself and realize that you’ve done the same thing, that’s when true growth begins. So when you see reflections of you in other people in other places, let that serve as a reinforcement. Learn the lessons and move on. That being said, let’s go ahead and move on to some Celebrity Apprentice business lessons:

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Thursday’s episode of The Apprentice was easily the best episode the show has ever aired. A joke turns into an opportunity, all gone awry by a bad project manager and a team mate that doesn’t know what he wants. This had all the makings of a scripted show or, well, real life! But let’s back up a bit to refute something Omarosa said…

Business Lesson 1: Business is never personal, even when it gets personal.

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Thursday’s Celebrity Apprentice was a pretty lackluster episode. I was excited to see Marilu Henner and Vincent Pastore square off. I like both of them, but Marilu seems to be a much stronger leader than Vincent. I wasn’t sure who I was rooting for. I mean, I love it when Omarosa’s team loses, but I don’t want to see Marilu go.

The women have severe cohesiveness issues, thanks largely due to Omorosa. On the other hand, the guys, who work very well together, had some pre-task fireworks themselves. Which brings me to…

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This show keeps getting more and more interesting. It’s funny because here we have a bunch of people who are so successful and therefore so self confident in their own abilities that they think they are “king”. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a display of misplaced arrogance than what Gene Simmons displayed on Thursday night. He was so confident in himself, yet so far off the mark.

Which, of course, brings us to…

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It’s always fun to watch the beginning of each Apprentice episode. When the candidates return from the boardroom and greet everybody it’s either to wild celebration or muted disdain. Or even a combination of both. This week I felt myself cringing even before Omarosa opened the door to the suite where the rest of the players anxiously awaited the return of the boardroom survivors. Every time she opened her mouth I just wanted to slap her. Ah, the joys of watching someone who thinks more highly of themselves than they ought.

It’s great how many business lessons can be found in a single episode. But what I find amazing is that you often find the wrong lessons. Things that shouldn’t be true, but are. These are not so much lessons you want to take away and say “I want to do that” but lessons to store somewhere to refer back and say, yeah, that’s how it is sometimes. Of course this brings me to…

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Last Thursday kicked off the new season of The Apprentice. I really believed last season would be the last, but as long as you got another schtick to pull out of your magic bag, perhaps you can generate some new excitement. And that brings us to…

Business Lesson #1: It’s not over until you say it’s over.

Many people in business fail because they give up before they should. A number of times when things were rough for my business, I was ready to throw in the towel. But I could never quite bring myself to call it quits. I always felt like I had more to give and a lot more to gain. And I have to say, I’m glad I never gave into the conventional wisdom during those times.

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Last year I made it a New Years Resolution goal to read a book a week. I’ve actually had that goal for the past several years now but it wasn’t until this year that I started documenting all my reading so I’d actually know if I hit my mark. I did.

So if you ever want to know what a person like me reads, here you go. This list incorporates all my business and personal reading. The links will either go to my reviews of the books which I have already posted here on the blog or directly to the Amazon product page.

1. How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter, Ann Coulter
2. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell
3. Quantum Business, Bobbi DePorter with Mike Hernacki
4. The Winning Attitude: Your Pathway to Personal Success, John C. Maxwell
5. The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town, John Grisham
6. The 7 Best Things Happy Couples Do…plus one, John and Linda Freil
7. True North: Discovering Your Authentic Leadership, Bill George
8. Developing the Leaders Around You, John C. Maxwell
9. Viral Copy: Trading Words For Traffic, Brian Clark (30-page printout)
10. Which Sells Best: A quick Start Guide to Testing for Retailers, Bryan Eisenberg & Anthony Garcia (45-page printout)
11. Knock Knock, Seth Godin (41-page printout)
12. How to Increase Keyword Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy, Karon Thackston (34-page printout)
13. 365 Ways to Motivate and Reward Your Employees Every Day – With Little or No Money, Dianna Podmoroff
14. Next, Michael Crichton
15. Becoming a Person of Influence: How to Positively Impact the Lives of Others, John C. Maxwell & Jim Dornan
16. No B.S. Business Success: The No Holds Barred Kick Butt Take No Prisoners Tough and Spirited Guide, Dan Kennedy
17. A Mind for Pool: How to Master the Mental Game, Philip B. Capelle
18. Persuasion Architecture: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing, Future Now, Inc. (60-page printout)
19. Coaching Your Kids to Be Leaders: The Keys to Unlocking Their Potential, Pat Williams and John Wooden
20. Search Engine Ranking Factors V2, SEOmoz (43-page printed web page)
21. The Professional’s Guide to Link Building, SEOmoz (40-page printout)
22. Deception Point, Dan Brown
23. The Conversion Expert’s Workbook, FutureNow
24. Guerrilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business , Jay Conrad Levinson
25. The Professional’s Guide to Keyword Research, SEOmoz (70 page printout)
26. The New Art of War, Tactics, and Power, Rodney Ohebsion
27. How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie
28. Save the Sale!, Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg (32 page printout)
29. The Illustrated Guide to Building a Search Friendly Website, SEOmoz (35 page printout)
30. Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines, National Cancer Institute (73 page printout)
31. A Business Case for Usability, E-Consultancy (18-page printout)
32. Online Lead Generation (B2C) 2007, E-Consultancy (32-page printout)
33. Blog Profits Blueprint, Yaro Starak (55-page printout)
34. People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.), Howard Zinn
35. The Usability Kit, Gerry Gaffney and Daniel Szuc (350 page binder)
36. Leadership, Rudolph Giuliani
37. Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus, Orson Scott Card
38. Arrogance: Rescuing America From The Media Elite, Bernard Goldberg
39. The Cluetrain Manifesto, Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger
40. Reframe Your Life: Transforming Your Pain into Purpose, Stephen Arterburn
41. Breaking the Idols of Your Heart: How to Navigate the Temptations of Life, Dan B. Allender & Tremper Longman III
42. Facing Your Giants: The God Who Made a Miracle Out of David Stands Ready to Make One Out of You, Max Lucado
43. Think Biblically!: Recovering a Christian Worldview, John MacArthur
44. The Power of Simple Prayer: How to Talk with God about Everything, Joyce Meyer
45. Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists, Shirley Kaiser
46. The Perfect Post: Advanced Writing Skills for Pro Bloggers, Bill Hilton (50-page printout)
47. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm Gladwell
48. S.H.A.P.E.: Finding and Fulfilling Your Unique Purpose for Life, Erik Rees
49. Skin, Ted Dekker
50. Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
51. Social Media Daily, Michelle MacPhearson (26-page printout)
52. Professional Search Engine Optimization w/PHP, Jaimie Sirovich and Cristian Darie
53. The Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class, Keith Cameron Smith
54. Holy Discontent: Fueling the Fire That Ignites Personal Vision, Bill Hybels
55. Teaching Sells: Forget everything you know about making money online… and start making some, Brian Clark (22-page download)
56. Social Media Optimization Strategies, SEOmoz (55-page download)
57. Angels & Demons, Dan Brown
58. Do It Wrong Quickly, Mike Moran
59. Seinfeld on Marketing: 7 Marketing Lessons From the Cast of “The Show About Nothing”, Bill Gammel (14-page download)
60. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
61. Online Retail 2006: User Experience Benchmarks, E-Consultancy (85-page download)
62. Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right: How One Side Lost Its Mind and the Other Lost Its Nerve, Bernard Goldberg
63. Search Engine Marketing Kit, Dan Thies & Dave Davies
64. Personality Plus, Florence Littauer
65. Viral Marketing and Linkbait on the Web, SEOmoz (46-page printout)
66. The Shining, Stephen King

It’s quite the long list so I think this year I’ll start posting these reading lists monthly. If any of the links above are broken, just let me know so I can get it fixed. Happy reading in 2008!

Every business goes through tough times. Expecting to have season after season of continuous growth without any dips or downturns is pretty much unreasonable. And despite all your strong marketing pushes, there will always be times when business isn’t as swift as you’d like it to be. But that doesn’t have to be cause for concern. Well, OK, concern is good, but there are things that you can do to make slow times a whole lot less stressful on you and your finances.

1) Prepare

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Another year has almost gone? How is your overall profit looking? Maybe it’s not quite what you had expected for the year. Well, step it up! Encourage yourself and employees to think outside the box the way many successful big and small fish companies have. Yes there may be failure but from failure you’ll learn and grow. “It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” – Bill Gates.

Get together with your employees and take a look at your company; what would they change? You hired them so I hope you have some interest in what they really think. Drive out the fear! Create an atmosphere in which employees are not afraid to ask questions or to point out problems. “When employees and employers, even coworkers, have a commitment to one another, everyone benefits.”-Donald Trump.

Here are some business stories to get everyone’s creative juices flowing:

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