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Business Is Personal

Business Is Personal

A Handshake and a Thank You

Last week I was talking with a friend who was celebrating, or at the very least – remembering, the fact that a certain day that week marked his 10th year on the job. A decade or two ago, it was commonplace to have the same job for 10 years. In the decades of my parents’ […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Hassle Me Not

Ever walk out of a store or ended a phone call with a business and thought “Man, what a hassle. Why do they make it so hard for me to give them my money?” For example, I mostly read the news online but I like an old school Sunday paper. Problem is, I can’t get […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Insulated Against Outsourcing?

If you’ve been reading about the economy, it seems like a fair percentage of the new jobs being created out there are going to technical people. Even today, the number of applicants in the Silicon Valley job pool for a specific technical skill are roughly equal to the number of open jobs in that niche. […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Why Blog? Why Answer The Phone? Same Question.

Every so often, I’ll get into a conversation about blogging with a business owner and they’ll ask me what they should blog about. Why did they ask? Because the conversation led to me persuading them to start blogging, of course. Asking me what to blog about is low-hanging fruit, because I’ve always got answers to […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Tell Them Your Story

One of the things I help business owners figure out is how to tell their story (and why they should bother). Sometimes, business owners don’t have a story, or at least, they think they don’t. Many times, the work people do is a means to an end, or at least it seems that way on […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Decide To Deliver Trust

Last time (in the context of being trusted, and what a business must do to re-establish trust), I talked briefly about vendors who announce products years before they plan to ship it, including firms that never ship what they’ve announced and taken payment for. On occasion, early announcements are a legal requirement for some businesses. […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

It Starts With Trust

Over the years here at BiP, we’ve had a few conversations about vendors who lost the trust of their customers – as well as some who earned it in magnificent fashion. Earning, retaining and regaining the trust of your customers is central to what Business is Personal has been about from the beginning. We talk […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Talk to the Animals

In a distant past, my business was rather dependent on a product from a particular outside-the-valley company. As good as it was, this product had a rough life, as it was passed from one company to another. Unfortunately, none of the owners anywhere along this trail seemed to have an inkling of customer relationship skills. […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Lucy and the Aluminum Football

Lately, there has been a lot of talk in the news and around the valley about the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) offering a four year power supply deal to Columbia Falls Aluminum Company (CFAC). As you’ve read here in the Beacon, the deal is subject to environmental review and other what-ifs, so it isn’t a […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

What Do You Want Me To Do Next?

This past week, I had the pleasure of visiting the still somewhat chilly seaside of Oregon thanks to a handful of out of town appointments. In between the productive parts of the week, we managed to visit a couple of western Oregon wineries. While a good time was had by all, I found it interesting […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Serve Homemade Apple Pie

Recently, Borders book stores reported that they were closing their remaining 399 stores, including our local store here in Kalispell. The store has about three months, enough time to liquidate their existing stock. Survival of the fittest demands that some prosper, some get by and some die. Borders was not one of the fittest booksellers around, […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

The Freedom To Hire

I’ve been listening carefully over the last month as a number of people offered their analysis of the jobs problem in today’s economy. One thread of discussion from a sizable number of folks really stuck out. “It’s health care reform. No one is going to hire anyone until that’s resolved.” Generally speaking, I understand the […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Perpetuating Stereotypes

Today I’m going off the beaten path a little bit, but trust me… at its core, this is all about business in Northwest Montana. You might have noticed a couple of weeks ago when editor Kellyn mentioned my gigging him on Twitter about his “all Canadians are pacifists” comment in his column about stereotypes and the […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Business Owners: Help Them Buy Better

Seth Godin recently asked why ethical marketers wouldn’t be “eager to have aggressive, clear and well-defined regulations” (about marketing). He set the context by talking about the lies used to sell sunscreen, noting that lobbyists kindly helped the FDA water down proposed sunscreen regulations. To quote Seth: Why aren’t ethical marketers (of any product) eager […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Being Legendary

I was reading AJ Leon’s blog this morning and was thinking that sipping a cuppa joe in Shakespeare’s hometown while gnawing on a “legendary brownie” sounds pretty good. The term legendary struck me, as AJ probably meant it to. I don’t stumble across things of that quality every day, but I guess that’s the nature […]

By Mark Riffey