Recently, the NY Times published a story about the turmoil over prices for printed books compared to their electronic counterparts. In some cases, the electronic version is priced higher. In particular, the story focused on comparison pricing occurring at Amazon.com for books published both in paperback and for the Amazon Kindle electronic book reader. The […]

I read publications, punditry and blogs from many different industries. Reading only the trade publications from your industry is dangerous, dangerous, dangerous. An awesome blog post by Ken Doctor based on comments made by Netflix founder Reed Hastings is a fine example. I don’t have a digital business As you read “Savor the economics of […]

Historically, my Scout troop does ok on our annual popcorn sale fundraiser. The guys have done well enough over the years that a number of them managed to pay for their campouts pretty much year after year. One of them earned enough to buy himself a high-quality down sleeping bag comfortable to well below zero. […]

A common question I’m asked is “Should I use ‘bright shiny object of the month’ to market my business? Lately, the question tends to be asked in the context of Facebook, but quite frankly, the answer is the same regardless of the “magic solution” you’re asking about. As usual, the answer is “Fish where the […]

Recently, I was privileged to speak on the subject “So, Ive got a website…now what?” at the monthly Columbia Falls Chamber of Commerce meeting. While it’s a valid question, this is not how I want you to be thinking about your site. A fair number of business owners think about their site as “Something I […]

Unreal. Last week I had to get on the phone to cancel an online service. Not because I wanted to use the phone to cancel, but because it’s a requirement. You see, you can sign up for this service online, but you can’t cancel it there. And you certainly won’t be doing it easily. Yes, […]

Last week, I got in your face about your responsibilities as both employees and employers. These two groups have been in conflict forever, something that continues today – despite the fact that they desperately need each other’s help. Both groups should avoid the temptation to continue that wasteful practice. The current employment/economy situation in general […]

As I sat in the Montana House District 3 candidate forum at Discovery Square listening to candidates talk about jobs, the economy, taxes, education, roads and on rare occasion, things that only politicians seem to care about, they reinforced what I’ve said previously about the role of government (and the people) when it comes to […]

One of the difficult things about entrepreneurs is maintaining focus. Most entrepreneurs are interested in many things, so the BSO (bright shiny object) threatens to pull them away from their core mission because that other thing would be soooo interesting to work on. Still others wonder what their core mission is. Just this morning I […]

People I read, work with, overhear, listen to, casually encounter (etc) seem to fall into roughly three camps regarding the current economy’s job situation: The President (Governor, Mayor, City, County, State, whatever) should give me a job or create one for me. The President (etc) should stay out of it and let natural market forces […]

It’s easy to compare the differences between train and air travel. Speed and cost are the obvious ones, which reminds me of the old consultant’s saw: “Quality, Speed or Price, choose any two.” Meaning that you can choose two of those, but the third is likely to suffer. When it comes to long-distance public transportation, […]

Last week at Montana West Economic Development’s (MWED) August E2 (Entrepreneur-to-Entrepreneur) session, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel of business owners whose business have, as I call it, hit “cruising altitude”. The E2 panels started back during Liz Marchi’s service as Executive Director of MWED and continue to this day, where they are […]

I spend 99.9% of my time here writing things aimed at employers/business owners, but today this one is for the employees and those who would like to be employed. Lately, I’ve noticed a few things that make it not all that surprising that some folks aren’t having much luck getting work, so I have a […]

I really try to avoid talking about survival. I think it’s the wrong target because it places your business in a risky position. A bad month or a consecutive series of just two or three bad months can shift many businesses from a survival position to just-plain-closed. However, there are a lot of folks out […]

Recently there was a bit of a fuss about United kicking people off an overweight plane based on the fare they paid. Since then, there were a number of discussions/suggestions on how to choose which passengers to remove in order to get the plane to flyable weight: By passenger weight By ticket purchase date By […]