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Business Is Personal

Business Is Personal

Touch Your Way Around

Last week, I talked about how the iPad ( and devices like it ) can become a strategic advantage for your business. I believe that every organization (not just “business”) needs to put some strategic thought into how (or if) a location-enabled, touch device like this can help them, but restaurants & real estate are […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

The iPad for Business? Why?

I know what you’re thinking. It goes something like this: Why do I need this thing? It’s just like a dinky little laptop with no keyboard. I can’t even plug my USB thumb drive into it. Even if I do buy one, why would I drop the extra coin for the 3G version? It won’t […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Designing for Cruising Altitude

Like people, businesses have many different stages of life. Some are newborn babies. Some are venerable old cowboys that at 86 can still take a strong 22 year old and pound the tar out of them. Lots of people are rolling down the runway of a new business right now, almost ready to take off. […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Whopper of an Idea

Last week we talked about the basics of forming a marketing plan, answering six fundamental questions: what do you do, why should we go with you instead of someone else, what are you doing now, what’s working, who is your ideal customer and where can you find them? As I noted, the answers are going […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Call Me Sacagawea

Imagine how ridiculous it would sound if one of the farmers in Creston asked, “How can I get a new crop of winter wheat to harvest tomorrow / next week / next month?” Maybe someday the science of farming will allow such a thing, but these days, farmers still have to depend on planting, nourishing, […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Farmville Must Die

Last week, I had the pleasure to speak with this year’s Leadership Flathead (LF) class about business trends and challenges – and discuss strategies to tackle them. If you haven’t participated in Leadership Flathead, you really should try and find a way to do so. If you have employees in leadership positions (or being groomed […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Milking the Strategic Cow

Last night on Turner Classic Movies, I watched “All the President’s Men”, a movie made from the Carl Bernstein / Bob Woodward book about how they discovered and broke the story on the Watergate break-in and cover up. And what exactly does this have to do with your business? Lots. One thing really leaped off […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Idiot Lights on the Dashboard

One of the things everyone knows how to do is wet the end of their finger and hold it up in the air to see which direction the wind is coming from (at least for that instant in time). It’s an indicator of current conditions, not unlike the famous tourist store “Weather Rock” kitsch (aka […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Newsflash: Customers Grow on Trees

Given that we have so many trees around here, there must be a ton of customers on them. Judging from a few (but not all) retailers, that’s just the case and they’re apparently doing just fine. It must be all those trees we have. They’re so full of customers that businesses just don’t need any […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Boarding up Your Grandkid’s School?

There’s been a lot of talk in the Columbia Falls and Bad Rock Canyon area about the potential closing of Canyon Elementary School. While some may feel like celebrating because they object to public education or public funding of education, most of the folks I’ve spoken with are concerned about losing a neighborhood school. Enrollment […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

What a Great Place for a Restaurant!

No one with a lick of sense would suggest that the economy is setting cash registers on fire. Few people know this more than restaurant owners, which is why you see them going out of their way to please their customers these days. Just the other day, a friend was in a new restaurant in […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Looking Through the Lens of Now

People aren’t the only thing that matters in this Reboot the Flathead process. The structure of the process itself is critical. Get off on the wrong foot in that department and it may not matter which people are involved. A big challenge to that is the Lens of Now. The “Lens of Now” means looking […]

By Mark RIffey
Business Is Personal

Sacred Cow Burgers

Last week, I mentioned that it’s likely going to take a small group of folks getting together and hatching a plan to “Reboot the Flathead”. A well-thought-out plan might eventually look nothing like the plan the group starts with, that being the nature of thinking big. No, that’s not a flip-floppy excuse, it’s just life. […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Reboot the Flathead

For the last several weeks, I’ve been pretty hard on a few industries here in the Flathead, as well as on those who’ve lead them (or used to) and perhaps even those who might have milked them for a bit too long. There’s nothing wrong with milking the cow till she’s dry as long as […]

By Mark Riffey
Business Is Personal

Fiddling While Slash Burns

When I saw the news about Smurfit a few weeks ago, I knew it was going to be ugly, painful and in the long run, maybe a good thing. Give me some time on the good part. There really is potential for a shiny side to all of this. Just not tomorrow or next week. […]

By Mark Riffey