Good Business

Open the Box – A Fish?!

/ Jeff Hora / 2 Comments

Awhile back I was working through a visualization exercise mentioned in Steven Pressfield’s book “Do the Work”. My first post regarding this can be found here and if you search my blog you’ll a number of other visualizations that I’ve found useful using this. Let me summarize what this entails:

  • Imagine a box with a lid. Hold the box in your hand. Now open it.
  • What’s inside?
  • It might be a frog, a silk scarf, a gold coin of Persia.
  • But here’s the trick: no matter how many times you open the box, there is always something in it.

Over time I’ve found a golden table, a pressure washer, wood floors and a few others.

I hadn’t exercised my imagination in this way for a while, so I decided to give it a go and opened the box afresh. Today I found……a fish.
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Work-Life Blend: The Holiday Edition

/ Jeff Hora / 2 Comments

It doesn’t matter really. If you’re a solopreneur, a director of a corporate business unit, a team member at an international enterprise or any other kind of role designation, you run into this.

Work and business don’t stop. In a lot of cases, they speed up at this time of year. Yet, you KNOW that you have holiday-related events and such involving family, friends, co-workers and neighbors that are unique and important. As if pressures weren’t high enough, they just got higher. How do you prioritize it all?

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Reliability and Finding the Right Expert for Your Business

/ Jeff Hora / 1 Comment

During a fruitful first meeting with a new colleague and collaborator this week, she mentioned something that really disturbed me.  She has a very healthy graphic design and publishing business and works with a broad array of customers.  She focuses on what she does very well and gives referrals, like any good business, to other businesses that she works with and trusts. However, in a couple of instances she has had to give referrals to customers for solopreneurs she didn’t know as well, particularly in the digital and social media marketing areas.

Sadly, both she and her customers “got bitten.” Although I haven’t gotten the complete story, apparently the solo businesses gladly took the referrals, promised the moon, seriously under-delivered and then disappeared. My colleague looked bad and her customers had a less than wonderful experience, as well as losing money and time.

Wow.  Just Wow….

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The Forecast Myth

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment

I’ve always associated the term “forecast” with the weather. Coming from the Midwest, I am culturally inclined to a near obsession with the weather. Few places have unchangeable weather, and living someplace where a tornado, a blizzard, a scorching heat wave or some other short or long term event can come slamming down on top of you makes you a bit skeptical of anyone’s ability to tell the future.  Granted, in the area of meteorology, science is improving, but sometimes it pays to just step outside for minute and look at the sky.

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3 Reasons Why Your Business Shouldn’t be on Facebook

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It’s true…..despite the knee-jerk desire to get your business into social media and “everyone’s on Facebook”, it may not be a good idea for you.  Here are three reasons:

1. You don’t have time to post anything interesting: A business page lives or dies by visits and interaction, not ‘Likes’. If the last time you posted anything was 4 months ago and it was camera shot of the front of your office or a copy of your logo, you can bet no one has returned to see what else you’ve published.  Sure, you’re busy actually ‘doing’ your business, but part of you business is marketing. If you are unable to share things that your clients and prospects find relevant, you should retire your page.

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Sustainability, Triple Bottom Line and the Solopreneur

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English: Balance of Sustainability

English: Balance of Sustainability (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A business forum I attended a while back consisted of a panel of folks from various kinds of businesses, including a local bank, a cafe’/bakery, an architectural firm and local health care. The discussion revolved around how they each approached the overall idea of sustainability and the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) of People, Planet and Profit (or as they were presented: Social, Environmental and Economical). Each have very interesting and unique approaches, and the challenges they encountered (and still work through…) were instructive.

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There’s Simple and Then There’s Simple

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Does simplicity limit understanding? I have been going back and forth on this question for awhile.

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A Prairie Dog Place

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English: A black-tailed prairie dog at the Nat...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have always found pictures of prairie dogs popping up from their burrows to be hilarious. There’s something about the idea of this small animal getting a better view of its surroundings that just makes me smile. This made me think of some experiences I’ve had lately with smaller local businesses.

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Build a Business by Giving

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I recently found out about a 7-week course focused on building a business that was both profitable, engaging and fun.  I couldn’t resist that combination, so I dropped the company a mail and asked for them to get in touch with me so I could find out more…to see if it would really be something that would address my needs and give me some tools and best practices. I was contacted within the day and the owner asked if we could have a call to talk about it.  I agreed.
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Just How BIG Does That Strategy Need to Be?

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Any kind of strategic planning requires time, space and an approach that most of us don’t utilize so much in our day-to-day

Marine Institute Ireland, Strategic_Planning_S...

Marine Institute Ireland, Strategic_Planning_Symbol (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

business. This is too bad, but not surprising.  We’re focused on the day-to-day, tactical bits of the business and the strategy time is time not spent on keeping the whole thing moving forward.

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