Business Tips by Chris Reich
Tips from growing a business to dealing with disputesYour Biggest Loss
What would happen if sales dropped by half suddenly?What if your best seller became obsolete by a new offering by someone else?This is the 'secret' to Apple's success. You can use the same playbook if you're willing to do the hard work.Apple consistently plans on the...
Business Rule Number 1 Is…
Rant.Why, if I must join a membership program for my hotel, airline, car rental, super market, pharmacy and ALL the other nonsense loyalty programs, why must they have insanely weird usernames that cannot be changed to something we can remember?!...
Preseidential Debates and Business Lesson
There is a presidential debate tonight. This is an excellent opportunity to do some market research. You will notice that people will hear what they want to hear. Answers will be manipulated to fit what each person already believes and the perceived winner will be the...
A Way Out
When you must get tough with your talent, be it from their fault or not (pay cuts due to business slow down), give the road map back to good standing or you destroy morale.These are indeed hard times. Most entities are suffering budget cuts. Management looks at poor...
Tragedy of the Commons
The term "The Tragedy of the Commons" refers to a dilemma of limited resource sharing. It's very important to our heavily populated world and crucially important to your business during an economic downturn.When many people have access to a limited resource without...
Are We Having Fun?
Has it stopped being fun at work? When that happens it is a lot more serious than managers/owners realize. It's a dangerous condition that leads to lower production, morale issues, quality issues, customer issues and a talent drain.So, you still don't care if it's fun...
Sunk Costs
Sunk costs. During a slow down, many businesses will cling to sunk costs and refuse to see the wisdom of bailing water! A sunk cost is money spent---it's gone, it's sunk into something. Let's say you get the idea that red baseball caps are sure to sell like crazy. You...
Game Theory Concept
An SEO firm called me today. I personally do not like SEO firms. Most use underhanded tricks to give a business a short-lived boost in search rankings. Some are okay. This firm "guaranteed" that they would get me more business for less advertising cost. For $1,000 per...
Would You Do This?
I read an interesting article about developing Vs. managing people this morning. It tied to an interesting conversation I had with a new manager yesterday who asked me, "Is teaching them part of MY job? Shouldn't they know how to do their job if they were placed in...
Where Is Your Pain?
I am deep into a study of game theory and finding many key applications to business. Here's something you might not have ever considered yet is absolutely crucial to your business. If you make a promise and there is no pain to you, the promise is hollow and your...
A Dangerous Assumption
There is a dangerous assumption that most people make in business negotiations or transactions. This false assumption often leads to poor, sometimes disastrous, outcomes. What is it?Let's start by defining "transaction". As I use the word transaction in this context,...
A Reminder
I saw this post from a friend and really liked it so I'm passing it on...."Getting a quick "out of the blue" call this morning to be told some really kind things was such a nice gesture 🙂 It only takes a few minutes to reach out to others and remind them the impact...
In Communication We trust
Communication in business builds trust. When communication goes, trust follows. When trust goes, all hell breaks loose. A business with a lot of internal strife will suffers from poor communication. No one trusts anyone. Hard to reverse. Tools won't do it. It take...
Is It All about Price? Maybe!
If you read in a business article that price is not the sole determinant of purchase, be very careful. I've made that statement myself but there a million traps in that thinking. The more similar product A is to Product B, the more price pressure will be on both...
Business Aphorisms from TeachU
What to Decide? No, How to Decide!
Not enough attention is given to one of the most important aspects of business planning. Too often planning sessions and business meetings are focused on what to decide. Rarely is attention given to how to decide.For example, if sales take a dip, the team will...
Why Must Work Be Fun?
I had my first job when I was 5 years old. Our neighbor, my best friend at the time, was a boy of the same age as me whose father worked for an egg processing company. He, the father, asked me if I wanted to work a few hours with his son at the plant. It was a...
What Matters in Business?
Some businesses grade their performance on year over year, "same store", comparisons. That means if sales are up over the previous year, taking into account the same number of production units, the business is doing well. If there are more production units, which...