Business Tips by Chris Reich

Is this a typical scene?   Take a close look at the room. This is hardly a 5-star hotel though sometimes it's the best place in town. I've often stayed in places like this but seldom see the same personnel when I return. The fewer the stars, the higher the...

    Do YOU get it?   You need a lot of courage to succeed in business. CEOs and managers think courage is about taking risks, but it's not. They think spending a huge sum on an advertising campaign is showing courage. That's not courage. That's...

Is your business really okay?   You own your own business. The first (among the first) question someone asks you is, "how many people do you have working for you?" People ask me that all the time. Isn't that sort of primitive? Like, "he has many cattle and many...

Two heads are not better than one.   Teams are lousy problem solvers. Have you ever watched Donald Trump's TV program where he gets groups of Harvard grads and sends them out to see which team can sell the most cupcakes? Then he fires somebody for not...

Little to say?   No, that's not why I haven't posted anything this week. I wanted something positive to say.   It's hard to find shining examples of good service but I found one this week. I saw an item that I thought would be excellent for SeeIntoSpace.com....

It's a benefit of reducing "head count".   I called a vendor to be sure an order was shipping Tuesday as planned. The order was placed last week and scheduled to ship Tuesday. I was just checking to be sure it was going to actually happen. You have to do that...

Don't cry, Heather.   Customer service. I continue to beat the drum but the message falls on deaf ears. Customer service is so in the past that people can't even define what it is. Can you?   That's my ATM card. Was my ATM card. There are two dates on that...

Welcome abroad?   Today I have a question for you. Business Astronomy 101.   I sometimes have to show someone a very distant, very faint and fuzzy object in my telescope. What I say to them determines what they see.   If I say, "It's pretty dim, you may...

That's a great idea.   I have an advertising program for you that I guarantee will work but you have to read this whole article. It made me a lot of money.   Advertising is expensive and doesn't work. At least it doesn't work very well. Okay, maybe if you're...

Wow! It's that big?   Yes. That black spot that looks like a pinhead is actually larger than earth. That little spot released a lot of energy as you can see by the odd looking backward "J" back on January 28, 2007 when I took this picture.   I have...

Steve Jobs, 1492.   Columbus Day is a day to celebrate business.   Columbus would have done well in today's economy because he had something most CEOs and managers lack: courage to try new ways of doing things.   He had an idea. To get to the spices...

He accepted what?   Business can get complicated. We sometimes want to express appreciation but what is appropriate for business giving?   As I said in the previous post, I do believe giving a token of gratitude is a good practice as long as you don't go...

Thank you.   Why are those words so difficult?   I guess I'm "old school" because I still think it's appropriate to send a card or a small gift in gratitude for business. I especially like to express thanks when I'm treated extraordinarily well by a...

Be a Super Hero.   In fact, be whatever you want to be. People are always telling me about their limitations or why they don't attempt more challenging pursuits. "I'm not good at that," is the common answer.   I hear often from people with business ideas who...

Why do they keep going back?   The Mac has never been mainstream. Macs cost more than a Windows based PC and do less. The software available is limited. Easier to use? I've never heard of a Windows user who migrated to Mac and lived happily ever...

You've probably got most of this down.   I attend a lot of meetings. Usually I'm there to make a presentation or to meet a group that I will be working with. It's great to see people in action.   One tip I like to share with upper management is how to make...

Yes, it does start at the top.   Big trees die from the top down. Interesting. Businesses die the same way. When growth and creativity stop at the top, the organization begins to die. Management will not usually recognize this. At the first sign of things...

What's the secret?   When I was a kid (15) I worked at a dumpy fast-food place. We had one of those old drink machines with a big glass dome forever bathed in flowing orange drink. It looked nice. Very enticing on a hot Fresno day.   Only if you turned...