Are You On Top Of Your Competitors?
Here’s a list of questions that every business manager should be able to answer with an unqualified ‘yes’. They relate largely to the fundamental need of identifying and understanding your competition, and if you find yourself giving a ‘no’ answer to any of them it means you could be short of valuable information that would [...]
Finding Acres Of Diamonds By Marketing In Your Own Backyard
Acres of Diamonds is an old story of an African farmer who sold his farm and wandered the countryside searching for diamonds. It later turned out that the land that he sold was full of diamonds and eventually became the site of a large mine. Similarly, many businesses seek their customers far afield when they [...]
My business is worth WHAT!
As a Forensic Accountant, I’ve had the following conversation too many times… Business Owner – “I’ve decided it’s time to retire. How much is my business worth?” Advisor – “How much do you think it’s worth?” Business Owner – “I really don’t know but, if I had to guess, I’d say around $2.5 Million.” Advisor [...]
Brand “Me” – Developing a Personal Brand
Personal branding, self-branding, self-positioning, whatever you choose to call it, it’s really about personal marketing. Why would you want to do that? It’s a great way to market your business in a way that can cost you nothing. You see it in action constantly. Donald Trump, for example, uses his name on his buildings, but [...]
How To Conduct Fair And Effective Employee Appraisals
Most organisations review the performance of their employees on a regular basis (usually annually), for the purposes of determining pay adjustments, promotions, terminations and training requirements. Unfortunately, the very idea of being “appraised”, of having some superior pass judgement on them, is resented by many employees – unfortunate because, in fact, a structured Performance Appraisal [...]
Is Social Media Changing Business?
Social Media is changing the way business is conducted and evidence is mounting that it has now reached a critical mass and that all businesses need to develop a social media strategy and be actively involved in Social Media. Social Media is using technology to create multi-directional conversations between people. The main Social Media technologies [...]