February - 2017

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Execute or Be Executed

We remember growing our career in management with a large Fortune 500 company when our Executive Vice President told us something one day. He said, “Execution is the one thing that separates the good from the great. Let me put it to you this way. If you don’t execute, you’ll be executed.” We guess it’s hard to forget that, but it still rings true in our mind today. Some of the best leaders and managers in business don’t achieve peak results because they simply don’t execute t

Building a Bootstrapping Mentality

Bootstrapping a business startup is an art. It can be a lot of fun if approached the right way. No matter how well-funded your business startup may be, the fundamentals of bootstrapping should never be forgotten - and should always be applied. Bootstrapping is not the same thing as being "cheap". Cheap is penny-wise but dollar foolish. In my second venture in the air freight forwarding business I needed a cargo van to pickup client shipments, but to also use it as a rol

The Most Valuable Inheritance - "A Work Ethic"

9:00 AM comes especially early for kids or young teenagers. It is even more debilitating when your father is the alarm clock that has a snooze button you don’t want to press. Today by 9:00 AM I have run a mile, been at work for an hour, and had my first cup of coffee. But back then, not so much. There was always something to do around the house and my father made sure that we were up to do it. Of course, we were never in the best of moods in the morning and this reaction wo

Balancing Life as an Entrepreneur

The need to strike a balance in life between work and family is not lost on the entrepreneur. The effort required to get a startup over the hump to profitability can take months or even years. During this time, there is a very focused and intense effort to get the job done. But - it is also important that all affected family members are pulling in the same direction and know what the overall family objectives are. The "business" was always the "family business" even though