In his famous book Good to Great, Jim Collins writes about interviewing Admiral James Stockdale, who was a POW in Vietnam. There’s one line from that interview that has remained seared in my brain ever since. Collins asked Stockdale about how he dealt with the cruelty, the deprivation, and the uncertainty of not knowing if…
We just finished up our Social Selling Cohort that has spent the last 12 weeks working on increasing our lead generation through LinkedIn outreach. (Hit reply if you want to know more about it.) As I listened to people talk about the value they received, one thing came up again and again. Consistent activity creates…
We’ve been inside (more or less) for 154 days. Even though I’d been working at home for almost a year before the shutdown, the extended confinement of ‘Rona times has been messing with my head. When I leave the house only to walk the dog, or occasionally to shop, one day blurs into another. With few…
As if living through a global pandemic wasn’t enough — you’re a business owner, so you have to become an expert on SBA loan guidelines and now learn all about CDC recommendations too? We’re here to help you out. Here’s the CDC’s workplace decision tree and our advice about what to think about when reopening……
Note: It might seem weird talking about reopening offices in the middle of the protests and increased public awareness of racist violence. Honestly, it was a little weird to write it under these circumstances. That said, folks are working on reopening offices and have questions about what to do, and so I wanted to get…
This week my wife assigned her nieces and nephews some homework. She asked them to write two letters to the Coronavirus. In one, she wanted them to start, “I hate you coronavirus…” and then write down all the crummy things that happened since the shutdown. In the second letter, she asked them to start with,…
It looks like the US will be reopening slowly, perhaps county by county, but the fact is that where ever you are, your business will eventually get the chance to resume working in the office. When that chance comes, what will you do? At this point, my assumption about the “Level 1” opening is that…
For the last three weeks, I’ve been working with business owners grappling with the impact of the coronavirus shutdown on their business. We’ve been thinking not just about the immediate impacts Sending people to work-at-home Securing existing business as clients start to wavier Adjusting your sales and marketing strategy But also thinking about what it’s…
Here in Chicago, we’ve just completed our third week under a “Shelter in Place” order. Three weeks of working from home, kids underfoot, hunting for toilet paper, and a thousand more adjustments. We’ve gotten our team settled, reached out to clients and prospects, applied for our PPP Loan, reworked our budget for 2020, and made…
I’ve talked to a lot of business owners this week and heard a lot of different stories. Some are fielding record numbers of new business requests; others had seen their business drop by 50% or more. Some who don’t know anyone who had suffered from the virus, others who had seen friends and family members…