Short pieces, one topic at a time.
Marketing & sales
- Marketing & sales
The five basics of promotion, and why only two are marketing
Successful promotion rests on five basics, and only two of them are marketing. If one of the other three is missing, even a well written… - Marketing & sales
Why the ad is rarely the reason a campaign failed
When a campaign fails, the source blames what was never carried out, and rarely the idea. The missing step can date from years before… - Marketing & sales
Who goes on your customer list, and why old names stay
Your customer list holds people who bought, not people who only asked. A file's age says nothing about activity, so deleting old names… - Marketing & sales
Why a plain update sent regularly beats a perfect newsletter
A standing channel to customers works even when plain, and without it the business goes quiet. Cutting it looks like a saving, yet the cost… - Marketing & sales
What an ad must say before anyone will respond to it
An ad that sells is factual and explicit, and it registers in about a quarter of a second. Design stops people binning it, and information… - Marketing & sales
How to tell whether your promotion works, and what to measure
The first number to measure in promotion is how much went out from you, before how well it was written. That volume leads your income by a…
Organization
- Organization
Fighting fires is part of the job. It can't be all of it
Putting out fires is allowed, and there will always be some. The overload starts when that is all you do, because it comes from coping with… - Organization
What organizing is in a business, and what a chart leaves out
Organizing is movement: things come in, change and go out, and fixed posts exist so that can happen. A post that nothing passes through… - Organization
What confusion is in a business, and the one sign that shows it
Confusion is flow with no pattern: plenty of movement and nothing going out. Adding people without a layout makes it worse. Sequence and… - Organization
Why a one-person business needs structure, and needs it more
The smaller the business, the more vital the pattern. Alone, you are every step, and one skipped step drops the whole sequence without… - Organization
Why the product comes first when you structure a business
Structure comes from the end: first what leaves the business, then what gets done to produce it, and last who does it. Most people start at… - Organization
Two changes that look like improvement and break what works
Duplicating a function and experimenting on a process that works both look like improvement. The rule: one source per function, and trials…
Money
- Money
The cash-bills ratio, and why it replaces your bank balance
The cash-bills ratio sets the cash you could spend today against the payments due now, so it shows whether you have money when your bank… - Money
Why one-for-one is a trap, and how much you must produce
To merely hold your standard of living, your business must produce well above what you take home. Covering exactly what you spend leads to… - Money
The weekly number that says if you are above the line
Your weekly number is the income the business needs each week to exist and promote. A week that ends below it shows you at once that you… - Money
Why every expense in your business has to buy something back
Every business expense must return more money than it cost. An expense whose return you cannot name is a hope, and the small ones are the… - Money
What a second pot is, and why it keeps your number true
A second pot is a separate place for money already owed elsewhere, such as sales tax, so the number in your main account shows how much is… - Money
When expenses pass income, why the order decides everything
When expenses pass income, the source gives a sequence whose order binds, and the costly mistake is starting at its end. Your credit rests…
Personnel
- Personnel
What a hat is, and why it only exists once someone is trained
A hat is the duties of a post, kept in one folder with what must be known and the materials. It exists only once someone is trained on it. - Personnel
What goes into a hat, and why a licence is not enough
Before someone works alone in a post they go through five steps, and a trade licence is only the second. The post itself is covered by a… - Personnel
Why even an experienced hire gets stuck without a written hat
An experienced employee can get stuck because their trade does not tell them how things work with you. Without a written hat, the post only… - Personnel
Why hiring one person at a time is the most expensive way
Hiring one person after another looks careful and cheap, yet the source calls it the costliest route: every replacement leaves the post… - Personnel
How many new hires normally fail, and what a high rate means
One hire in ten not working out is normal, according to the source. When half or more fail, the cause usually sits inside the business… - Personnel
Why another employee does not fix overload: two checks first
Before you hire anyone else, the source asks for two checks: how fully your current people are used, and whether they know what to do.
Personal
- Personal
What developed traffic is, and why it eats your day
Developed traffic is work that never needed to happen. The source says confusion about what you are meant to produce creates it, and malice… - Personal
What to do with a message that isn't yours
A message that isn't yours is either off-line or off-origin. The source says the only correct action is to send it back to the sender… - Personal
Why it pays to name everything that eats your day
Calling a day crazy tells you nothing to fix. The source lists types of needless traffic, and two or three of them usually eat most of your… - Personal
Why handling what isn't yours piles on your load
The source calls it the biggest goof: handling needless traffic without recognizing it. Each time you do, you teach the people around you… - Personal
Why everything you put off gets done twice
The source says you can cut your work in half by not doing it twice. Each item you set aside is read and decided on again, and it only… - Personal
Completed staff work: a problem with a recommendation
Completed staff work is a request that arrives complete enough to answer with yes or no. Without it, the source says, you end up doing the…
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