twanless

Love Is Blind: Is Your Business Idea Really That Good?

You’ve been slav­ing away on the work­bench at your prod­uct, your ser­vice, and your busi­ness plan. You’ve laboured late into the night, putting all your rela­tion­ships on hold, and try­ing to ignore the no-nothings who freely offer advice on how you should do it. That’s because you have a GREAT IDEA for a business. You have this fan­tas­tic, whizz-bang, prod­uct or ser­vice that’s...

twanless

Are You Sure What Business You Are In?

Most com­pa­nies believe they have a pretty good han­dle on what their busi­nesses  are and what they do. But in today’s world, that belief might be a lit­tle shaky and out of date.   Do you know what busi­ness you’re REALLY in? Most pro­fes­sional ser­vice providers believe they do. It’s accoun­tancy, or  con­sult­ing, or mar­ket­ing or one of dozens of other ser­vice...

twanless

Streamline Operations With Your Own Business Books

All pro­fes­sional ser­vice or advi­sory busi­nesses have a ten­dency to repeat the same processes reg­u­larly. Coaches, con­sul­tants, agents, and other ser­vice providers may be oper­at­ing in a some­what more cre­ative world than man­u­fac­tur­ers, but they still have routines. After all, that’s what ser­vice busi­ness oper­a­tion is. Except for the odd — and some­times...

twanless

The One-Hour Reinvention Plan

Every rein­ven­tion, whether per­sonal or busi­ness, requires some explo­ration. But, that explo­ration can too eas­ily become wan­der­ing aim­lessly. You need a map to guide you along the path. Recently I was work­ing with an entre­pre­neur on a way to start a new busi­ness. Quickly, it became appar­ent that he was pretty fuzzy on what he wanted to do. You see, he’d closed his for­mer...

twanless

The Curse of Complexity: Afraid To Be Simple

If you’re orga­niz­ing a busi­ness and want to be suc­cess­ful, answer some of the big, sup­pos­edly sim­ple, ques­tions first. Then, and only then, do you put the more com­plex mechan­ics of busi­ness oper­a­tion in place. Recently I’ve been work­ing with sev­eral young pro­fes­sional ser­vice com­pa­nies that are try­ing to cre­ate spe­cific online spaces to mar­ket and...