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

Be The Entrepreneur You Want To Be

If you want to change your behav­ior to be a bet­ter entre­pre­neur, you’re going to have to find a    model. Then you need to employ empa­thy by mim­ic­k­ing it. For much of my adult life, I spent a lot of time in news­rooms. As a result of hang­ing out with newsies all the time, I became one of them. Yes, I was the pro­to­typ­i­cal reporter: Gruff, cyn­i­cal, sus­pi­cious and...

twanless

Beat Analysis Paralysis Once And For All

Every inde­pen­dent pro­fes­sional busi­ness oper­a­tor suf­fers from analy­sis paral­y­sis occa­sion­ally. Worse, it hap­pens more often in an inde­pen­dent busi­ness than it does in a cor­po­rate gig where deci­sions are often made in a team set­ting. When you’re an inde­pen­dent, the rhythms of busi­ness oper­a­tion mean that when you’re try­ing to fig­ure out some...

twanless

Nice Credentials! Who Cares?

Stop wor­ry­ing about your cre­den­tials and start wor­ry­ing about the value you pro­vide to clients. You’ll be more successful. Sev­eral years ago, when I was fas­ci­nated by the power of the Inter­net and was in a play­ful mood, I had my dog, Katie, accred­ited as an ordained min­is­ter by an online church. For my five bucks, I received a nice cer­tifi­cate and a notice that she...

twanless

Advice Businesses Can Survive In The World Of Free

Entre­pre­neurs run­ning advi­sory busi­nesses often feel they can’t com­pete with all that free infor­ma­tion on the Inter­net. But they can if they approach it right. A recent com­ment about a pre­vi­ous post sparked a dis­cus­sion on a forum about how to be an adviser in a world where infor­ma­tion is every­where, and usu­ally free or very low cost. How can advis­ers make a...