technician
I had an interesting discussion with a relatively new franchise owner recently. (He’d been in about 18 months.) His business, a commercial locksmithing/security franchise, is doing very well — which really vindicated his search approach. The primary thing he was looking for in a franchise was an industry that was “un-glamorous” — not sexy or flashy … the kind of work that people don’t particularly get excited about. His reasoning for…
cash cow
One of my favorite small business finance books* is Greg Crabtree’s “Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits.” He takes what is typically viewed as a dry, painful topic and makes it compelling — and, more importantly, he cuts through a lot of noise and shares some excellent, practical advice on how to create a profitable business. (*Note: To be fair, my list of favorite small business finance books is pretty…
magical feedback
You might not know this, but companies that place in the top 100 Best Places to Work substantially outperform other companies – in productivity, stock price, retention … pretty much across the board. Why is that? Because typically those companies have a great team culture and that makes a huge difference. Old-school thinking would tell you that culture doesn’t matter that much – but the difference between a great team…