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Business Strategy

Define Your Strategy by What You Aren’t Doing

by Tim Berry on October 16, 2009

in Business Planning, Business Strategy

Somewhere somebody described to me the process in which Michelangelo imagined his David from inside a flawed block of granite marble that had a crack in it. The crack became the hitch in David’s arm as he holds the sling.
I think that’s something like real business strategy. The general type of business, what other people [...]

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Boomer Business Blogger Part 3: Is It Good Business?

by Tim Berry on May 7, 2009

in Baby Boomer, Business Strategy, Marketing, Social media, Web/Tech, Weblogs

A nice person almost apologized to me for not having her business on Facebook. I said: “but why?”
Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and all the rest of that “social media stuff” may or may not be good business. But not just for its own sake. It has to be part of a strategy.
Otherwise, it may or may [...]

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Build a Mission

by Tim Berry on March 12, 2009

in Business Ethics, Business Management, Business Strategy

Funny coincidence: “mission” the way we use it in business, and “mission” the way the Spanish priests used it to build colonial California. In both cases, it’s foundations. As the Spanish settled California, the conquistadores who explored were followed by…

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About Eating Your Own Tail

by Tim Berry on February 12, 2009

in Business Planning, Business Strategy, Technology

I just read Netflix demolishes own business model on John Caddell’s blog and I think it’s very much worth passing on. John is posting about Netflix now working with various (he just installed a Roku digital video player at his…

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Dealing with Idea Ghost Images

by Tim Berry on May 8, 2008

in Business Management, Business Mistakes, Business Planning, Business Strategy

I find this fascinating: “Yes, I think it’s a really good idea, and everybody around here really likes it, but what I’m worried about is that when I talk about it everybody I’m talking to sees what they think I’m…

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Suggestion: Make The Small Modules Work First

by Tim Berry on March 13, 2008

in Business Strategy

I knew a man who made a living with complicated mathematical models that he would provide for large companies. He was a professor at the Stanford Business School, but kept his consulting business on the side. “One thing you want…

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Employee Satisfaction as a Metric

by Tim Berry on February 8, 2008

in Business Management, Business Planning, Business Strategy

I was with Oregon Small Business Development Center counselors and directors yesterday doing a workshop on “The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan”, talking about metrics, when an interesting question arose. Joe Austin, an SBDC counselor who (I’m told) has been very successful…

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An Entrepeneurial [SIC] Misspelling

by Tim Berry on August 28, 2007

in Business Strategy

Alright I admit it. I don’t like grammatical errors and misspellings, I don’t like them, Sam I Am, not one little bit. I’ve done some peeveblogging on this site along those lines. But when I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I was…

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Business Self Help: You Can’t be an Original by Copying

by Tim Berry on August 5, 2007

in Business Planning, Business Strategy, Growing a Business

Very nice post last week by Brian McCann at Management R&D: Business for Boneheads. He makes a very good point. You can’t really interview a bunch of successful companies and reach useful conclusions that a reader can take to his…

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Another Angle on Great Customer Service

by Tim Berry on July 6, 2007

in Business Management, Business Strategy

One of the little-known side paths of great customer service is figuring out who’s a customer, and who isn’t. I just picked up a fascinating report about Sprint dropping customers who call customer service too often. Here’s the link: Sprint…

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