We have been spending a lot of thinking time lately with Nassim Nicolas Taleb, the author of The Black Swan and Antifragile. Black swans are his metaphor for events that are a) unpredictable; b) massive in their consequences for the people concerned; and c) obvious in hindsight.

Below are the three of his most significant points. We call them “risks hiding in plain sight.”

  ❶ The world would have us treat our businesses like a game. Founding and operating a...

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Four aspects of your business need to be brought together in harmony to create a total customer service culture. These four aspects are: your Vision, your People, your Customer Service System, and proven Tools and Techniques for continuous improvement.

Read on to see how these 4 open secrets can help you win customer loyalty and generate new business success.   1.  Put customer service at the heart of your Vision. We all keep our promises to our customers, most of the...

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With so many distractions, particularly at this late season, we can forget how our success is ALL about our customer service.  Are you delighting your customers at every contact? Or are you neglecting them into the arms of other vendors? The math is clear! It is five times more expensive to make sales to new customers than it is to keep your current customers happy. 

  Read on to find the 3 lost keys and consider ways to delight your customers. Let's keep them coming back...

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We are interested in your second and third thoughts - and not just your automatic responses - to some searching business questions in the arenas of pricing, new sales, cost reduction, and productivity. Be sure to note down your ideas to grow your profitability, no matter how outrageous. Fresh seed ideas are how to work smarter. Not harder!
  1.  Pricing: What if you raised some or all of your prices...+1%, +10%, or even +100%? What happened last time you changed your...

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I'm returning here to everybody's hot topic; personal productivity. I have written to you before about actions you can take to work smarter, and David Rock's 'Your Brain at Work' has given me a lot more food for thought on being a 'knowledge worker.' Of course, this is what we entrepreneurs are; we get paid for our original thinking that takes place at the same time as all our routine thinking. Our success in creating wealth is dependent on our ability to make best use of our...

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