This past November, the new District 26 Toastmaster of the Year for 2012-2013 was selected and it has given me a moment to reflect on my past year as the out-going Toastmaster of the Year. My friend Alan Swartz likes to kid me a bit because he knows I didn’t have a strong grasp of […]
- Home
- Best Practices
Best Practices
Build Your Business: How to ask for Testimonials

There are many ways to build your business or organization. Successful organizations have multiple tools in their toolkit…One of the tools is to ask for testimonials… Why? People do business with individuals that they know, like and trust…Testimonials are a form of social proof that you or your business solves problems, gets results, are […]
Increase Your Profits: Reduce Scope Creep

What is scope creep? You have experienced scope creep even if you don’t realize. Have you ever gone shopping at the grocery store, WalMart or Target, Lowes or Home Depot and come back with items that were not on your shopping list? The humorous cartoon to the left by Thomas A. Tinsley, author of Deadlines […]
The 4 types of organizations – [Mentors] Standing on the shoulders of giants

What is Standing on the shoulders of Giants? This is essentially working with a support group, coach or mentor so you aren’t completely recreating the wheel. It doesn’t really matter what stage your organization is in, you always need somebody to bounce new ideas off of or somebody who you can talk to when working […]
Lessons Learned: Consolidating Email Lists

Lessons Learned: Consolidating Email Lists Like many of you, I have an extensive email list across 3-4 platforms. When you have been working for a while, the number of people that you know seems to add up. When you’ve been working for over 16 years, they REALLY add up. Working with some other business professionals, […]
Smile: It Pays to be Happy at Work

Have you ever called a business and the person answering the phone sounded rude…maybe even angry? Maybe you visited a business and the person greeting you wasn’t very friendly. How did that make you feel? I don’t know about you, but I don’t tend to go back to businesses like that. What if it is […]
5 Components of Best Practices

Best Practices… It is interesting how every industry and profession has best practices. It is also interesting how similar they are across industries as you will see in some of the examples below. I personally like to see what the best practices are in different industries and then modify them to fit the situation. A […]