Word of Mouth: Your Ticket to Epic and Legendary!
Word of mouth is the Golden Ticket, the Lotto Jackpot and the Holy Grail all rolled into one righteous package that in its purest form costs absolutely nothing. We live in an overcommunicated society where the citizen is inundated with a relentless stream of messages,...
How Not to Burn Out in Sales!
So, you think you want to be a salespeep or you already are one and don’t know what to do with yourself? Salespeople often take a bad rap and it is so easy to burn out. There are promises galore of making the big bucks and cashing in. And then there are the realities...
The Magic of Surveys: How Warby Parker Disrupted the Eyeglass Monopoly
In this David and Goliath story, David wears stylish, quality eyewear that he got for $95. Monolithic corporations get aloof and arrogant when they fail to pay attention to people’s needs and wants—all while a fresher, leaner business model, attuned to the real world,...
Copywriting & Communication: Cutting through the Chaos
In an oversaturated digital landscape, can you communicate with class and get the desired results? Today, advertising and copywriting equate to an immersive experience of social media, television, video streaming, Google searches, blogging, branded content, print,...
Financial Planning Tips Applied to a Megabit-per-Nanosecond Economy
The mantra “MAKE MONEY!”—central in our minds and nightmares; motivating millions to do work they don’t necessarily love, burning a candle at midnight and rising before dawn. We pinch pennies, shed blood, sweat and tears, but all the penny-pinching is for naught if...
“Think Outside the Box!” Worn Out Buzzwords or Clarion Call for Sanity?
“Think Outside the Box!” Worn Out Buzzwords or Clarion Call for Sanity? When it’s done right, we experience prosperity and resurgence. When sabotaged or ill conceived, we endure depression and calamity. The word is TRAINING. L. Ron Hubbard wrote a detailed article...
Revitalizing Global Culture through 21st Century Commerce
There’s a direct line from sanity and ethics to organizational acumen and global revitalization. L. Ron Hubbard wrote in his article of 14 December 1970, “GROUP SANITY”: “The points of success and failure, the make and break items of an organization are: “1. HIRING”...
From Food Stamps to $19 Billion: The WhatsApp Story
Solvency and prosperity are not mysterious and nebulous accidents emerging from spontaneous explosions of primordial ooze. They are the results of hard work, production of a viable product and adherence to rock-solid basics. None of this is commonly associated with...
Building the Better Burger: The Inside Story of Five Guys
When it comes to building a better burger, Five Guys has answers. Over the past twenty years, it has become one of the fastest-growing restaurant chains in the country. Founded in 1986, their objective, right from the beginning, was to build a better burger cooked to...
Inc. 5000 Winners’ Dynamics of Making People Work
Some have “team building” pigeon-holed as a company retreat with the scavenger hunt, the mine field, the egg drop, the trust fall and others. Games and drills are helpful for building teamwork and confidence, but there are certain BASICS that if neglected will...
Three Keys to Success: How to Make Your Engine Run!
In the world of commerce, there are three vital items to make the engine run—costing, pricing and selling. Determining your costs and then the price are the basic bits of profitability. You must address that bottom line and be viable. Most pricing, today, falls into...
Marketing Make or Break: Being Someone Else While Still Being You
Getting a new business going is a fishing trip through shark-infested waters. But if you can see the world as a shark sees it, you up your chances of making it to higher ground, and ultimate victory. There’s one step that any competent marketing person or entrepreneur...
Bringing the Cyber-Tsunami in a Sea of Digital Noise
Our communication channels are oversaturated, and quite factually the minds of millions are utterly overloaded. How can your voice be heard with clarity amidst the steady drone? Every SECOND of every day there are about 7,500 tweets, 41,000 Facebook posts, 60,000...
The Facts on Fake News—the Art and Anatomy of Lying
The buzzword right now—highjacked by all sides—is “fake news.” The phrase is being run through the political hyperbole machine with the power knob at maximum. But what is it? Well, first off, fake news is nothing new. Ever read a tabloid? They quote “sources” on who...
The Wells Fargo Scam Makes Mockery of Money
To operate in business requires a better understanding of money, especially when those about you cause loss of confidence in money—as money is only an idea. In an article dated 27 November 1971, appropriately titled MONEY, renowned author and philosopher L. Ron...
From Space Stations to the Stars—Moving the World with Purpose
The poster for the film The Martian, based on Andy Weir’s novel, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon, reads “BRING HIM HOME.” The phrase drives the plot and prompts rival nations to cooperate. Like the moon landing of 1969, untold millions of people...
How Men’s Shavers Engineered Word of Mouth
You have heard the story of how one friend tells another friend who tells five more friends and pretty soon you have an economic revolution. Product reputations are built this way. It does not really matter how much money you spend on promotion; what does matter is...
The Basics of Marketing in the 21st Century: from Zero to Zillions
Who has millions or billions to spend on world-class communication? Turns out you won’t need that for your buck to make a massive bang. Apple, Coca-Cola, Nike: all committed astronomical sums for advertising in 2015. Apple raised its ad budget to $1.8 billion;...
How Does a LEGO Life-Size X-Wing Fighter Relate to the Ascent or Crash of Your Company?
Communication is a two-way trajectory. It means asking questions, listening, and acting where necessary on what you hear. And it isn’t just externally facing—i.e., you and your customers; it’s internal, management to manufacturing, marketing to sales, and so forth,...
Catastrophe and Raw Survival in the Age of Unicorns
[UNICORN: A tech startup that reaches a $1 billion market value as determined by private or public investment. The term was originally coined by Aileen Lee, founder of Cowboy Ventures.1] The cycle of boom and bust is nothing new, and an analysis of companies that...
How Facebook Changed the Face of Communications
Fan or not of Facebook, it can be readily argued that this social networking giant has become the champion communication medium of all time. Yes, there are other contemporary applications, like Twitter, Pinterest and Snapchat; however, when it comes to sheer numbers,...
What Does Subaru Know about Making Your Marketing Dollars Work
What Does Subaru Know about Making Your Marketing Dollars Work? In marketing, as in all administration, the simple things are the most powerful. When the simple, basic laws are fully grasped and intelligently applied, the result is increased productivity, expansion...
The Most Common Executive Failing: A Hidden Reason Good Employees Quit
A primary focus—and one of the most difficult tasks—of any executive is hiring and retaining competent and loyal employees. To cite a study from the Center for American Progress (CAP): “The cost of turnover is an important economic issue because about one-fifth of...
Anna Bissell—America’s First Female CEO and Why She Was a Sweeping Success
Who had it better—the turn-of-the-century executive or today’s tech-savvy managers? Without a doubt, the workplace of yesterday had its drawbacks—from working conditions to lack of technology, and of course the horse-and-buggy transport system was a bit slow. But then...
How to Maximize Company Longevity Through Organization
In the previous article in this series, “Proper Organization Is the Fountain of Youth in Company Longevity,”we described how faulty organization contributed to the ultimate demise of Pan Am, the once monolithic giant of the skies. The airline’s reign lasted throughout...
Tips & Tools: Finish What You Start
Ever found yourself going off in all directions at once? Ever experienced what the Red Queen, of Alice in Wonderland fame, once said: “…it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as...
Tips & Tools: A Tip Regarding Executives
Competent and loyal executives are solid gold to a business owner. The following is a vital tip you can use as an executive yourself—and with your junior executives—to help them create a more effective team. It comes from an article entitled “How to Fill Jobs,”...
Proper Organization is the Fountain of Youth in Company Longevity
What do Lloyd’s of London, Japanese construction company Kongō Gumi, Swedish newspaper Post-och Inrikes Tidningar, and Canadian retailer Hudson’s Bay Company all have in common? The one common attribute these seemingly disparate companies all possess is: longevity....
How to Utilize Surveys
In the previous article in this series (How Not To Fall Off A Cliff: Surveys In Today’s World), we covered two correct application of the concepts as laid out in L. RON HUBBARD’S ARTICLE OF 2 SEPTEMBER 1979, SURVEYS ARE THE KEY TO STATS. “To find out what people want...
How To Break Free of a Bad Economy
This article is a follow up to the previously released “Breaking Free of a Bad Economy” to help you overcome business and market challenges. “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”, said Seneca, a Roman philosopher and statesman who lived in the...
Breaking Free of a Bad Economy
“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” Henry Ford is credited with saying that long before many successful modern companies we know and respect, such as Twitter, YouTube and Instagram, felt the pressures of impending failure and changed course...
How Not To Fall Off a Cliff: Surveys In Today’s World
In 1997, when Diana, Princess of Wales suddenly died as the result of an automobile accident in Paris, millions of people across the world were overwrought with grief. It was a huge sorrow for people from all walks of life. And yet for the previous eleven years, her...