As a general rule, employees don’t form unions if they are thrilled with management, pay, working conditions and their jobs. Especially in the United States, forming a union is not a recreational activity. It’s difficult and could cost workers their jobs. Amazon and Starbucks both face fast-spreading unionization efforts. In addition to worker complaints and demands, Starbucks has a lo... »
Last month, Netflix announced a first quarter forecast of only 2.5 million new subscribers. That would be the weakest quarter for the world’s largest streaming service since 2010, when the majority of Netflix customers still got DVDs in the mail. The day after the announcement, Netflix shares tumbled more than 25%. Disney+ has grown rapidly. The firm set a goal of 60 million subscribers by t... »
Like a dog waiting for its master to come home, in the last few minutes of a long day, trapped inside with nothing more than a bowl of water, as the garage door opens and excitement oozes out of the furry little creature, each trip I take on this bright blue and green ball around the sun beckons me, towards the end of the year, to forget every challenge I’ve survived in the preceding 11 months and... »
Each month, we have really great coaching calls for Look Over My Shoulder members and received two excellent questions from members, Dr. Michael McCarthy and Dr. Kim Mai. The principles and strategies reviewed during the call teed me up nicely for a small handful of new client calls and progress reports. Both members in the group call had their eyes on the horizon, a willingness to learn and share... »
Raymond Joseph Teller is an American magician, writer, actor and film director. He is half of the comedy magic duo Penn & Teller, along with Penn Jillette, where he usually does not speak during performances. Jillette shared the story at an event where we were both speaking on stage to a large group of entrepreneurs that Teller started out in stand up comedy being relentlessly heckled by the a... »
In her book, When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron shares the story of her teacher, Trungpa Rinpoche’s, response to being asked if he had ever been afraid. He explains that he was once confronted by a fierce guard dog. The people he was traveling with ran from the dog. He ran toward the dog. The dog was so surprised that he ran quickly away. Chodron approaches fear and anxiety as moments to stop st... »
In his new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman takes readers through a sobering assessment of “time management” and presents a new way to form a better relationship with yourself and escape the dangerous “efficiency traps” lurking around every corner. In a nutshell, Burkeman argues that the more productive we are, the more pressure we feel and this cycle is dang... »
One decade ago, Ashleigh Barty won the girl’s Wimbledon title at the age of 15. This year, she won her first Wimbledon women’s final and her second Grand Slam title. Barty tends to be very quiet and holds her cards close to her chest, but over the last several weeks, it became obvious how very ambitious she was to win the incredible Wimbledon tournament. The first Australian woman to reach a Wimbl... »
Last month, the U.S. government declared emergency powers in order to keep fuel supply lines open, due to fears of shortages following a cyber attack on the Colonial pipeline. This one pipeline provides almost half of the fuel consumed on the east coast of the United States. Following a ransomware attack on Friday, the entire pipeline shut down. As of yesterday, The Colonial Pipeline Company has m... »
“Most people don’t grow up. It’s too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That’s the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don’t grow up. Not really. They get older. But to grow up costs the earth, the earth. It means you take responsibility for the time you take up, for the space you occup... »
I listened to an interesting report on NPR recently about police hypnotists, which I didn’t know existed. Apparently hypnotism is one of many tools detectives will use in Texas to help get more information from victims and suspects. The problem and challenge, as you might imagine, is the power of suggestion and the imperfect nature of our memories. Because spring is the season of renewal, I’... »
One of my favorite cartoonists wrote in the introduction to his first book, “I’ll never forget the first time I ever laughed out loud at a cartoon. The year was 1989. I was casually wandering past a stationery display in a department store when a batch of greeting cards caught my eye. I picked one up, looked at the drawing, read the caption and then it happened. I laughed. Not just a c... »
Massimo Chiapponi launched his Parma bike shop Italia Veloce in 2009 with fellow “retro- velo” enthusiasts Christian Grande, a multidisciplinary designer, and advertising executive Max Rabaglia. He has been racing bicycles since he was a kid and turned his hobby of hand-built bikes into an Italian business that now ships to clients as far away as the U.S., Japan and New Zealand. Chiapponi’s lead m... »
At the time of this writing, there are only a few days left in the year 2020. To quote Leslie Jones and her thoughts about the year, “I would say it was a train wreck and shit show but that would be unfair to trains and shit.” Naturally, we’re all ready to move on from this year and to set big goals for 2021. I recently hosted an entire training program with members, helping them set n... »
In The Law of Success, Napoleon Hill demonstrates how people have a tendency to reap where they have not sown. You see this with companies who assume the grass is greener and hop into another industry or mess with their core product or service, to their detriment. Coke did this with New Coke in the 80’s and it cost them billions in marketshare. Based on a few surveys, Coca-Cola thought they should... »
From Melanie Evans and Alexandra Berzon in The Wall Street Journal: “During a pandemic, hospitals and local, state and federal agencies rely on a range of real-time metrics to respond to emergencies quickly. They need to know how many beds are available at each facility, whether hospitals need more nurses and the available number of ventilators and other critical supplies. That way, patients... »
In his excellent book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King addresses the phenomenon of writer’s block. He says, “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” I agree. I’ve written thousands of pages of content, spread across ten published books, scores of special reports, articles and hundreds of marketing, management and leadersh... »
In his review of the new book, How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower’s Biggest Decisions, David Roll shares what is known about the evening before a critical World War II invasion, when General Eisenhower visited the 101st Airborne Division at Newbury, a town in the south of England: “This was the unit whose glider forces and paratroopers, Leigh-Mallory had predicted, would suffer ro... »
Maria Konnikova holds a Ph.D. in psychology. She writes about her research on how quickly people make up their minds and how unwilling they are to change them. She’s a New York Times best-selling author and also a world-champion poker player. For her latest book, The Biggest Bluff, she trained with and then competed against some of the best poker players in the world. They taught her to ques... »
During periods of growth, it is common to create certain complexities inside your business that, left unchecked, will stifle or even strangle growth. Consider this one of the great paradoxes of running a business. The more successful you are and the higher you reach for the stars, the more likely you are to get tripped up by the very things that brought you success. I’ve seen this with nearl... »
Angela Duckworth is the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studies grit and self-control. In her book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Professor Duckworth defines grit as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.” “In their work with The United States Military Academy at West Point, Duckworth and he... »
As of November, Nike no longer sells directly on Amazon. Nike is not alone. Birkenstock, Louis Vuitton, North Face, Patagonia, Asics, Ralph Lauren, Rolex and Vans do not sell directly on Amazon either. Nestlé Nespresso dominates a huge direct-to-consumer channel and paid Starbucks $7 billion to take over the sale of coffee and capsules for Nespresso machines. The new Disney+ streaming service cut ... »
Indian spiritual leader, Sri Chinmoy, explains that peace begins when expectation ends. Perhaps the most dangerous trait I see in perfectionist doctors and business owners is the attachment to their expectations on how things should be; how a certain result should be achieved. They are attached to a very specific outcome. You know this sets you up for disappointment, frustration and failure. Inste... »
Dwight D. Eisenhower was a brilliant general. In the Second World War, he devised the “Eisenhower Box.” This is a matrix that ranks priorities according to importance and urgency. Eisenhower didn’t want unimportant things coming to him in an urgent manner. He also didn’t want important decisions to be made urgently if time wasn’t a factor. Many business schools actual... »
Mark Twain wondered, “whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.“ His quote could have been written 1,000 years ago as easily as today or 1,000 years from now. This is one of many reasons I like Twain. He knew how to think accurately about human nature. He focused on things that never change. This way of thinking is an anti... »
I’ve been presenting on the power of patient gifting and marketing automation for many years. The most common question from audiences revolves around cost. I’m asked, “How much should I spend on a new patient welcome gift, shock ‘n awe package or new start ‘wow’ box?” My answer has always been the same: whatever it takes. Clearly, one of the top five reaso... »
Karin Krog is a too little appreciated Norwegian jazz singer. Her album with Dexter Gordon, Some Other Spring, was produced in 1970 but sounds as rich and energetic as anything being produced today or in the heyday of Kansas City Swing or 1940s bebop. The album has earned its rightful place in the top jazz albums of all time and I recently rediscovered Krog while reading through The Penguin Jazz G... »
Advertisers wasted $5.8 billion last year on digital ads that were viewed by bots and fake accounts. According to the Association of National Advertisers and fraud-detection company White Ops Inc., “Ad-fraud schemes have quickly risen and been much more difficult to measure.” No kidding. If ad fraud was easy to measure, we advertisers would fix it quickly. But it’s not, and here ... »
If you’ve been hanging around me for very long, you know that I like to read. A lot. As a rule of thumb, even though I read nearly every new business book that comes out, I read them quickly and scan for common principles that I might be able to apply to my businesses or to help my employees, business partners or coaching clients. I much prefer to read classic books that have stood the test ... »
During the American Civil War, morphine was widely used to treat pain, dysentery and malaria. Many farmers and citizens grew opium poppies to help support the war effort, rushing morphine to the front lines. So many soldiers were addicted to morphine during the war, that they had to be given syringes and taught how to self-administer the drug after the war ended. With an epidemic of morphine addic... »
Adam Phillips is a brilliant writer, psychologist and regular contributor to The London Review of Books. The closest I can come to the kind of people who think at this level, is that they let me subscribe to The London Review of Books. Barely. Although I don’t agree with Phillips on a lot of issues, I take particular delight in his assessment of couples who come to him with a desire to chang... »
Most small business owners have scores of reports they check each month to help them manage their money. Expenses and revenue are tracked meticulously. Budgets are set and regularly reviewed before new investments are made in technology or human capital. Even the average business owner has some idea of their production, collections and expenses this week or this month and how they compare to the s... »
One of the most difficult tasks I face as a coach and consultant is helping doctors better understand what it is they want and who they want to become. It’s also the most rewarding part of my job. Erich Fromm said, “Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become who he potentially is.” I’ve spent private coaching days with hundreds and hundreds of doctors and small business owners ... »
You’ve probably heard me repeat the following proverb many times: “To a man with only a hammer, every problem tends to look pretty much like a nail.” Unfortunately, orthodontics is a narrow professional doctrine and liable to suffer from man-with-hammer thinking. I’ve witnessed this in my own practices and in those of the orthodontists I coach. The most-successful orthodontists study broadly outsi... »
This weekend on the way home from one of our satellite locations, I listened to an interesting segment on NPR about competition in healthcare. Two economists were quoting Milton Friedman. That’s a quick way to get my attention. If you haven’t read Friedman, you’re doing yourself a disservice. One of the economists has made it his life mission to take down the California Medical Association and the... »
In his book Free Market Madness, Peter Ubel illustrates the risk many parents took in the 1970s by choosing not to vaccinate their children for polio. The main reason in deciding not to vaccinate was that 1 in 2.4 million could actually contract the disease from the vaccine. Parents overlooked the fact that the risk of contracting the disease, without the vaccination, was exponentially higher than... »
My friend, Dan Kennedy, shared some great inside baseball at The Advanced Trust and Authority-Building Academy with Burleson Seminars in Cleveland recently. If you missed it, I’m not going to give you all of his pearls, but I will share a BIG one with you below. When practically applied to your business, the marketing principle can transform your business. If you look around, you’ll find ver... »
Simon Sinek rose to business fame with his TED Talk, “Start with Why.” His book of the same name is a brilliant look at how most companies know what they do, some can tell you how they do it, but very few have a compelling reason why. It’s a great book to help business owners think about why they exist in the marketplace. I’ve long taught doctors, “You must have a more profound reason why you exis... »
Jay Papasan, coach to fortune 500 CEOs instructs, “financially wealthy people are those who have enough money coming in without having to work to finance their true purpose in life.” If you haven’t found your true purpose in life, there is no amount of money that will satisfy you. You’ll never know if you have enough money. You can never technically be financially wealthy without purpose. Try find... »
Paco Underhill, author of several books on why consumers buy and consultant to large retailers, knows as much as any author I’ve read about where to place items on shelves, how consumers make buying decisions and specifically what drives female consumer choices. His work warrants your study and this weekly fax does not offer enough real estate to properly review the body of evidence his research h... »
Weighing in at 880 pages, Edward Wolff’s A Century of Wealth in America is no light read for the beach. Like Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” the book is dense, packed with equations and statistics, citing more references than ten books in the same category. Yet, it is important and timely. Any smart business owner who wants to understand the economic trends that shape our w... »
Born on a Missouri farm in 1875, James Cash Penney started in the retail business in 1898 as a store clerk in Colorado. He quickly moved up the ranks and in 1902, he was offered a partnership in the Golden Rule store. He soon bought the entire operation and by 1914 he moved the company headquarters to New York City and had built the largest department-store chain in the United States by 1917. At t... »
The Death of Expertise is a fascinating book I’m re-reading this year by Tom Nichols, a professor at the Naval War College and Harvard. With so much information at our fingertips, anyone can know anything at the swipe of a finger on their smartphone. Yet, there is a lot of misguided information as the news has transformed into a 24/7 entertainment machine. Nichols argues that “an increasingly demo... »
John Stuart Mill wrote this in the Principles of Political Economy (1848): “Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.” Film and television critic, Nathan Heller, writes in a recent New Yorker column: “A measure of industrial progress is the speed with which inventions grow insufferable. The elevator, once a marvel of eff... »
Johann Goethe wrote in Maxims and Reflections, “There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.” To build a private practice with sustainable growth, you need an understanding of everything the business world can throw at you. Demographic analysis and site selection, marketing and positioning, recruitment, management and motivation of employees, clinical and administrative systems, leade... »
Why do so many business owners fail to hit their goals? Why do your employees often fail to reach their targets and projects on time and under budget? Researchers in something as innocuous as the sport of golf have published some new insights on an old concept that we’ve covered here and in the Look Over My Shoulder Monthly Marketing Program, called cognitive bias. David Dunning, a psychology prof... »
In his book, Tinker Dabble Doodle Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind, Dr. Srini Pillay reminds us that often more focus is not the solution to achieving our goals. As a Harvard-trained and practicing psychiatrist, he lectures around the world on the power of the untrained mind. Pillay says, “Every experience contributes to brain development. Deviations from the straight and narrow path ca... »
When any company leads their field for over 25 years and then gets invited to showcase their work in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian, I pay attention. House Industries has been the leader in American graphic design for decades. Starting in the summer of 2017, their work will also be featured at the Henry Ford Museum. In their new book, House Industries: The Process Is the Inspiration, ... »
British Philsopher, Alan Watts, said the only way to make sense out of change is to “plunge into it, move with it and join the dance.” In my favorite book of his, The Wisdom of Insecurity, Watts tells a story about his childhood desire to send someone a parcel of water in the mail: “The recipient unties the string, releasing the deluge in his lap. But the game would never work, since it is irritat... »
Gerry Zaltman is a distinguished professor at the Harvard Business School. I first discovered him in my own MBA studies where he was a guest lecturer and it’s obvious why large clients like Coca-Cola and Proctor & Gamble hire his consulting firm to better understand how consumers think. When I watched Gerry’s team go through an interview process that analyzes a consumer’s deep metaphors and li... »
Derek Thompson, senior editor of the Atlantic, is one of my favorite writers. Although I frequently disagree with his views and politics, I appreciate any writer who can make me think and Thompson does a great job. I also appreciate his broad knowledge base and thorough research on any topic he investigates. His first book, Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction, does not d... »
I was fortunate enough to hear David Sax speak at the Kansas City Public Library about his new book, The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter. In it he shares how tangible things have experienced a resurgence of popularity. When the digital book reader became popular, people proclaimed the end of the book, yet physical book sales are up significantly in the last few years. When exper... »
I don’t always agree with Thomas Friedman, but it’s hard to argue with someone who has won 3 Pulitzer prizes and countless journalistic accolades in a respected career. In his latest book, “Thank You for Being Late,” he gets far more right than in any of his previous works and gives society a powerful and timely assessment of our current world and its rapidly-accelerating pace, change and technolo... »
I enjoy authors who can mix and match stories and lessons from figures as diverse as Picasso, Proust, Edison, John Lennon and Michael Jackson while creating a book that still maintains a common theme and excellent core concepts. Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire have written such a book, Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind, and it’s been one of my favorite referen... »
Cameron Herold has been called the “CEO Whisperer” by the publisher of Forbes magazine. Not only does he consult with CEOs and C-suite executives from Fortune 500 companies but he was also the COO at 1-800-GOT-JUNK and grew revenue from $2 million to over $106 million in less than 6 years. A self-described “poor student” in school and university who was always looking for t... »
I’ve long been a fan of Holiday’s writing. In Trust Me I’m Lying and The Obstacle is the Way, Holiday presented refreshing views on marketing and Stoicism. In his latest book, Ego is the Enemy, Holiday asks the next question when embracing the obstacles in your life, namely how to achieve your goals with your ego in check. Holiday points out, although the world and its history books have been shap... »
I often lament the fact that the average American watches 38 hours of television per week but only reads one book per year. I shouldn’t get too excited about averages. Alan Jacobs, professor of the humanities at Baylor University, sets out to make the case that reading is alive and well with large bookstores both online and off being supported by large numbers of book clubs and readers of all ages... »
Rumsey sets out on an ambitious book that reviews the history of the Library of Congress and asks how we remember, how it has changed and what influences our instant society plays in the process. In a world where people document their entire lives with digital photography, we seem to remember less and less about our lives. In a world with instant answers to any question on Google or Wikipedia, wit... »
Jim Koch, the founder of Samuel Adams brewery, is a fifth-generation brewmaster. In his new book, Quench Your Own Thirst: Business Lessons Learned Over a Beer or Two, he recalls the when starting Sam Adams of wasting a lot of time and potentially a lot of money trying to figure out which computer system to use. His uncle offered some sound and blunt advice. “I’ve never known a business to go bankr... »
In Matthew Crawford’s latest book, The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction, you’ll discover how few are aware that “we are separating thought from labor in pursuit of a destructive freedom.” Crawford is no lightweight thinker. This book has challenged how I think about communication and distraction more than any other book that has come before it, and I’ve re... »
I’ve been a grumpy and cantankerous curmudgeon for years about the ills of always-on social media, constant email connectivity, relentless meetings and silly technology productivity tools that actually take more time than getting out an old fashioned pen and paper or reading a map once, then driving the route once and having a new city more or less memorized without further need to use GPS every 1... »
Though I’m guessing all of you were required to read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, most of you will be surprised that Smith, the father of modern capitalism, had a whole lot of advice about how to live a meaningful life, how to treat others and what it really means to pursue happiness successfully. These concepts were fleshed out in a book that very few of my clients have ever heard of: Adam Smi... »
A collection of 300 aphorisms written by Baltasar Gracian in 17th century Spain, The Art of Worldly Wisdom is the best translation on the market, by Christopher Maurer. If one did nothing other than print out each of the 300 short truths and taped one to the bathroom mirror each morning, reflecting on it and applying it to his day, I’m confident he could take the last 65 days of the year off and s... »
If nothing else than to appreciate the dedication of two sociologists who spent years following New York City con artists uncovering their secrets, this book by Williams and Milton follows in the precendent of many of their other projects in that it is immense and thoroughly researched. The Con Men: Hustling in New York City reads like the script to a reality television show and anyone who has not... »
I always enjoy when experts from two different fields come together to ask questions and seek solutions to problems no one else has approached in quite the same fashion. Such is true with the partnership between Tony Wagner, an Expert in Residence at Harvard University’s Innovation Lab and leader in education has teamed up with Ted Dintersmith, one of the world’s leading venture capita... »
Team leadership is the number one skill most doctors list in pre-consulting surveys when asked what they would like for me to help them improve about their practice. A quick search on Amazon reveals over 191,755 results for the term “leadership.” Every year at professional meetings, there are leadership development panels and guru after guru trotting out their latest advancements in th... »
David Brooks has been one of my favorite columnists in the New York Times for years. He’s quickly becoming one of my favorite thought leaders in today’s cluttered world of noise. If you’ve followed me for very long at all, you’ve heard me teach the virtues of avoiding all of the noise and distractions in your life and Brooks certainly appears to be a man who has mastered the ability to focus on wh... »
It’s rare when a business book finds the right balance of practical advice, referenced background research and relevant stories but that’s exactly what Greg McKeown has assembled in his latest book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. Greg received his MBA from Stanford after coming to realize that completing law school in England wasn’t the best use of his most productive energy. He ha... »
The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, is a neat little reminder to focus on the one thing that can make everything else easier or unnecessary, moving forward. It’s a great book for achieving maximum results in your life, both personally and professionally. It’s written by two great business minds; one who built Keller Williams Realty and the other who coa... »
Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal in 1998 and first outside investor in Facebook and other brilliant startups through his venture capital firm, and his student Blake Masters have expanded their notes from Peter’s class in Stanford Law on what it takes to make meaningful and valuable startup companies and see them transform the world. If it sounds like a big promise, Thiel’s concepts and ... »
Ryan Holiday’s new book, The Obstacle is the Way, offers a fascinating and well-researched look at the classic philosophers and their lessons on overcoming obstacles. Ryan takes it a step further, however, in laying out practical steps you can take in your business and in your life to not only overcome obstacles but actually embrace each setback and discover the inherent opportunity within every ... »
One of the great thinkers of our time, Thomas Friedman, consistently provides in-depth reporting on a range of topics that affect us all. His book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, provides an interesting look at what the New York Times calls “a brilliant guide for the here and now.” Just as relevant today as it was when it was initially published in 1999, Friedman, a three-time Pulitze... »
The brightest entrepreneurs I’ve met take calculated risks. Diana Kander’s book, All In Startup: Launching a New Idea When Everything is on the Line, is an excellent look at how the smartest minds in business know exactly when to go “all in.” The defining characteristic of true entrepreneurs and those who want to “play business” is clearly defined in Kander... »
What happens when three Kellogg School of Management professors hop in a car and take a road trip? Not only will you read about some great stories, but also you will discover a host of significant business lessons as told through the perspective of a classic American road trip in the book Roadside MBA: Back Road Lessons for Entrepreneurs, Executives and Small Business Owners. I appreciate the prac... »
Clotaire Rapaille’s bestseller, The Culture Code:An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do, deserves a spot on the shelf of any serious marketer. Known for his pivotal work with Chrylser and other major brands, Dr. Rapaille’s depth of market knowledge is unsurpassed. He has the innate ability to break things (products, systems, services and br... »
No matter how good a business manager you are, there is always room for improvement. Knowing what makes for a good manager and what effective principles you should be using can make your business run smoother. Effective managers are not born. They are created and you can be one, too. Even if you are a good manager at this point you will gain additional insight from this book that can improve your ... »
Being in the field of dentistry or orthodontics there is a good chance you have heard of Painless Parker. Whether you have heard of him yet or not, you should put this book high on your summer reading list. The book, Painless Parker: A Dental Renegade’s Fight to Make Advertising Ethical, offers a historical look at this dental renegade is not only fascinating, but it also teaches us a lot about th... »
Long considered a “bible” in the advertising field, Reality in Advertising, is out of print. But don’t let that stop you from reading it, as there are plenty of used copies you can pick up. If your practice does advertising, and there’s a good chance that you do, you want to make sure you read this book. It should be required reading for any business that is going to do advertising. Ju... »
The book, Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant, has been translated into numerous languages around the world, and for good reason. The information is universal, solid, and when applied can take your business to a whole new level. Reading about real-life companies that have used the blue ocean strategy to create a whole new market place, such a... »
Most business leaders are up to their eyeballs with projects and to-do lists. This can create a lot of stress and weigh on them. It can also decrease their productivity and effectiveness. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There is a solution to this problem, as David Allen explains in his book, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. You can have a to-do list as long as your ar... »
Do you want your business to be a good one? If so, why are you stopping there, as opposed to wanting it to be great? The answer to this question, as Jim Collins points out in his book, Good to Great:Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t, is that most people settle. They are willing to settle for good over great because it’s just easier to get to good. But that doesn’t mean that g... »
There is no doubt that you have been marketing your business. But do you really know if that marketing has been effective or if it has paid off? If you don’t know the return on investment when it comes to your marketing efforts there is a good chance you may be throwing money away. You are also missing the target when it comes to bringing in new patients. Dan Kennedy has long been considered a bus... »
Every business can benefit from an effective sales letter. Yet not every business knows how to produce one that will get it the results it’s seeking. That’s where Dan Kennedy comes in. His guidance on writing effective sales letters has helped many companies and copywriters over the years. The Ultimate Sales Letter is an essential book for every business leader, whether they plan to write their ow... »
How much have you thought about how your attitude may be impacting your business success? If you are like most people you don’t give it much thought. Yet attitude plays a huge role in everything we do in life, and our business success is no exception. Your attitude in life and in your business ventures can help set the course for things to come, making it important that you have a good one. Lead t... »
Attitude has a lot to do with everything. That’s the main message you will get out of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Our thoughts and attitudes are what can literally make or break us. Forget the idea of seeing the glass half full or half empty. If you want to be successful in life and in your business, there is only one way to see things – with a positive attitude. This book does an amazin... »
If you have ever wondered what it would take to be the hero in your company, look no further. Be the Hero: Three Powerful Ways to Overcome Challenges in Work and Life, by Noah Blumenthal, a coach and consultant, offers you the information you need to do just that. Using the advice in this book will have you on the path to improving communication and strengthening relationships, both of which will ... »
Do patients leave your office and become raving fans? Even the smallest of complaints that they have can change their opinion of your practice. It may be the difference between them recommending someone to your office, and not. What you don’t know about having raving fans and satisfied customers could be hurting your business. In the short fable presented in Raving Fans, you will read a story you ... »
Reading a fable about leadership makes for an interesting way to deliver the message. In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, that’s exactly what the author does. Patrick Lencioni has taken the principles of leadership and turned them into a fable that you will not only be able to relate to, but you will learn a great deal from. No matter what type of field you are in you will gain... »
Negotiation, by Brian Tracy sheds important light on the importance of negotiation. In fact, he explains to readers that “Life may be viewed as one long, extended negotiating session, from the cradle to the grave.” Being that negotiation is this important and such a big part of our lives, this book makes for a great read for everyone, but especially those in business. The first line of this book l... »
No matter what type of field your business is in there is a good chance that you come across the latest research. Each week, the news carries information about studies that focus on the way people think, act, or why they do the things they do. But what we may not realize is that a lot of that science may not be sound or based on good testing principles. Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindles... »
What makes you tick? Have you ever thought about what it is that motivates you do the things you do? What about your patients or staff? The more you can understand why it is people act as they do and what motivates them, the better you will be able to lead. This book, written by Harvard Business School professors, will give you the thoughtful insight you need in order to gain a better understandin... »
How do you know if you and your staff are delivering a quality service? You can take a guess, you can evaluate how many customers consistently return, or you can poll them to see if they are satisfied. Better yet, you can read Delivering Quality Service and get a firm grasp on what is meant by delivering quality service and more. This down-to-earth account of customer service in the business world... »
If you are like most people running their own practice you probably put your focus on the larger issues. Most people do, tending to overlook the small things. Yet the small things, according to Michael Levine and his book, Broken Windows, Broken Business, are what can make or break your business. Learning to identify what those small issues are and fixing them is crucial to keeping your patients c... »
If there is one main theme that comes from reading The 80/20 Manager: The Secret to Working Less and Achieving More it is that Richard Koch advises, “Do not tackle everything with equal effort.” That’s because, as he explains, 20 percent of what you are doing in your business ends up generating 80 percent of the money. Understanding this concept can be helpful in both your private life as well as ... »
If there was ever a person who dominated an industry and became it an icon it was Estee Lauder. The success she experienced in the world of beauty has made her an icon. Not only do we today associate the name with a high-quality line of products, but we also recognize it as the name of someone who has had great business success. Estee: A Success Story tells the story of her success and provides fo... »
Millions of people are using social media to help their businesses. Yet many may not be using it as effectively as they should be. In order to gain the most from using social media sites it is important to know how to effectively use them. That’s what this book is all about. Forget just posting anything on your company Facebook page. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Soc... »
“Most influence will require that you help someone override old habits.” That’s just one message of many that you will find in The Story Factor by Annette Simmons. She lays out the information about the importance of storytelling in our culture and especially in the business world. Get ready to hear some stories in each chapter, as she convinces you that it’s time to hone your storytelling skills ... »
“Never substitute the mission in order to get money.” That’s just one crucial piece of advice you will get from The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization by Peter Drucker. If you have ever wondered what type of questions you should be asking about your company, this book is for you. This book takes you through the five most important questions that you should be a... »
Considered one of the most successful businessmen in history, largely earning his fame and fortune from the success of Standard Oil Company, Rockefeller is considered a business icon today. The autobiography, Random Reminiscences of Men and Events, is short, sweet, and to the point. You can finish this book within a couple of hours, yet you will walk away with an inspirational look at a business m... »
Most people are familiar with who Thomas Edison was and with some of the important things he did during his lifetime. But what they don’t know is how he went from having very little formal education to being one of the most successful inventors and businessmen in history. His name will also forever be synonymous with success in business as well. Edison, as demonstrated in Edison: A Life of Invent... »
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