Posts by Early To Rise
What To Do With Good Employees, Part 2
“Enough is as good as a feast.” – John Heywood (Proverbs, 1546) Yesterday, we talked about how to compensate good employees. I argued that you should pay them more slightly more than the fair market rate. Today, Id like to talk about what else you have to do to keep and please them. Lets start…
Read MoreHow To Work From Anywhere In The World, Part I
Yesterday, we talked about the possibility of working — at least for part of the year — in a place you’d normally go only for vacation. I said I believed that if you played it right, you could have your cake and eat it too — live in a paradise and earn good money doing…
Read MoreWhen Your Are Selling An Idea, Less Is More.
“The secret of all good writing is sound judgment.” – Horace (Ars Poetica, 13-8 B.C.) JF (not JJF, my brother) is writing a sort of ETR for copywriters. JF is an experienced, very successful copywriter who has also won prizes for poems, stories, etc. He’s even contributed to a rendition of “Sympathy for the Devil”…
Read MoreSometimes Success Is A Matter Of Numbers
“The thing I am most aware of is my limits. And this is natural; for I never, or almost never, occupy the middle of my cage; my whole being surges toward the bars.” – Andre Gide (Journals, August 4, 1930) For some very good reasons, there are optimal numbers for working successfully with groups. For…
Read MoreWhy Reductions Must Be Mandatory
“Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck, or one’s neighbor. In the days of astrology, it was customary to unload it upon a star.” – Ambrose Bierce (The Devil’s Dictionary, 1881-1911) Last week, we spoke about the need to fire weak and mediocre employees. It is…
Read MoreWhy You Should Trim Your Trees
If you employ or manage at least six people, you need to let one of them go every year or so. If you employ 30 or 40, you should be weaning three or four. Forget about those who quit. I’m talking about firing people. It may sound crazy in a business world obsessed with retention,…
Read MoreWhat Is A VIP Customer – And What Does He Want?
“Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.” – Thorstein Veblen (The Theory of the Leisure Class, 1899) I am a Miami Heat season-ticket holder. I have two seats. Each one costs me $150 per game. With 44 season games and playoffs, I spend a lot of…
Read MoreDoes Your Mental Attitude Determine Success?
I’ve just read an interesting book about optimism. It was written by an expert in the field and provides a great deal of scientific proof for some ideas I’ve developed about mental attitudes and success. According to Martin Seligman, the author of “Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life,” pessimists, though miserable,…
Read MoreTaking The Long-Term, Big-Picture View
Yesterday, I had a conversation with DK, a fellow Miami Heat season-ticket holder and the president and CEO of a billion-dollar food-distribution business. DK is successful even by Boca Raton standards, but he’s also a laid-back, low-key guy — which marks him as an oddity among his more aggressive neighbors, though he’s very well-liked. We…
Read MoreHow To Be A Successful Negotiator
Three elements are at play in a negotiation, according to James Sebenius (writing in the Harvard Business Review) who has done thousands and ought to know: 1. Issues are on the table for explicit agreement. 2. Positions are one party’s stands on the issues. 3. Interests are underlying concerns that would be affected by the…
Read MoreIn Business, As In Life, There’s A Big Difference Between Having A Sense Of Humor And Not Taking Anything Seriously
I used to employ a young copy editor, MB, who was bright and talented and doomed to failure in the corporate world. This was clear to me from the very first moment I met him. We had just been introduced when he said something like “So I guess you’re the guy who’s supposed to turn…
Read MoreHow To Make Meetings Work, Part 2
“For the most part, our leaders are merely following out in front; they do but marshal us the way that we are going.” – Bergen Evans (The Spoor of Spooks and Other Nonsense, 1954) Dave Barry says the reason the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential can be traced…
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