Posts by Mark Morgan Ford
How Important Is Loyalty?
Here’s a question I’ve wrestled with for years: When it comes to success, is loyalty a good thing or a bad thing? There are those who advocate a “me-first” approach. Loyalty, they argue, is a sentimental attachment that winners cannot afford. When people are no longer useful to you, get rid of them. Success is…
Read MoreDeliberate or Decide?
Here’s a statement worth thinking about: “The percentage of mistakes in quick decisions is no greater than in the long, drawn-out vacillations, and the effect of decisiveness itself makes things go and creates confidence.” That’s from Ann O’Hare McCormick, a writer who understood how easy it is to waste time deliberating. You need to think…
Read MoreWhat Are MBA’s Good For?
It’s a common story. Entrepreneur starts company. Company gets too big for one man to handle. Professional managers take over. Business tanks. Original (or new) entrepreneur takes over. Business is saved. I’ve seen it from afar and have experienced it firsthand.Here’s what you need to remember. At some point in the growth of your business,…
Read MoreHow My Biggest Client Built His Empire Without Managing Anyone
“We don’t talk much about office morale,” my main client said in a memo to his top execs recently. “Why not? Partly because we don’t know much about these things. Another is that we don’t think about it.” (Note: When he says “we,” he means “I.”) As far as I know, this has always been…
Read MoreHow Much Should Go Into Your Pocket?
You invested your money and time to start your own business. After several years of very hard work, it is starting to produce significant profits. It’s time to start paying yourself. How much should that be? One point of view is that you should pay yourself 100 percent of the profits. “If we don’ take…
Read MoreTwo Simple Speechmaking Techniques
I used to be a terrible speech giver. I hemmed. I hawed. I spoke too slowly. I rushed too fast. I mumbled. I shouted. I was terrible. But the worst thing I did was wander off topic and get lost in my thoughts. “Where was I?” I used to ask my audiences. I could have…
Read MoreWhy You Should Focus on Building Your List of E-Mail Subscribers
So you’re starting your Internet business. The first step is to make your website shiny and pretty (by spending a lot of time and/or money on it). And then build product pages and a shopping cart. And then drive visitors to your site with search engine optimization and pay-per-click ads. And then sit back and…
Read MoreThe Worst Thing You Can Do When You’re on the Road
When you’re traveling on business, it’s tempting to skip exercise and grab fast food to save time. Bad idea. You’re on the road for a good reason: There’s something important that requires your attention — and you need to stay mentally alert. The best way to do that is to maintain as healthy a routine…
Read MoreIf You Want To Become the Boss One Day…
If you want to become the boss one day, think like a customer and act like an owner. How do you think like a customer? Let’s start with the obvious. Your customers are interested in what’s good for them, not you. They don’t really care how hard you work or how much more complicated your…
Read MoreThe Best Business in the World
ETR’s Info-Marketing Bootcamp started last night. And for those of you who couldn’t make it, we’ll be publishing breaking news throughout this week from the conference. Writing those Bootcamp dispatches will be Jason Holland, ETR’s Managing Editor. He’ll be playing the part of roving reporter. (His first dispatch is below.)
Read MoreAn Essential Quality of a Good Leader
There are basically two ways to get the people who work for you to do what you want. You can bully them into it. Or you can lead them. The bully’s method is initially effective, because it takes advantage of his superior power. But everything changes with time — including the balance of power within…
Read MoreHow Fat Are You… Really?
Did your doctor tell you to lose weight? It may be good advice. Then again, he may have based it on bad science — the outdated Body Mass Index (BMI). Calculated from height and weight, it can be grossly misleading. For example, according to the BMI, Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime — at 6’2″ and…
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