Posts by Mark Morgan Ford
Taking Your Business – and Your Employees – From Good to Great
“You can become an even more excellent person by constantly setting higher and higher standards for yourself and then by doing everything possible to live up to those standards.” – Brian Tracy If you read almost anything in the mainstream media about management or leadership, you’ll see a lot of advice about making your employees…
Read More100 Hours to a Whole New You
“Everyone lives by selling something.” – Robert Louis Stevenson Maybe you are young. Maybe you are lazy. Maybe you just haven’t caught a break. Whatever the reason, the success you’ve wanted has so far eluded you. Here’s something you can do that could help. It won’t cost you any money. In fact, it will bring…
Read MoreThe (Sometimes Destructive) Power of Praise
“I praise loudly, I blame softly.” – Catherine the Great The rabbi at JC’s wedding was a friendly looking fellow, and his sermon was a friendly compromise between “Lessons From the Torah” and “Daytime-TV Platitudes.” He talked about the usual things – the purpose of marriage, its historic underpinnings, and its potential in the postmodern…
Read MoreA Simple Formula for Business Success
“People say I am ruthless. I am not ruthless. And if I find the man who is calling me ruthless, I shall destroy him.” – Robert F. Kennedy Many people assume that successful businesspeople are ruthless, but it’s not true. Not in my experience, at least. A young man who is beginning what I hope…
Read MoreDo You Have an Investment Advantage?
“If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.” – Jack Welch To become wealthy, you need some kind of investing advantage. Otherwise, studies show, you will probably become poorer. As a business consultant to the financial publishing industry, I am on a first-name basis with some of the best investment experts in the world.…
Read MoreA Business Question You MUST Be Able to Answer
“The product that will not sell without advertising will not sell profitably with advertising.” – Albert Lasker Most would-be entrepreneurs are motivated by an idea – an idea for some great new product. I get all sorts of questions from such people, but I almost never hear the most important one – the one you…
Read MoreA Head Full of Good Business Ideas
“When you get right down to the root of the meaning of the word ‘succeed,’ you find that it simply means to follow through.” – F. W. Nichol ETR’s Info Marketing Bootcamp is just over a week away, and some ETR readers are still on the fence about whether or not they should attend. James…
Read MoreDealing With Workplace Babies
“A baby is an inestimable blessing and bother.” – Mark Twain What do you do with a chronic complainer, an employee who is always dumping his problems on you? Please note: I’m not talking about the industrious individual who has a rare and significant problem that forces him to come to you. I’m talking about…
Read MoreThe Myth of Branding
“Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does.” – Stuart Henderson I recently got an interesting e-mail from Brian Ochsner, an ETR reader from Denver. He said, “As a direct-response copywriter, I’m skeptical about the number of marketing people who…
Read MoreThe Ticket to Successful Business Growth
“Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much to so many in so short a time.” – Bill Gates Consider the two most basic options companies have when they seek to grow their businesses: (1) They can try to increase their market shares by sustaining innovations – by continually improving a product…
Read MoreA Former Corporate Chicken’s Guide to Being Tough
“Successful leadership is not about being tough or soft, sensitive or assertive, but about a set of attributes. First and foremost is character.” – Warren Bennis The first rule of success – in any endeavor – is to get the important work done. The important work in business is the tough work: cold calling, generating…
Read MorePower Up Your Income and Your Company’s Profits
“The fact is, everyone is in sales. Whatever area you work in, you do have clients and you do need to sell.” – Jay Abraham Of all the skills you can have – the ability to speak like Winston Churchill, the talent to paint like Rembrandt, whatever it takes to calculate like Albert Einstein –…
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