Posts Tagged ‘Mark Riffey’
When Hiring, Choose Commitment Over Ego
By MARK RIFFEY - The difference between a strong business leader and a weak one is easily detected: Who do they surround themselves with – and why?... more
Chaos, Panic And Other Delights
By MARK RIFFEY - How your team handles recovery from a mistake is often more important than the mistake.... more
Keep Your Eye On The Ball
By MARK RIFFEY - After every election, it's painfully easy to lose focus. Don't.... more
Warming Up Your Cold Email
By MARK RIFFEY - With double digit below zero weather arriving in Montana this week, the last thing any of us need is a cold email.... more
Brainstorming A 2017 Business Roadmap
By MARK RIFFEY - Ready to start working through the first task on the detailed 2017 business roadmap that you painstakingly carved out over the last month? ... more
Preparing to Sell Your Business…Or Not
By MARK RIFFEY - As you get a little older, one of the natural things you start to think about is “What am I going to do with this business?”... more
The Smell (or Aroma) Of Sales
By MARK RIFFEY - Sales is tough work. One of the things that makes it challenging is starting a conversation with someone you don’t know.... more
Focus Isn’t Enough
By MARK RIFFEY - When it comes to your business, what drives your decision to let something slide a little, be it a day, a week or "forever"?... more
Don’t Forget the Ice
By MARK RIFFEY - Does your merchandising save your customers a trip? It should.... more
Are you Using Your Marketing Data Effectively?
By MARK RIFFEY - Presumably you have a budget and as a part of it, income / revenue goals. How certain are you that you’ll hit them this month?... more
The Ups and Downs of Complexity
By MARK RIFFEY - Business people (myself included) seem to have a habit of making projects more complex than they should be.... more
It’s Time To Sell Something
By MARK RIFFEY - Selling the right product to the right person so they can do what they need to do (or get what they want) is honorable work.... more
What Are You Afraid Of?
By MARK RIFFEY - Is your business clinging to fear-driven artificial barriers? Limiting thoughts had my software company stuck on a sales plateau.... more
New Project Idea? Do This First
By MARK RIFFEY - Wouldn't it be nice to know if a project was going to fail after two weeks rather than two years?... more
The Danger Of Presumption
By MARK RIFFEY - There are many ways that assumptions can endanger your projects. The key is to have a process that does as much as possible to eliminate them.... more
The One Sentence That Can Make Or Break You
By MARK RIFFEY - How are you spending your downtime? You may not have any influence over your team’s downtime, but you can still set an example.... more
Christians, Lions and Wives of New Jersey
By MARK RIFFEY - How are you spending your downtime? You may not have any influence over your team’s downtime, but you can still set an example.... more
A Recipe For Teamwork
By MARK RIFFEY - If you had to make up a recipe for teamwork, what would you stir in?... more
Are you Hiring Millennials?
By MARK RIFFEY - Where will your company be in 15-20 years if you don't hire, groom and train 18-34 year olds over the next 10 years?... more
Take Ownership
By MARK RIFFEY - Whether you like it or not, anyone who sells for you, advertises for you, reps for you or in any way helps you sell what you do REPRESENTS YOU.... more
Context Equals Opportunity
By MARK RIFFEY - When your client is under pressure, you have an opportunity to create a memory that can last a lifetime.... more
How Do You Protect Your Business?
By MARK RIFFEY - Business owners protect their business by reducing risk, managing cash flow, getting appropriate legal advice and insuring their people and assets properly.... more
Who Can Help You?
By MARK RIFFEY - This past week seems to have been a perfect storm of paths crossing about getting help from coaches, mentors and teachers.... more
Are You Doing the Important Work?
By MARK RIFFEY - What are you not getting done? Why aren’t you getting those things done? Does important work often go undone? If so, is that work truly important?... more
Five Business Myths To Ignore
By MARK RIFFEY - Focusing on these myths will do nothing but delay the success of your business. Shut them out.... more
What Can’t Change that Must Change?
By MARK RIFFEY - What Can’t Change that Must Change? If you doubled the size of your sales team, would your sales double?... more
The Sales Prevention Department
By MARK RIFFEY - Is a part of your process killing sales and running off clients? If you have a 'sales prevention department' here's how you can get rid of it!... more
What The Supreme Court And Your Business Share
By MARK RIFFEY - Events like this can have a critical, if not fatal impact on your business. Could your business survive your death or permanent disability?... more
Is It Done Yet?
By MARK RIFFEY - The earlier the customer sees your work, the earlier you'll find out if you're on track.... more
Why Do Startups Fight City Hall?
By MARK RIFFEY - To a startup, city hall is often the next obstacle in line.... more
Start Your Marketing Calendar
By MARK RIFFEY - Are you marketing with intent or by accident? Choose intent.... more
Hiring Entry Level People and (Gasp) Millennials
By MARK RIFFEY - I know a number of 20-somethings who are looking for jobs. Some like to categorize “millennials” as a generation of slackers with no work ethic and no motivation.... more
Train Them To Make It Easy To Buy
By MARK RIFFEY - Word of mouth business and referrals come from handling problems gracefully.... more
Leading Your Team to Goal Setting
By MARK RIFFEY - How do you prepare your staff to contribute to your company's success?... more
Company Goals Need Context
By MARK RIFFEY - Company-wide goals need to have "Why does this matter to me?" context at all levels of the company, for every employee.... more
Working Linear vs. Parallel
By MARK RIFFEY - What costs do you introduce by solving problems sequentially?... more
Is Your Business 2016 Ready?
By MARK RIFFEY - Planning for 2016 is about more than adjusting numbers in a spreadsheet.... more
Do They Have Each Other’s Back?
By MARK RIFFEY - Culture is critical, not only day to day, but to make sure you can take a punch.... more
Strategies to Improve Your Black Friday/Small Business Saturday/Cyber Monday
By MARK RIFFEY -The rushes are over. What did you learn? What can you fix now? What needs to be fixed for next time? Write it down.... more
Lessons From Working at Home
By MARK RIFFEY -Geoffrey James put together a list of 10 lessons learned from his working from home. I’ve worked at home and in my kayak since 1999 so I thought I'd chime in. ... more
Your Referrals Leave An Impression
By MARK RIFFEY -Only a fool would believe that a referral doesn’t reflect on the one who makes it. So why do it poorly?... more
Making Employees Feel Safe
By MARK RIFFEY -When people don’t feel safe, it damages every conversation. Often they say nothing, as if they have no opinion, have nothing to add, and agree with whatever’s already been said.... more
The Ones You Can’t Trust
By MARK RIFFEY -Stop putting up with them. Stop encouraging them. Stop tolerating them.... more
On The Playing Field, Little Things Matter
By MARK RIFFEY -Little things drive the quality of your customers' experience but they don't happen by accident.... more
Selling, Marketing and Wyoming’s Cutt-Slam
By MARK RIFFEY -The fish rejects your fly for the same reason that prospects ignore your message.... more
Experience Management Matters
By MARK RIFFEY -Delivery of a product or service is about far more than the act of your client opening the box or getting the service they paid for.... more
Beware Of National Distraction Season
By MARK RIFFEY -National distraction season is upon us. Are you ready? I’m referring to election/political season and the drama it brings to the workplace.... more
Extinguish Employee Drama
By MARK RIFFEY - It’s critical to the long term success of your career as a manager, or as an owner, to create a culture of drama non-proliferation at your business.... more
When The Smoke Clears, Will Your Reputation?
By MARK RIFFEY - How your business delivers when things are tough sets the tone for your future.... more
Get One More Per Day, Week, Month
By MARK RIFFEY - Doubling the sales of a business tends to result in doing things the same way, but doing them twice as often, or somehow doing twice as many of them.... more