You will hear entrepreneurial leaders and other talking heads (Seth Godin, can you hear me?) telling us to find our niche. As I was watching a Twitter feed during lunch on the day of the manhunt for the (alleged) Boston Marathon bomber, it struck me how unimportant nearly all the voices (tweets) were, at least […]
Category: Entrepreneurship
Where Mark Zuckerberg Got it Right
I finally watched The Social Network last week and was very impressed with this film. I take it for what it is and nothing more: just a film based on a book based on true events. For me, there is one major takeaway from this movie that was probably lost to most in the ensuing […]
Build Customer Loyalty by Adopting their Vision, Mission, and Culture
For the small consulting firm and independent consultants, building strong customer loyalty can make or break your business. Weak customer loyalty, at the very least, will make the struggle to keep your sales pipeline full a lot more difficult. Strong customer loyalty will provide dividends for years to come. Some of the common approaches to […]
Free Audio Book: Think and Grow Rich
Several months ago, I read Think and Grow Rich, the classic motivational book by Napoleon Hill. I have listened to an audio book version, specifically the 21st Century Edition, but I wanted to have the original 1937 edition as an audio book so that I could listen to the book without the additional modern commentary […]
Free E-book: Think and Grow Rich
I am pleased to offer the classic book, Think and Grow Rich, by Napolean Hill, as a free download. Thanks to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), this book is in the public domain and can be freely copied and distributed throughout the United States and most of the free world. I may, at some […]
Coming Soon: Think and Grow Rich Audiobook
{{ Update: you can now get the audio book here: Think and Grow Rich Audio Book }} I have been reading my way through a number of classic motivational books and have recently read the grand-daddy of them all, Think and Grow Rich, by Napolean Hill. I recall seeing this particular book on my maternal […]
Naming a New Company
Matrice Consulting just celebrated our ten-year anniversary in August. Looking back, I found that one of the most difficult steps of starting a new company is creating a good name. I formed my company name after watching a trailer for a movie; I merged my first and last names, added ‘Consulting’ to describe what we […]
Book Review: A Message to Garcia – The Best Book You Have Never Read
I stumbled across an amazing story, A Message to Garcia, about 6 months ago, which sums up what we all should strive to be and should look for when hiring people. This book is in the public domain, and I am including copies at the end of this review, based on the Project Gutenberg texts. […]
Book Review: The 4-Hour Workweek – A Different Take (Part 1 of 3)
The 4-Hour Workweek, a book by Timothy Ferriss, has been exhaustively praised and panned across the globe. The book is part self-help, part DIY, part romanticism. As of this writing, both the first and second editions have been reviewed on Amazon.com 2,333 times. The ‘Expanded and Updated’ edition has an Amazon.com rating of 4.6 out […]
Book Review: The 4-Hour Workweek – A Different Take (Part 2 of 3)
A Word to the Haters Riley: “There he goes again! Hatin’!” Granddad: “Boy! Stop Hatin’!” Boondocks, Season 1 Episode 11 – Let’s Nab Oprah I am not sure what some of the people who read this book were expecting. This is what some of the people on Amazon.com have to say in their reviews: “A […]
Book Review: The 4-Hour Workweek – A Different Take (Part 3 of 3)
Conclusion Can the 4-Hour Workweek be done? If you are an artist, a laborer, or assembly line worker, and you want to continue doing that, then the answer is “No”. If you are a consultant and you want to continue doing that, the answer is “No”. If you are a business owner, the answer is […]
The First Hour of the Day
Fast Company has a fairly good article on how successful people spend the first hour of their day: What Successful People Do With The First Hour Of Their Work Day. I would change the word successful to effective, but it makes for a juicier headline. In any case, I have been following a similar regimen […]
Self-Promotion is a Good Thing
To establish oneself in the world, one does all one can to seem established there already. – François de La Rochefoucauld Self promotion really gets a bad rap. Exhibit A: Timothy Ferriss From an Amazon review of Timothy Ferriss’ bestselling The 4-Hour Workweek: “His shameless self-promotion and braggadicious style is second only to the undisputed champion […]