Author Archives: Chad Barr - Alan's Blog Implementer & Moderator

August 22, 2011—Issue #101

This week’s focus point: Increasing revenue is a questionable goal, unless it’s accompanied by reducing costs of acquisition and reduced labor intensity. The ideal solution is to attract buyers to you through brand recognition, word-of-mouth, strong intellectual property, and low-barrier-to-entry access. That means a home page full of value, not promotion; speaking and publishing and not cold calls; and spontaneous referral business because you are an object of interest to others. If your marketing plan isn’t creating and sustaining these traits and results, then it’s the wrong plan.

Monday Morning Perspective: The world will go on somehow, and more crises will follow. It will go on best, however, if among us there are men who have stood apart, who refused to be anxious or too much concerned, who were cool and inquiring, and had their eyes on a longer past and a longer future. — c. 1930, Walter Lippmann, syndicated columnist and twice Pulitzer Prize Winner

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ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

August 15, 2011—Issue #100

This week’s focus point: Wars, wild financial market swings, global warming, disease, totalitarian governments, budget cutbacks, rioting, health care reform, strikes, overindulged athletes, brainless entertainment shows, airport security humiliation, traffic congestion, pollution˜there’s enough to be concerned about every morning. These are important issues, but don’t allow them to overshadow and overwhelm your personal accountabilities: raising your family, earning money, maintaining your health, being of service to others, creating happiness, loving and being loved. Those constitute the “oxygen mask” you have to don before you can help significantly on the larger issues.

Monday Morning Perspective: We are as gods and might as well get good at it. — The Whole Earth Catalog

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ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved

October 18, 2010—Issue #57

This week’s focus point: The Chilean miners persevered through an ordeal because they were organized, mutually-supportive, rallied around a respected leader, and kept themselves physically and emotionally strong. That’s good advice for any challenge. However, suddenly they are media stars negotiating rights and preparing to be heroes. That will probably turn out to be more harmful in the long run than the mine collapse. The heroes were the engineers and medical people on the surface who acted with calmness, speed, and precision.

Monday Morning Perspective: Ninety-five percent of all the species that have ever existed are now extinct, so don’t look so darn smug. — Christopher Moor in his book, “Fluke.”

Last two weeks for major discount on Alan’s Friday Wrap with over three full days of programming during 2011: audio, video, live full-day conference. Find it here: http://summitconsulting.com/seminars/friday%20wrap.php

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ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved

October 11, 2010—Issue #56

This week’s focus point: Have you left the corporate world to establish your own business and found that you have a worse boss than ever before? Success trumps perfection. If you adopt the position that the writing could always be better, the speech always stronger, the new business always larger, and the accolades always louder, then you’re trapped into being “never successful enough.” You’ll encounter defeats as we all do. But you deserve your victories, as well. Otherwise, your boss is never going to get any better.

Monday Morning Perspective: Yes, it was called the Dark Ages, and it lasted 400 years. — John Maynard Keynes when asked if there had ever been anything like the Great Depression

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October 04, 2010—Issue #55

This week’s focus point: Firefighters have a tradition and discipline that call for the senior officer present to lead others into danger. The firefighters risk their lives, and the leader is not asking them for anything that the leader isn’t personally doing. Routinely, athletic coaches are fired for the non-performance of their teams. (I’ve never seen a team fired for failing to meet its coach’s expectations or promises.) Instead of “downsizing” and laying off thousands for errors in the executive suite, perhaps we should be following those who truly lead and not merely direct, and who are held personally accountable for the result.

Monday Morning Perspective: Rhetoric succeeds when there is a bond of trust between speaker and audience. That trust is more important than eloquence—or the absence of eloquence; and it has no necessary connection to it. An honest, competent person laboring to communicate his own convictions is far more persuasive than a fluent declaimer whose character the audience may have doubts about. — Aristotle

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ISSN 2151-0091

© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved

September 27, 2010—Issue #54

This week’s focus point: There are differences among work, jobs, and careers. Most basically, work is temporary and intended to complete tasks, whether for you or someone else. Jobs combine work to focus on particular projects and goals, but can be terminated by others or circumstances. Careers constitute the synergy of the talents you choose to provide, combining your abilities and knowledge in a passionate manner to meet others’ needs. Which are you helping others with? Which are you pursuing?

Monday Morning Perspective: One is apt to think of moral failure as due to weakness of character; more often it is due to an inadequate ideal. — Richard Livingstone, British educator

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© Alan Weiss 2010. All rights reserved