Archive for Business - General

SkimBoarding – A man’s got to know his limitations!

By Bob Holdsworth · Comments (3)
Sunday, August 29th, 2010

So there I was watching my two eight year old sons skim boarding at the beach…over and over…how hard can it be ?? The picture is Chris executing a 180 turn perfectly.

Skim boarding done right!

The process is easy, pick up the board, wait for a little water at the end of the wave’s journey ashore, throw the board, run after it, hop on, balance yourself and ride it for a short distance. I can do that. Bad thought, evil thought, why do I listen to these voices in my head?

So I announce to my stunned kids that I’m going to do it too. They hand over the board, stand WAY back and start looking for my life insurance and a cell phone to call the ambulance. I wait for my wave, the perfect wave, it rushed ashore, white foam, the perfect depth of water for skimming…I can do this. Read More→

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Categories : Business - General, Family - Lifestyle, Just for Fun, Personal Development, leadership
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Business ethics, take the high road, it’s easier to spot trouble.

By Bob Holdsworth · Comments (0)
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Is it me or does it seem like there is another news story about a corporate scandal or political ethics probe about once a week? It makes me wonder how any consumer can trust any of us business owners.

I know that I’m subjected to lots of business scams every week ranging from the Nigerian bank account scam to people posing as suppliers trying to trick a staff member in to ‘placing an order’ for inflated supplies.

I also see competitors trying to cut corners, leaving out information that their clients should be told and everybody seems to be trying to be so politically correct, making sure that they don’t offend someone that their ethics actually has be called into question. What do you or I as business owners stand for, how are we different from the homogenized masses? Read More→

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Categories : Business - General, Customer Service -Client Relations, Entrepreneurship, leadership, management
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Baby seal comes ashore…

By Bob Holdsworth · Comments (0)
Monday, August 23rd, 2010

So there I was enjoying a little down time with my family when suddenly the entire beach became enamored with this little creature swimming back and forth about 10 feet offshore…a baby seal.

It was obvious that the seal was lost and was unable to figure out how to get back out to sea and over to the other side of the breakwater, about a mile away, to where the majority of the other seals congregate. It got more and more tired and finally washed up on shore to rest.

The police and animal rescue arrived fairly quickly and kept everyone away while we all watched. For a while the seal simply lay there and we thought the worst...then finally it got slapped by a wave and got up and headed back into the sea.

The event was great for all of the kids watching to see wildlife so close up. It also stuck a chord with me as an entrepreneur. As the little guy we often get tired of fighting, lose our sense of direction, get disconnected from our support group and need to take a time out before heading out again...it's ok and it's normal.

Epilogue: Animal rescue did finally take the little creature into custody when about 15 minutes after this short video was taken, it breached itself back on shore obviously exhausted. Enjoy the little guy.

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Categories : Business - General, Family - Lifestyle, Just for Fun, Personal Development
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The fight for the NURDLE

By Bob Holdsworth · Comments (0)
Thursday, August 5th, 2010

I was reading the Wall Street Journal the other day and was astounded, well actually these days nothing surprises me anymore, that two toothpaste manufacturers are going to war over a graphic picture of a squirt of toothpaste.

Now I’m all about protecting intellectual property, I have plenty of copyrights and trademarks of my own, but this seems insane even to me, a professional marketer.

For the uninitiated, a NURDLE is the apparently correct name for the tiny little perfectly shaped glob of toothpaste shown on the box. In this picture the red, white and blue thingy.

nurdle

n. a grain, pellet, granule, or other small piece of a material, especially as part of a large quantity (such as foam kernels used as packing material); (in pronunciation-based spellings) a nodule; a quantity of a gel or semi-solid; a thing of unknown name (doodad, thingamajig, etc.). Also nerdle. Read More→

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Categories : Business - General, Just for Fun, Marketing - Sales, leadership, management
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Innovation – Hot new ideas are great cold.

By Bob Holdsworth · Comments (2)
Thursday, July 29th, 2010

I am regularly amazed at how quickly the most ‘corporate’ of companies, never mind us free wheeling, unstructured entrepreneurial companies, can get sucked off track and into the black hole vortex of wasting time by a simple 5 word phrase uttered in a meeting “I’ve got a great idea!”

As entrepreneurs, we are genetically programmed to develop and test new ideas and to keep looking for the latest bright shiny object. It’s actually a disease and we can’t help it.

However, over the years, I’ve found that some of my best ‘hot’ new ideas were better, even great, if I left them alone for a while and let them marinate.

I’m not suggesting in any way that you stifle the creativity and idea generation of you or your team members, in fact that’s how most small businesses discover new markets or create spin off businesses. An idea put before a work group, idea team or mastermind group grows and innovations are born.

However, to keep your production meetings on track as well as your own productivity, I would suggest that you institute a four step funnel or channel for the submission of new ideas. Read More→

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Categories : Business - General, Entrepreneurship, Marketing - Sales
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