I was recently reminded yet again not to take things for granted and particularly simple things that have important repercussions.

A good friend, intelligent and experienced business executive was making a rather emphatic point to his colleague that their gross profit margin (GPM) was the same thing as their average mark-up percentage – it isn’t. What is interesting though, is that percentages often seem to catch people unawares, and sometimes with devastating consequences.

Let’s clarify.

Mar… Continue

I'm looking for advice setting up an HSA or Health Savings Account. This is my first year having company medical insurance and I'm trying to find the most effective way to set up a budget and… Continue

Rapid growth is good, right? Right?

It’s the ultimate entrepreneurial dream. You start a business, struggle for a bit to get the business model right, then whammo – it takes off.

Sales are growing almost daily it seems and demand is strong. Let’s allow some more credit (sales) to really ride this demand. Now we need more inventory – come on suppliers, we need it yesterday. Pay a bit more to get it quickly, it doesn’t matter. We need some more room too, get hold of something. We need som… Continue

ATTRIBUTION: The following blog is repeated here with permission from the writer Louis Coutts who you can contact at couttslm@bigpond.com for comment or to join his mailing list.
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This is a great story received from my friend Neil Thomas

Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their w… Continue

When I was at the American Society of Training & Development (ASTD) International Conference this summer I attended a very interesting talk about analysing the root cause of things that happen. It's a common sense field of enquiry, one that we consciously or unconsciously engage every day when we work out why things happen. But it was a very useful reminder to look further back for more fundamental causes of what we observe. The title Root Cause Analysis was new to me but one that I a… Continue