If you have Facebook and you have many friends, it is worthless to you for business. It is worthless to have lots and lots of friends on Facebook (for business) because they are not really your friends, because they didn’t want to offend you by pressing the ignore button. If you have 5000 people following…

A remarkable product or service is like a purple cow. According to Seth Godin (in his book: The Purple Cow), the Purple Cow is about transforming your business by being remarkable, the key to success being to find a way to stand out. Brown or black and white cows are boring, purple ones are worth…

The forces of mediocrity or maybe it should be “the forces for mediocrity.” There is a myth that all you need to do is outline your innovative vision and prove that is it right, then, quiet suddenly, people will line up with enthusiasm and support you. In fact, the opposite is true. Remarkable visions and…

One of the major reasons start-ups fail is due to lack of support, but specifically lack of mentorship and coaching. According to the GEM report 2012 (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) the rate of business discontinuance is far greater than the rate of creating business. This means we businesses are failing in large numbers than new start-ups.…

Imagination Albert Einstein said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Entrepreneurs create things that didn’t exist before. They do this by giving their team a vision of something that could happen, but hasn’t (yet.) Entrepreneurs see things twice, first in their vision/imagination and secondly in the real (once they have realised their vision) You can’t…

So you seized on your awesome business idea with immaculate planning, and now have a business ready to take off. Congratulations. This article is not meant to kill your joy but you must have heard of the statistics that say most new businesses fail in their first year itself? Very sobering stuff that. That is…

Borrowing from our jazz masters, here are five keys to making beautiful music in business: #1 Creativity The successful set begins with every team player bringing the best of their creativity to the effort. A good leader allows creativity to flow, encourages ideas, and rewards creative thinking. #2 Collaboration Why can’t we all just get…

"Everyone will think its stupid." "Everyone says its impossible." Guess what? like sheepwalking, everyone works in the factory, following instructions, keeping their heads down, not asking questions and not changing anything. The status quo is persistent and resistant. The status quo exists because everyone wants it to. Everyone believes that what they have got is…

A Shopping Mall building still under construction in Durban (South Africa) collapses killing a worker and injuring some. During an inquiry of the incident, the foreman in charge of the construction (under cross-examination) is asked why continue with the construction even though there were signs that the concrete slap was caving in two weeks prior…

Not too far from us, a few blocks away, there are kids without enough to eat and without parents who care. A litter farther away, hours by plane, are people unable to reach their goals because they live in a community that just doesn't have the infrastructure to support them. A bit farther away are…

It is a myth that change happens overnight, that right answers succeed in the marketplace right away, or that big ideas happen in a flash. They don't. It is always (almost always, anyway) a matter of accretion. Drip, drip, drip. Improvements happen a bit at a time, not as grand-slam home runs that are easy…