small business growth strategies
Here’s a chilling summary of the past 30 years from the NY Times. While a few of us have been tracking this trend for a long time, many people seem oblivious to what’s going on.
America’s Sinking Middle Class
On Tuesday, however, the Census Bureau reminded me how for most Americans 1988 still looks a lot like yesterday: last year, the typical household made $51,017, roughly the same as the typical household made a quarter of a century ago.
The statistic is staggering — hardly what one would expect from one of the richest and most technologically advanced nations on the planet.
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Top Business Lessons from The Profit’s Marcus Lemonis
Marcus Lemonis may just be the best thing that’s happened to American entrepreneurship in a decade or more. I say this not only because he’s an inspirational rags-to-riches success story, but because he is showing us all how to put the fun back into business after almost two decades of Internet mania.
Indeed one could make the case that the Internet is guilty of two transgressions against business. First, it’s made building a business seem boring, relatively speaking, with its emphasis on coding and SEO maneuvering around Google. If your business career started before the World Wide Web arrived, you’ll know what I mean. Second, the Internet has sucked a substantial portion of America’s best and brightest talent away from producing things that people actually need or want into building bullshit “online platforms” whose sole purpose is to strip-mine your personal information and sell it to advertisers.
If it’s free, you’re the product, Poindexter.
Call me old school, but I will take an Elon Musk or Marcus Lemonis who build real businesses any day over a Mark Zuckerberg and clones who merely build glorified phpBB boards for the purpose of serving you up to advertisers.
Marcus Lemonis’ Growth Strategy for Mr. Green Tea
This was a another good educational episode for aspiring Marcus Lemonis types. Rather than being distracted by the issues of highly dysfunctional owners, Marcus was able to immediately get down to business with Mr. Green Tea’s management. In the Planet Popcorn and LA Dogworks episodes the audience was tipped off early through editing that the owners were going to be difficult to work with if not downright impossible. With Jacob Maarse Florists, the owner’s last minute on camera reneging on the deal and outrageous denial that Marcus had sunk well over $150,000 into his business came as a shock. We all knew that Hank had an immature streak in him early on but no one was expecting such a shocker of an ending. Thankfully with Mr. Green Tea we could get back to more interesting business lessons.
So let’s apply Marcus’ three-part system for analyzing a business: People, Product, and Process.
Marcus Walks Away Again
Well, this was another episode where our hero Marcus couldn’t get past the People component of his three-step fix-her-up methodology to work on Products and Process. However, it still offers up a valuable business and life lesson which I will get to shortly. But first I want to say that the episode brought back some memories for me. Back in the 1980s, right after completing my degree I moved into a third-floor apartment in an old four-story mansion that had been built in the Roaring 20s for railroad executives. The mansion was situated in the most exclusive neighborhood in the city so that in addition to being a fabulous place to live, it also offered tenants a prestige address.
Growing Eco-Me From $500K to $10 Million
After the last two train wrecks, Hank Maarse and Planet Popcorn, I had a good vibe about Eco-Me just five minutes into the episode. It was also obviously time for a business that could actually be saved by our hero. (It’s pretty safe to assume that Marcus and CNBC pick a few bad apples for purely entertainment reasons in the same way that Lord Sugar and The Donald include a few bunglers and villains among their apprentice candidates. After all, if there isn’t some drama no one will watch.
It’s Not Rocket Surgery
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