As the owner of a privately held corporation, you’ve worked long and hard to build up the business and make it a success.  Now that there is some stability and certainty for the future of the business, you know that you need to start thinking about your future – retirement as well as what’s next for the business without you.  But, you also want to take care of your employees because without them, you would not have succeeded.  It would be nice to be able to share some of the success with them.   What can you do? Read more »

Investing in customer loyalty isn't just good business, it's good money.  For every 1% improvement in your customer retention rate, operating income will improve by 20% and just a 5%  reduction in customer defections can lead to an 85% boost in profits. Companies that lead their markets in customer loyalty generate operating margins of 13%, while laggards had margins of just 2%?  The bottom line is that customer loyalty is good for the bottom line! Read more »

Regulations – at the local, state and federal level – all have an impact on the day-to-day operations of business.  While we may accept that regulations can be good for society, the environment and business, there is usually a certain level of resentment in complying with them.  They can be burdensome, difficult to understand and very time-consuming.  Also, government agencies are often not held to the same level of service and accountability that private businesses are, making it frustrating to communicate with them and comply with regulatory requirements. Read more »

As business professionals we make a variety of important decisions every day – from what markets and customers to serve, to what products to offer, from how to improve customer loyalty, to which people to hire and what infrastructure we should buy, and so on. Some of us make these decisions based on experience, others more intuitively. In today’s dynamic environment, we’re learning that companies that make fact-based decisions experience better performance. Read more »