Kaizen – the pursuit for progress not perfection

Jason Sayen smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Continuous improvement is a culture and a mindset. In the organizations that I’ve worked for that embraced this mindset, we had quarterly meetings designed to discuss how we can become better at a specific goal that we set for the session.  These meetings are the polar opposite of what takes place in a quarterly sales meeting and are not a ...

Corporate Culture by Design

Marilyn Sanford smartPRENEUR Blog Series

According to Katie Heinz in an article entitled Types of organizational Culture, “…it is defined as shared values, attitudes and practices…. It is the personality of your company and plays a large part in your employees’ overall satisfaction.”   A Common Goal and Purpose Culture helps inform the entire team.  It connects people to common goals and purpose.  Think of it ...

Are you managing time or is time managing you?

Tom Coffin smartPRENEUR Blog Series

“Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves” Lord Chesterfield British statesman, diplomat, a man of letters, and an acclaimed wit of his time PRODUCT The systems integration business is unique in many ways. However it has commonality with virtually every other business that sells products that need to be installed. You as the business ...

Beyond Grassroots and Word-of-mouth Sales & Marketing Strategy

Roberta Lewis smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Most small business owners start building their businesses with word-of-mouth referrals. As they immediately step on the monthly sales treadmill, they are constantly working to exceed the previous month's sales or previous year's comp numbers, quickly recognizing that there is little time for planning.  While the ongoing, all-consuming process of managing what I deem “business already sold” to completion, open ...