Leadership and Management
Why Should You Use A Right Hand Person To Fire People?
Any executive that uses a “right hand man” to fire a direct report should themselves be fired. Firing someone is supposed to be a painful experience. You are changing someone’s life, and you should feel horrible. I couldn’t sleep the night before the first time I fired someone. I had just become VP Sales, and…
Read MoreWhat Can You Learn From Marissa Mayer’s Struggles At Yahoo?
I think the lessons are more for first-time public company CEOs that worked at one company for a long stretch of their career prior to becoming CEO. Marissa Mayer spent her whole career at Google prior to accepting the Yahoo CEO position. Google, by anyone’s standards, is a fantastic company with unbelievably strong people. I…
Read MoreWhat Tasks Do You Need To Do Every Day As An Entrepreneur?
I was talking Friday with a CEO I am advising named “Paul”. Paul’s in fund-raising mode right now. Nothing else matters when you’re in fund-raising mode except raising your money. I told Paul, “You need to have a laser-like focus on raising your funding. Let me put it to you bluntly: “Don’t spend time on…
Read MoreDo You Need A Technical Background As CEO Of A Technology Company?
There is a one-word answer for why so many former engineers are now CEOs of technology companies. And that one-word answer is: Respect. Simply put, being an engineer running a technology company gives you some tremendous advantages: A. You engineering team will be more likely to respect you. Engineers like working with people that understand…
Read MoreWhy Is Paying Yourself A Living Wage As CEO So Important?
You work really hard for years building your company. And you’re burning through your savings as you build your company. Finally, finally you get your company to cash flow positive. [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] “Thank goodness,” you say to yourself. “We’re finally free of needing more…
Read MoreWhat Skills Should You Learn As An Entrepreneur?
Someone just messaged me this: “Hey Brett, I’m just about to start a company. What do I need to know to be successful?” Here’s my answer: I don’t know whether these are learned skills or traits you are born with, but these are the traits/skills you are going to need to have in order to…
Read MoreWhat Is The One Personality Trait Stops You From Working With Someone?
“I don’t understand why your cash position is going down,” I said to the CEO “James”. We were going through our bi-weekly review of his company. The revenue was growing, and the company should have been cash flow positive. In fact, cash from operations was growing, so it didn’t make any sense why James’ net…
Read MoreWhat Is The One And Only Key To Being A Great CEO?
I’ve come to a conclusion in the past few weeks. It’s a stunner. At least to me it is. What’s my conclusion you ask? [Do you want to grow your business? Maybe I can help. Click here.] I’ve concluded that I’m a horrible manager. Maybe even the worst manager ever. Okay. Maybe horrible is too…
Read MoreWhat Key Performance Goals Should You Set?
Congratulations. You’ve just started your company. You and your team are excited and ready to go. You have a grand vision for disrupting your industry and becoming a big success. When you close your eyes, you can see your future company thriving. There’s just one question on your mind: What do I do now?…
Read MoreWhat Should Startup CEOs Know About Accounting?
I was having dinner with Bill. Bill is someone I worked for years ago. Bill was asking me about how things were going at my company. He asked me, “Are you signing every check?” I told him I was. “That’s good!” Bill is seriously old school. But Bill is right. You need to understand where…
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