Be a Linchpin: Say Yes When Saying No is a Given

 

Sandy at Chase Bank is my new hero. She made a difference. She’s a linchpin.

On a Saturday afternoon I visited a Chase branch to do some typical banking, one of which was to get a service fee waived on a dormant inactive business checking account.

Maggie, my bank manager whom I have been doing [...]

Self-Worth for Sale?

I had to call a plumber out to snake a clog from the kitchen. He quoted me $55, good price (a home warranty would have charged me the same), but when he came, he "added on" $10 for another action of opening the pipes underneath the sink. I could have argued with him or [...]

Interview of MediaBistro Founder

Anthony Tjan interviews Laurel Touby, founder of MediaBistro, for Harvard Business Review, providing valuable insights about building a business and harnessing fundamentals to building a community.

 

What I found interesting about the way that Laurel built her media company was developing offline and online communities making her company a hybrid. She created a valuable online resource [...]

Do You Have the Balls to Walk Away from 1.3 Billion Potential Customers?

The recent shake up by Google last week in their decision to provide an unfiltered search rather than one of censorship in China prompted many opinions and discussions about business and moral grounds, such as TechCrunch’s discussion over The Price Of Google In China as well as China’s home newspaper, Xinhua, finger-shaking at Google with [...]

The New Dynamics of Business & Workers

Last month, the Indianapolis Star published a column, Study: Ind. Companies Need to Prepare for An Aging Workforce, about Indiana’s concern over the lost of institutional knowledge as 1.65 million baby boomers of their Hoosiers retire that could adversely affect businesses in Indiana.

Today’s emerging generation workforce, either Gen X or Y, rarely pledge allegiance to [...]

Do Business Differently

I was interviewing a few property management companies to manage some real estate properties. I received a proposal from a company, Nickland PM in Vegas. It was professional and detailed, and I was impressed. The expectations of the fees were clear about when and how they would collect their fees for their services, including a [...]