The Membership Business Model
Is it just me, or has every industry moved to a subscription/membership model for their services and products? This seems to be a new form of business model innovation, especially when it is married with online services. Of course the concept of memberships or subscriptions is not new. Gym and health club memberships have been around since the […]
Launching a Business? Don’t Leap Before You Leverage
I’ve had a recurring conversation with quite a few friends and colleagues lately. They’re unhappy in their current jobs and want to do something different. For many, this means becoming an entrepreneur and launching their own business. Conventional wisdom suggests they will follow one of two distinct paths: They’ll leave their current jobs and make […]
Work One Hour a Day
Do you feel overworked? Do you feel as though you never have time to relax? What if you needed to work only one hour a day? I was recently interviewed by Dorie Clark for Forbes.com and discussed how I do this with my business. To be clear, I do not work one hour a day. […]
Creative Leverage for Professional Speakers
Today’s Wednesday Work Wisdom is an interview between me and Theo Androus where he asked me about the business model of my speaking business. We discussed the concepts of gamification and leverage and how they are important for creating a successful business (of any kind). This recording was part of the “Voices of Experience” CD […]
What is Leverage…Really?
Today’s Wednesday Work Wisdom… I recently attended a training class where the instructor was telling professional speakers how they could leverage their content as a way of making money in their sleep. The reality is, the focus was really on how to make products, not how to make money. Let’s face it, at the end […]
Beyond the 4-Hour Workweek
The 4-Hour Workweek (by Tim Ferris) is the ultimate book title. Who doesn’t want to work only 4 hours a week?* I was hooked by the title, but disappointed by the premise. In a nutshell, the book suggests that if you work 50 hours a week, you should outsource 46 hours, leaving only 4 hours of […]
3 Steps for Creating Leverage in Your Business
“Work smarter not harder.” This dreadfully overused phrase is meant to address the apparent lack of time, money and resources we experience in our work and personal lives. But how do we translate these words into something actionable? Here are three methods I have used in my business to accomplish this: 1. Focus on what […]
Laziness is the Father of Innovation
If necessity is the mother of invention, then laziness is sometimes its father.* Some of the greatest innovations were developed by people who were too lazy to do a particular task. Professor John Atanasoff, along with graduate student Clifford Berry, built the world’s first electronic-digital computer back in the late 1930’s. Why did he do […]
Turning the Screw
This is the 5th article in a series on alternative paths to success… I was once told a story while working at UPS. At its Louisville, Kentucky, air hub, hundreds of thousands of packages go through the sorter every day. This is a critical operation that is supported by a complex conveyor system. If the […]