Negotiating Price: Walking Through A Successful Deal
Negotiation is a funny thing. In a perfect world we would all put up our numbers and say, “This is the number, here is the deal structure and this is how we want it to work.”
Unfortunately, things just aren’t like that here in North America. We like to negotiate because it makes us feel better. Whether you’re negotiating for real estate, a car or whatever…there is always negotiating on the price.
Forget The Price, Focus On The Value
Everybody focuses on the price and the first thing I’m going to say is that if you focus solely on the… Continue reading
3 Ways To Retain Great Employees
In business, you are only as strong as your weakest link. The value of a great team becomes paramount when I’m speaking with investors or business owners but sometimes I think we spend so much time talking about building a team of advisors that we forget about the internal team.
Your ‘internal team’ is just as important as your ‘external team’ if not more so.
Finding and keeping great employees is really important. When you’re thinking about a great employee, the key is painfully simple: treat them better than the way you want to be treated. Everybody is looking for… Continue reading
Micromanagement: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
Micromanaging has a bit of a mixed reputation. It’s hardly an adored practice by those who employ it since it can be so tedious and frustrating while trying to juggle your own priorities. Even when you own the business, you can’t make everyone’s jobs within it your priority.
You’ve got to recognize your organization and where you fit in it as well as everyone you have working for you. I’ve mentioned Steve Jobs a few times on my blog because I don’t believe that his management style was appropriate but it obviously built a successful business, right?
You’ve got to… Continue reading
Great Business Leaders Should Advocate Continual Education
I’m a big advocate for continuing education, no matter how old you are or how much you know. I would say I’m pretty lucky because as a Kelowna accountant, I have a lot of people that talk to me about what books they’re reading or what courses they’re taking and I’m always curious to know.
Sometimes, if I’m really lucky, I even get to take the time to pick up some of those books and actually read them! If you’ve ever read any of my book reviews before, you’ll see that all I want to get out of reading is… Continue reading
Instant Turnaround: Getting Your Employees Excited To Come To Work
Instant Turnaround – Getting People Excited About Coming To Work & Working Hard
I felt that my last book review received great feedback so I’m back with another after I recently finished Instant Turnaround: Getting People Excited About Coming To Work And Working Hard by Harry Paul and Ross Wreck. Harry Paul is famous for his previous work co-authoring the smash bestseller Fish! A Proven Way To Boost Morale & Improve Results and this new book definitely hits the mark on expanding the concepts that made Fish so successful.
I’ve used this book a lot recently when dealing with clients… Continue reading
9 Characteristics of Great Business Leaders
Somewhere between the passing of Steve Jobs and the late Stephen R. Covey I started to think about what makes truly great business leaders. Anyone familiar with the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People already knows a few but there are so many different styles and schools of thought that it can be difficult to create the definitive checklist without heavy debate.
Here are some of my thoughts on the characteristics I believe are essential in great business leaders.
1. Credibility
I hate to lead with this one but you really have to be credible in business for people to… Continue reading
How Small Biz Can Compete With Major Corporations
Ken Davidson is a Kelowna accountant with BDO Canada addressing one of the most important topics affecting small businesses.
Any small business that has every existed has had to ask themselves this one question: how can I compete with major retailers and big corporations?
There are fewer topics more relevant and important to all business owners than this one. Retail especially comes to mind but the service industry deals with this issue as well. This is where decisions can literally make or break your business.
Figure Out What You’re An Expert In
Instead of trying to be a generalist… Continue reading
Reducing Red Tape In Canada: Is Your Business Wrapped Up In Red Tape?
Whether or not you are a business owner, there is a good chance you have heard a lot of buzz around reducing red tape in Canada lately due to recent efforts by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB). Fortunately British Columbia got top marks on the red tape report card, the only province to receive an A rating throughout the entire report.
Dan Kelly is one of the key CFIB executives responsible for representing the interests of their impressive 108,000 member base. Here is an excerpt from his recent editorial in the Financial Post describing the struggle he’s personally… Continue reading
Jim Treliving From Dragon’s Den Shows Entrepreneurs How To Make Decisions
I just finished reading a fantastic book entitled Decisions: Making The Right Ones, Righting The Wrong Ones by Jim Treliving. Most people know Jim as the pensive and wise businessman on the hit CBC series Dragon’s Den and owner of the massively successful Boston Pizza and Mr. Lube franchises.
As an accountant you have to understand that, people expect me to be a statistics kind of guy but the truth is that I really like stories. Everybody has a story and they can be much easier to relate to than numbers.
I like how Jim uses the book to discuss… Continue reading
Surviving The Post-Christmas Sales Slump
When you think about what’s going to happen after the holiday season, everybody talks about January and February being generally slower months. It takes people a little while to get “back in the saddle” when it comes to spending money again.
What Opportunities Are Available?
This is really the time you have to dig deep into your business. When you really think about it – when is the right time to move your business to the next level? It’s when you actually have time to do it.
When I think about January and February, I think about people getting upset… Continue reading
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